Public Media Violence

6 Pages 1476 Words

John was at home one day getting ready to eat lunch. John’s Mom brought his

lunch out for him to eat by the television. John had been watching “The Woody Wood

Pecker Show” and after words, he went next door to his 87 year old neighbor’s house and

choked her to death was this act a cause or effect of the violence in the public media or is

that just an excuse?

Population television ownership in the United States grew rapidly during the 1950’s and passed the 50 percent over the population. The early television programs were low in violence with only 8 percent of programming focusing on violence. This changed in 1956 when westerns took television ratings by storm. Since 1956, violent programs have been going back and forth from 30 percent to 55 percent of all prime time shows.
Federal Bureau of Investigation data from 1951 and1952 to see what impact early television had on crime rates. In 1952, the television signal spread to the entire nation. Using the cities already receiving television in 1951 as controls, they were able to document a significant increase in petty larceny due to the arrival of television even though only 10 percent of Americans had television sets.
Earlier studies did note correlation between movies, radio, comic books violence and juvenile delinquency. But, television viewing quickly shortened the number of hours of violence consumed per person per a week. By 1972, the United States Surgeon General, Jesse Steinfeld had enough information about television violence to take public action.
Further research has accumulated with dozens of sophisticate field studies to complement the careful laboratory studies. There are over a thousand studies and reports on television violence that exist.
More than 75 percent of the studies report finding harmful effects while only 1 percent claim to find beneficial effects. When two of the studies claiming beneficial effects from television ...