TV violence :: essays research papers fc

A beautiful young girl is found dead, blood all over her face, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag. A mill goes up in flames, trapping two people who were lured there by the killer who hopes they burn to cinders. The bullet-ridden body of a detective lies on the floor, the deed done by a mysterious killer. A purported drug dealer is strangled to death; his body flailing and contorted with pain. Two people commit a brutal rape and leave the victim for dead. Why the fascination with violence? The Amount of Violence on Television According to the renowned psychiatrist Karl Menninger, " We not only tolerate violence it is part of our life. Why over one third of our television programs use it for amusement. There are more than 200 million television sets in America. The average American watches over seven hours a day. For many children, this is more time than they spend in school. The world of television has been alternatively called entertainment and a vast wasteland. It serves as a model of the world around us. What kind of world does it depict? The message is often one of violence. In 1973, the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, devised a "violence profile" to measure the amount of violence shown on television. The analysts watched over 33 hours of entertainment programs in a sample week and monitored specific acts of violence. The results indicated that some violence was contained in 70 percent of the programs! The violence could be categorized into three types: - Violence for its own sake - Overtly graphic views of brutality and human suffering - The portrayal of anti-social behavior Later studies found that even shows specifically geared towards children have violence in them. Cartoons averaged eight episodes of violence a show. The Effect of Television Violence on Children What effect does television have? Television acts as a cross-cultural influence cutting across nationalities and class. It gives people with different values and background common information. Because of the immediacy of the message, it is often seen as another member of the family. What a person sees in terms of images is bound to have an impact on their beliefs and attitudes. Concern about violence on television began in the earliest days of the medium in the late 1940's. Killings and violence were staples of the early television shows, which featured cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, detectives and murders.