Violence

2 Pages 489 Words

In today’s society our children are attracted to violence no matter were it is being presented. Violence today is affecting our children of tomorrow making them more dangerous as they are growing up. The question is how is this violence accruing and how do we reduce to amount of violence that’s is being presented? Ellen Goodman, writer of “How to Zap Violence on TV” and Mike Males writer of “Public Enemy Number One?” have contrasting views on the subject.
Violence is a problem that is discussed in both articles. Goodman believes that TV violence is the cause for this behavior. She states that children see that there are few consequences to the person that commits a violent act on television. But on the other hand, Males believes that TV violence is not the only cause for, but the media as well. He states that media violence accounts for 1 to 5 percent of all violence in society.
In “How to Zap Violence on TV” Goodman talks about the effects that TV violence has on children and teenagers. She believes that violence turns out to do a lot of harm when it looks harmless. In a 73 percent of the scene violence was unpunished. Then 53 percent showed no pain, and 16 percent showed long-term problems. However Males talks about the media studies, the findings of the avalanche of research are consistent: child poverty, abuse and neglect underlie every major social problem the nation faces. On addition to that, two million American children are violently injured, sexually abused, or neglected every year by adults who age averages according to the Denver based American Humane Association.
How do we gain control over the situation? In the article by Goodman, she writes that the V-chip, the device created to help put a block on violence on TV would not be enough to control the situation. The real problem in the television industry is a creative block. A quote by Donnerstein says, “Were showing children violence that goes unpuni...