Should We Blame Television
Should We Blame Television? The amount of violence shown in the media has posed a lot of controversy. Many video games, television programs, adverts, films and music lyrics depict different forms of violence. Some people feel that there is too much violence exposed in the media. Many studies have made the claim that the media is responsible for much of the violence seen in the world we live in. However, people have choices and responsibilities, we cannot allow ourselves to blame the violence in the world on such things like the media. The violence seen in our media has an impact on both adults and children. Since children are exposed to various forms of media, there has been additional concern for how they process and think about the violence they see, read and hear. Excessive exposure to media violence can affect people in many ways as they can become disturbed and develop serious fears of being victimized in real life. “Although television and media contribute, it is less important than the abuse within the home, parental influence and the economy one may live in” (Boyle). Media and violence go hand in hand. In the movie, Natural Born Killers, Mickey and Mallory (played by Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson) become famous by their killing spree. They start with Mallory’s parents and work their way up to the killings on Route 66. What caused Mallory and Mickey to do this though? Was it just the media or was it the environment they grew up in that caused them to do this? Associate Editor Scott Stossel writes about a professor who studied third graders in Columbia County in semi-rural New York. He observed that the more violent shows they watched at home, the more violent they were in school. He went back to these same kids when they were at the age nineteen where he observed they were more likely to get into trouble with the law and other teens. Then at age thirty, the subjects were more likely to punish their kids more, were convicted of more crimes and were
Cited: Males, Mike. “Stop Blaming Kids and TV.” Progressive 61.10 (Oct. 1997): 25. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Libraryname], [City], [State abbreviation]. 1 Sep. 2009 Natural Born Killers. Dir. Oliver stone. Perf. Woody Harrelson. Juliette Lewis. Lions Gate, 1994. DVD. Stossel, Scott. “The Man Who Counts the Killings.” Contemporary Readers. Ed. Gary Gosharian. New York: Pearson Long Man, 2004. 167-173.