Media Violence

8 Pages 2100 Words

Two hundred thousand.........................................believe it or not, by the age of eighteen, the average American child will have witnessed this many dramatized killings (Television 1). The glamorization the media gives to violence is polluting children’s thoughts and desensitizing them to reality. One reason, among many others, the media has this control, is because parents do not censor enough violence from their children. Most parents respond by claiming that their eight year old son or daughter could never become one of those serial killing, stalkers on the news every night (Gerdes 108). The fact is that some of these kids do end up robbing, stealing, degrading women, and killing. A child’s innocence makes him/her all the more vulnerable to violent television programs and movies and explicit lyrics and novels. Studies have repeatedly shown an increased aggressiveness among children exposed to larger quantities of violence. It cannot be argued then, that due to the influence the media has on children, Americans must resolve to oppose violent acts portrayed in the media.
Before interpreting the media’s effect, it is crucial to understand what it is, how it works, and where it comes from. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, media can most basically be defined as a way of mass communication. Now it a reasonable question to wonder why television ads are the most expensive and profitable? TV reaches more people than any other media source out there, so if a commercial does not make persuade people to buy the product, the money spent on it would not be worth it. Just the same, crime on television must be sold to the audience or the show would not be productive. A shocking statistic that proves television’s dominance over society is that the average American watches approximately 1,669 hours of TV each year and sixty six percent of American children have TVs in their room! (Katz 1) When the hours are tallied...