The debate over the influence of media on the youth continues as it always has since most people could probably remember. From the burning of books, attacks on comic books and pulp fiction, and now television, videogames, and the internet media continues to be a scapegoat for people to blame the delinquency of their children to violent crimes. While violent and “unethical” media behavior may influence how a child perceives the world, it is irresponsible to place full blame on the media for violent behavior. The trend of opinions is starting to lean towards violence in the media being detrimental to youth in America, but there are still many who are not convinced. To jump to any conclusion on the media hot button is irrational and it is important to know what facts we know and do not know before developing a strong opinion.
“The media” is a broad umbrella term that encompasses the idea of mass communication i.e. newspaper, television, the Internet etc. As time moves forward more is added to how media is delivered. Much of the media is purely designed to sway emotions and influence behavior in such a way to mold the masses into a certain way of thinking. Most people think of places like McDonalds and Disney commercials but we now live in a society where propaganda reigns supreme. Presidents are elected, laws pass and fail, and people join or protest the military purely on the exchange of propaganda with little truth to back up embellishments and promises.
These statements are relevant because information is controlled and the truth is always skewed. In a sense “the media” has caused violence in youth for centuries. Whether it is labeled as doing so remains in the opinions of the people. Gay marriage is bad because of the Holy Bible, and it is a big deal because it is on the news. Mass media forms and influence all of our lives in some way, whether it is listening to it or fighting against it. But does it cause violence in our youth?
There is no clear research that leads to a conclusion on the debate encircling violence in the media. For every test that confirms violent media causes violence there is another one to debunk it. Ex-army psychologist Dave Grossman believes Hollywood is at fault for violence desensitization and videogames teach kids how to use a god. But psychiatrist Serge Tisseron states, “just because a film has a murder scene doesn’t mean people are going to commit the act… That overstates the power of the image and under-estimates the role of parents.”
Many people do believe that children are exposed to violence more than in the past by the time they reach eighteen years of age. One paper stated that children watch between twenty-three and thirty three hours of television each week and morning cartoons contain twenty to twenty five acts of violence per hour. This means that a child will typically see around 200,000 acts of violence by the time they are eighteen years of age (Steele, 2009).
The American Psychological Association did a fifteen-year study (1977-1992) that agrees with the statement that violence in the media causes aggression in adolescents despite their life at home or past history of aggressive behavior. Interestingly, the study stated that it was not the most violent programs that affected children the most but the ones where violence was used as a means to deliver justice.
The study also showed that men who were exposed to media violence when they were young were more likely to be in correctional facilities when they were older and to have more traffic violations. They were also more likely to grab and shove their spouses. ((Huesmann, 2003)).
Women who were exposed to violence were exposed to high media violence as children were more likely to throw something at their spouses, have more traffic violations and be convicted of a crime. Women exposed to violence at a young age often stated that they have punched, beaten or choked another adult at over four times the rate of other women ((Huesmann, 2003)).
Some major problems that occur with studies like this is the lack of a definition for violence. Is it a cartoon rabbit dropping an anvil on someone’s head, a person shooting a vampire, a Marine shooting the enemy, or a criminal stabbing a cop. It would seem clear that to maintain consistent results that could be duplicated a sound definition of violence or types of violence should be recognized.
There are also elements of bias in the study that try and make up the reasons for certain statistics. When asked, “Might these results simply be an indication that more aggressive children like to watch violent TV shows? ‘It is more plausible that exposure to TV violence increases aggression than that aggression increases TV-violence viewing,” said Dr. Huesmann. “For both boys and girls, habitual early exposure to TV violence is predictive of more aggression by them later in life independent of their own initial childhood aggression. Also, the study suggests that being aggressive in early childhood has no effect on increasing males’ exposure to media violence as adults and only a small effect for females.'” That is as far as the explanation goes and never concludes how it reaches these findings and ignores a entirely different possibility from the study results. The other possibility is that aggressive children watch aggressive television.
