|
You said it! Readers' Responses: Opinions on Media Violence Readers take a stand on media violence: Violence in the Media (Issue 12) and Effects of Televised Violence (Issue 2). Readers responded in this forum.
We are now living in a violent world and the disheartening part of it is there are a lot of violent cases which involve youngsters-they are the masterminds of all this evil doing or they are the victims themselves. Should media violence be responsible on that? No doubt, media violence has affected children's mindsets negatively to certain extent and it is a problem. We all know that children are more vulnerable towards all kind of information from various sources. Additional to that, they like to imitate what they see, hear and so on. Therefore, I am of the opinion that media violence can desensitize them to violence. However, as I said before we are living in a violence world, there is a trend showing that criminals' target our children now. We, therefore, need to expose our kids to the kinds of violence that exists in order to make them realize the dangerous world outside and learn how to protect themselves. We cannot let them living in ignorance as this will in turn put their own safety at stake. The question now is what ways we can use to expose our kids to violent world outside by not pushing them to become villains themselves. And censorship itself certainly cannot solve the problem. Daisy
Tan, Malaysia The media is everywhere in our daily lives—on television, in motion pictures, and on radio—influencing what people eat to what people wear. Most people find films, television movies, and video games as an escape from their hectic daily lives. My main question is, how does the media provoke violence, aggressive behavior, and crime in sane people in our society? What I understand from media violence is Americans are being influence by what is shown to them in the television programs and movies. Many people believe that our children may pick up violent behaviors and apply them in their own lives by watching violent movies and video games. Sawsan
Qabaha, Palestine Media violence has been filling the society for several years. Authorities must be more important about it . It can take negative influence to the society. My reasons are as follows. First, for teenager, They can not judge the thing and they may be as familiar as behavior from the media. They may cause the criminal motivation and activity. The criminal rate will be raise. Second, there are likely killing, robbing, stealing, suicide, etc. Many people are to learn from the media, so authorities must forbid of media violence. Otherwise we won't live in peaceful society. Then it will happen the violence events in everyday. Third, if we turn on the TV or read the newspaper, etc. They are filled with violence events. Then our mind and spirit have uncomfortable and upset. Someone may think unpeaceful and hardship in his life. They can have negative thinking and behaviour. At that time they may cause spiritual disease. To sum up, authorities have to forbid of media violence and draw up strickly law . And also the media will be heavily forfeit. They can effectly provent the media violence. May,
Taiwan I believe that media violence does not effect the way that teens or children act. I believe the way teens act is up to them. TV does influence them, it depends on if they want to get influence by what they are watching. As teens and children get older they try new things. I must say that some T.V. shows might influence but I dont think that teens or children will let a T.V. show influence them. I can see if they are like 5-7 and they believe what they see is true and it will happen. So I'm going to close my dicussion about violence. Brandon
Alexander, U.S. I believe that media violence does have an affect on children. Children don't know the difference between acting and things that go on in real life but it's not the childrens fault that they go out and repeat what happened on television. It is the parents fault that they don't teach their children that shooting somebody in the head on television is not real life. The parents leave their four year old child at home unsupervised with a one year old baby and the four year old decides to do some wrestling moves on the baby, the baby gets killed and who's to blame? Mario
Ford, U.S. I really don't think that media violence is that bad. As long as you talk to your children and make them realize that violence is on tv and you shouldn't repeat what you see then it's alright. The children who mimic the things they see on television are most likely the ones who are killing other children or joining gangs and such. They were never taught that you don't mimic that sort of stuff...... Amanda
Hermann, U.S. I think especially children are effected by violence on television because they're favorite stars are doing crime scenes and gun shootings and children will think it it is all right to do violent crimes. Winnie,
U.S.A. I think especially children are effected by violence on television because they're favorite stars are doing crime scenes and gun shootings and children will think it it is all right to do violent crimes. Winnie,
U.S. Hi! I am a filmmaker who has written several PSA TV spots addressing the growing problem of TV violence for children and gun violence. Not enough is being done and I want to help. I have not seen any spots on TV addressing this problem. I am trying to find a company that can afford to fund this project and help get these spots on the air. The spots are extremely powerful and effective. I think they can help. Thank you. J.
Carlin, U.S. Surrounded by advertising, we may be impressed and influenced subconsciously. Of course, those commercial advertisements are necessary marketing means used to urge and tell us the consumers how great their goods are and benefit us. But among them, we also cannot fail to see those cliche and useless ads, and some disturbing ads in watching TV shows or movies. However, some of the TV commercials are actually creative and ideological though some are not. We still can learn some creativity and enjoy it. Some of them are inventors' delicate works. They beat their brain to design for a long time, then complete it. Consequently, some of the TV commercials are more valuable and might even be more entertaining than general programs. Gradually, therefore, it seems to become an art of TV shows. Andrew,
Taiwan I feel so sorry for the stereotyped people who stands for their conclusions that media violence have bad influences on people (especially children). Are there fully proven answers that violence on tv or video games encourages people to act to it? Well, I haven't seen them. Is it truly impossible to teach our children how to act to several information from the media? I don't think so. If they can learn that the monsters under their bed is nothing to scare about, why couldn't they learn that horror on tv is nothing to scare about too? I think it is better for them to teach them how to act to several media than just keeping it away from them. We want our children be able to stand tall in real life and not changing them into paranoias don't we? So you can consider the violent media as a good training for kids to not become scared of it. If there are no complications letting the kids watching violence or pornography on tv then the situation is ok. Or don't we want them to act like adults? R.
