Linking Media Violence and Negative Behavior Essay

Many Americans feel that the viewing of violence in the media reinforces negative behavior in society, especially among children and young adults. Three thousand studies have been done since 1955 on the link between television and violence; 2,980 of them found a correlation between the two. We hear little about that because we get most of our news from television (Peterson). With this much research one must acknowledge that there is a problem in America involving sex and violence in the media. We cannot blame all societal problems on the media and its portrayal of these issues, but we can become educated, ourselves, in order to better facilitate the healthy lives of our children. We, as a society, did this to ourselves,†¦show more content†¦While flipping through various channels, one can see a multitude of programs ranging from history, to cartoons, to the news shows, and even the occasional childbirth. In just one hour, children can see five to six violent acts on prime time television, and 20 to 25 violent acts during each hour of Saturday morning childrens programs (Blumenthal). With some cable services providing hundreds of channels, one may be able to catch even more of the previously mentioned incidents in a matter of seconds simply by channel surfing. Children born today will witness 200,000 acts of violence on television by the time they are 18 (Peterson). One must realize that eliminating all violence from the screen would mean that most programs including history, nature, and many educational shows would have to be canceled as well. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in his press release, Tune out the Violence, cites the National Institute of Mental Health, a government agency who found that 80.3 percent of all television programs contain acts of violence. The typical program includes 5.21 incidents. These are surprising and alarming numbers. This leaves one wondering; what would be left to watch? Taken these circumstances into consideration, the media does have the power to alter the viewpoints of its audience, especially the all-too impressionable minds of children. Not just your every day Tom, Dick and Harry decide toShow MoreRelatedAnimal Cruelty Is A Crime Against Humanity1246 Words   |  5 Pagesa Crime Against Humanity we must prove that society is ignoring the violence towards them despite the research evidence, the government sanctions mass killings of them, and that this type of violence affects humans on a large scale (Plant, Schaik, Gullone, Flynn 2016). Although dispositional factors such as empathy and aggression may influence animal cruelty, we must look at the environmental factors that lead to the negative effects from a macro-level perspective. 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