Violence In The Mass Media And Its Effects On Youth

In our talk we are going to look at the mass media and it's effect on society and if the media influences society's attitude towards violent behavior. In order to fully understand this question we must first understand what violence is and what mass media is. Violence is the use of one's powers to inflict mental or physical injury upon another; examples of this would be rape or murder(Austin, 85). And mass media can be defined as a medium, which conveys information to the public through television, movies, magazines, plays and novels.

There is probably no greater influence on society than the television. It has become arguably the greatest invention of the past century. With it, we have witnessed countless historical events: man's first steps on the moon, election of world leaders; even disasters as they happen. People watch TV in the morning to receive the daily news. They eat watching it. They watch it before they go to bed (David, 259-95). But as television has saturated our lives, has it always resulted toward our betterment or has it possibly led to the deprivation of society? In this talk we will give you both sides of the story, concerning media and society.

Although there are many benefits of television, society has most assuredly been adversely affected by it. Since the birth of television, crime has skyrocketed. In the United States, many years ago, problems in school were chewing gum and running in the halls. Now, students fear for their lives as schools have turned into war zones, with school shootings becoming a national problem. Many attribute this problem to the violence children watch on television (Flew, 101-114). Children have become desensitized concerning the value of human life by the many murders and violence viewed on the screen. Television has led to the moral decline in our society like no other device in history. Many children sit for hours in front of the television, and could not imagine missing a favorite show or movie.

Children model behavior they see in the media. If they don't see the consequences of violence, it will teach them that violence doesn't cause serious harm.

In a recent study they found that perpetrators go unpunished in 73% of all violent scenes, one out of four violent interactions involved the use of handguns.

Other study's indicated that the average child has witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on television by the time he or she has completed sixth grade. In further studies it was determined that by the time that same child graduates from high school he or she will have spent 22,000 hours watching television, twice as many hours as he or she has spent in school.

Children average four hours of television per day, and in the inner city that increases to as much as eleven hours a day, with an average of eight to twelve violent incidents per hour(Flew, 264). It is also interesting to note that violence occurs ...