Much of the data was collected by subject reporting; specifically, subjects their friends, and spouses were asked about aggressive behavior as adults. This is extremely inaccurate method of collecting data because it is based on subject perception, friend/spouse perception, and researcher interpretation with no solid means of collecting and comparing data.
There is also no mention of a control statistic to compare the violent program watchers to. Without being able to study children who have not watched violent programs it is assumed that the people studied have aggressive behavior based on media and other people do not. Assumption should never be used as a basis for fact.
In the book Faces of Televisual Media mentions the possible positive benefits of violence in the media and even suggest that the negative impacts of violent media are equal to the positive. This is especially seen when the child is watching with the parents. The book also suggest that children would be more likely to be generous, adhere to rules, are less scared and are more friendly. The book also states that children who view violent media are more likely to verbalize their aggression than to act it out and will even aid in creativity and imagination. The book also points out that child IQ and problem solving abilities could play a major role in how children react to violent media (Palmer, Young, 2003)
The major problem with all of these studies is the inability to accurately collect data and researcher bias. Lab studies are difficult and long-term effects of media violence cannot be determined in a controlled setting. When studies are conducted out of the lab the margin of error is greatly increased. Researcher bias is always an issue and the media helps fuel the hype of current professional opinions.
Research also chooses to focus on children and media. There is little, if any, information out there that displays an appropriate age to begin to view violent media and if its affect on adults is detrimental or positive, especially over a long term viewing basis. These sort of questions could help determine the influence of violent media overall and not just a specific part of an entire subject.
The only thing people agree on is that violent media does do something to our children. One question that people might ask is, does media affect our children in a meaningful way? The general trend is to pick a side and fight for it. With this being a factor it is hard to see whether any good research with unbiased results will come out any time soon, if ever.
Media violence in America is viewed different by its citizens than many other countries across the world. To make generalized comparisons to its affect on youth is even further difficult based on cultural, economic, and regional aspects. To try and lump all of the statistics together to determine media as a positive or negative influence seems to be a futile effort.
So what does this all mean? It means that despite all of the debate and research no one really knows anything about the affects of violent media in general. In the scope of science, psychology and research it is a young topic that is not understood very well and that can only mean, as pretentious as we are in believing in our research methods, that there is a great deal more to learn in the method and ability of our researchers.
My opinion rest on the side that children are highly influential and if left to perceive the world by themselves they will come up with immature solutions to problems. It is important to differentiate reality from fantasy. Education should be the key and mass censorship is irrational on because of the amount of information that can be reached by anyone is exponential. Like stated before, children are highly influential and when I have kids they will not be watching hardcore sex and decapitations, but cartoon rabbits dropping anvils will be fine.
To deem what is appropriate for children and what is not is a hard question and the age that they reach maturity can be even harder. Mass media in all its forms can be dangerous to people who are gullible and unwary. It takes social involvement and education so people can make their own decisions on what their children should watch and not watch. People should think about where their values are, and instead of pointing fingers at video games and television shows, they should take responsibility. Violence has always been a factor in human behavior and when war and capital punishment are every day discussions in our society one should stand back and look at the bigger picture.
Sources:
Steele M.D., R. (2009). How does media violence impact our kids?. Retrieved
March 12, 2009, from iVilliage Web site: http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsfamdynamics/0,,465n,00.html
Huesmann, Ph.D., R. (2003 3, 9). CHILDHOOD EXPOSURE TO MEDIA
VIOLENCE PREDICTS YOUNG ADULT AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, ACCORDING TO A NEW 15-YEAR STUDY. American Psychological Association: Media Information, Retrieved March 8, 2009,
Media Awareness Network, (2009). Media Violence Debates. Retrieved March
12, 2009, from Media Awareness Network Web site: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/violence_debates.cfm
Palmer E.L., Young B.M., (2003). The faces of Televisual Media. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.
Steele M.D., R. (2009). How does media violence impact our kids?. Retrieved
March 12, 2009, from iVilliage Web site: http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsfamdynamics/0,,465n,00.html