Verspeek, Holland Media really have great influences on the audience, no matter how old you are! Take a look at the recent movies. What the characters said what they acted and what things happened in the plots all would deeply impress the audience a lot. If someone just says that the effects of the movies upon the audience are nothing but entertainment, then, he/she will make terrible mistakes. Try to imagine that children watch some horror films all day long. What the pure minds will be tortured? Assume that they do not know the ghosts in the films are man-made; they may think that the ghost will appear around them and do harm to them. It's not a joke! Children will easily believe what they see. So, I don't like the TV programs about ghost present on TV everyday! Jeff,
Taiwan There's no denying that media influence us a lot. In modern society, any sort of media plays an important role in our daily life. Media being entertaining function, that might touch almost everyone more or less. As a result, the importance of the media content could not be overemphasized. That's why we have to do censoring before televising it in public, especially some of news or contents not suitable for children. If we don't pay attention to such a problem, that might lead to more serious ones. Children may imitate some improper behavior, such as dirty words, fight, and incorrect conception towards sex. Recently, for instance, there's one popular cartoon named the South Park. The leading characters learn a lot of dirty words from movies. Many researchers also manifest that the media violence indeed has effects on the behavior of children. Thus, for our own good and for our next generation, keep that violence out of media world. Andrew,
Taiwan When we refer to media the most controversially discussed topic is violence. It is continuously increasing, and its effects are concerning everybody in the world. A few years ago, violence in the media was not as dangerous as nowadays, it used to be less aggressive. However, in our days, we find violent situations when we watch T.V, a film, a video, and even when we read the newspaper. The consequences of this is seen on children better than in adults because we assimilate violent scenes in other ways than kids. However, sometimes we reproduce this violence without being conscious of that. In conclusion, I think that we should pay mote attention to this topic, to be more selective about what we hear, watch or read, and especially about what children do. Violence is not a solution to anything.. Gabriela
DeVita, Argentina Media violence is bad for the people! The worse thing is that kids watch violence on t.v, and they can be effected by it. Kids can't see the difference between a movie and reality. They might try to act like in the movies, which means get into a fight or hurt someone! Media violence can be bad language on radio. Kids might hear it, learn it, and use it. This kind of behavior might increase the violent activity in their lives. They think "It's o.k, it's on the radio..." It's not o.k!!! For better future, stop the media violence before it gets to you! Yehuda
Sasson, Israel I believe that censoring any form of media will result in the government controlling our lives completely. They tax us, set age limits for certain things,and do other "little" things that we don't think about. But they start with the "little" things, like taxes, and move on to telling us what to wear, what to eat, how to eat, etc. Don't let the government control your lives. Adam
Selsor, U.S. I think those who blame the media for the violence today haven't really done their research. I have this topic for research paper and have found many things. The most of which is that in the past two years teen violence has gone down greatly. Being a teen myself, I can honestly say seeing some violence on television, movies, or hearing it in music, isn't going to make me go out and kill someone! People who blame media for their actions are looking for an escape route. It has been proven that most teen violence that is occurs are from teens that come from broken families. I don't think America should put the blame on the media until family life is better. Most shows have a positive message in them anyway. The murder rate is down two digits...why are we blaming things, which are inanimate? Alyssa
Westling, U.S. Violence in movies provokes people to bad attitudes. It teaches the wrong way to handle problems. Especially kids go to a movie, they become part of what they see and hear. Whenever I watch a movie, there is at least one murder in each movie. After the movies, people face change. They lose their happiness and do not want to speak others. Although many adults criticize violence in movies, they still like to go to cinema with their child. And we can see movies effect American schools. Many American families kids killed because of the violence. We shall do something to limit movie violence. If we don't, our world may become more violent. It will be a big mistake if we don't try to exterminate the violence in our society to make a better world. Fatih
Tepe, Turkey Hello, I feel perhaps I'm one of the few people in the world who finds the quickness and conviction with which people blame the media for violent children appalling. Children have been and always will be subject to violence either in the media or in their environment. Yet violent youth crimes are rising. I feel that parents are the ones who are really to blame, it takes a good family environment to properly teach a child values and morals, and it's the children who are not given such values openly that will be affected so harshly by media violence. Doug
Jaquays, U.S. Hello, I think, violence on TV makes children behave violently. They watch these films and get used to violence. Children treat violence as normal thing. Sometime they want to be like the actor, strong and cruel. I think it isn't good for children. I feel parents should control what their children watch on TV. I believe parents should train them to reading books, not watching TV. Irina
Gasnikova, U.S. While American society is subconsciously inculcated to accept violence by the media and entertainment industry, the real reason people (especially children) act out violence is due to the lack of moral training in the family setting and the real violence perpetrated on society and then glorified in the evening news. The effects of a fatherless family has been well proven in minority crime statistics. The casual discarding of newborns, school yard murders, and the recent increase in abducted/ murdered young females are only signs of things to come, if Americans don't revitalize mainstream participation in this Democracy, and recommit to family values and a moral framework for the justice system. Violence on television is a contributor that arises from a multifarious failure in the sociopolitical infrastructure of this country. "Shock-based" programming wouldn't sell, if Americans weren't watching it! So as long as Americans continue to consume such dismal fare, the television programming will not change, and violence will flourish. C.J.
Domin, U.S. Following the recent shooting in Colorado...I have to ask...how are we progressing with the v-chip implementation? Andy
Derix, U.S.
TOPICS
Online Magazine
- ©1997-2008- Sandy and Thomas Peters -
topics.mag@gmail.com |
