Violence in Mass Media

THESIS STATEMENT: The world’s media today seem to have more violence than ever. Video games have vivid depictions of accident catastrophes, fighting and murder. Television news programs generally lead with a violent story in order to gain an audience. This is free society people can stay what they want. ‘’ Media violence has many negative effect on youth today to commit crimes in society.’’

A ponderous medium of media is video games in co-relation to violence. Video games encourage violent behavior in children as they are at a crucial stage of adaptation.

Sissela Bok opens a controversial topic on violence as entertainment which explores the effect of the increasing of violence both in fiction and in real life. Not only do films, television shows, and video games evidence an escalating level of graphic violence, but daily news of war and other human brutality are as bad as well. As less time pass on doing physical activities and an increase in using electronic devices as increases, particularly by teens, there is growing concern about a possible link between violence viewing content and actual behavior. Bok draws a balanced image, naming some possible benefits from violence. One of the benefits could be the redirection of human physical and verbal aggression and the confrontation of fears in

Moreover, many kids deal with violence and can’t control it. As a result of having issues with violence some people play video games to let their violence and anger out. People need to understand that “ [b]ut overall, violent crime is down in the US-indeed, as violent games have become more popular, violent crime has fallen." (Erik Kain 1) The more popular the game is studies show violent

The popularity of violent video games is rapidly increasing, but abundant evidence suggests that, “playing violent video games [diminish] the player's perception of their own humanity” (Greitemeyer 499). Violence in video games has become increasingly popular throughout the years, as gun related murders have also increased in the United States, according to the data table in “Do Games like ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ Cause Real-World Violence?”. Some might say violent video games are a positive part of people’s lives because they keep criminals off the streets, but that is not the case. People should not be playing violent video games because it causes people to act out in aggressive ways and further, violent video games are directly linked to criminal

“Violent video games increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and aggressive behaviors and decrease empathic feelings and prosocial behaviors” (Gregory Ferenstein). Gaming devices not only desensitize us, but it heightens our chances of going out and committing acts of violence. Such as, James Holmes because of the games that he played (Call of Duty, Advanced Warfare and etc.) he believed that for every person he killed; he would receive a point for doing so. “There are definitely games kids shouldn't be playing, she said, for example those where hunting down and killing people is the goal)” (Anne Harding, CNN). After playing these games, many kids feel as if the real world is like a game and killing people to earn points is rewarded. Video games have changed our America to believing that death and violence should be rewarded, but with a twist and that includes handcuffs and a prison

Living in a world full of crime and violence, people begin to wonder what the cause of the violence is and how it can then be prevented. Unfortunately, there is not a single root cause that can be found when people attempt to decipher why children are deciding to bring guns to school and murder their peers. Some may believe that it was influenced by being exposed to a hostile family, violent films, or gory video games. Although sometimes this might be the case, a lot of the time it is not as black and white, making this topic very difficult to analyze and understand. Both Jonathan L. Freedman in “Villain or Scapegoat? Media Violence and Aggression” and L Rowell Huesmann and Laramie D. Taylor in “The Role of Media Violence in Violent

Whether it’s a story on the news or a drama at the theatre, violence has become a social norm in the media. Today, companies have significantly relied on the use of violence to ensure that their audiences are still motivated to watch. According to the Media Education Foundation, the level of violence on prime time television has increased 167% since 1998. Although there is a widespread belief that watching fictional violence causes people to become violent, the rise of violence on TV compared to real-world crime statistics over the past 20 years tells a different story.

One way individuals learn criminal behaviors by the way violence is portrayed in the media. Whenever the media creates a positive image of aggressiveness, it's influence is the greatest. For example, when actors are portrayed in a way that indicates no punishment, with realistic violence, rewarded for their actions, or their actions shown as justified. (Conklin, p 185).

Violence in the media has become an overlying and controversial issue. On one hand, some people feel that Hollywood is becoming excessive with violence and should tone it down or remove it altogether due to the newfound correlation between fantasy violence and behavioral issues. Others note that movie producers shouldn't be held to blame for the issues of unsupervised kids and that aggressive tendencies cannot be simplified to a simple cause and effect relationship. Both authors of the passage work on each others' claims by arguing and correcting their proposals. For example, the second author uses a firsthand experience in order to protect her claims while the first author regards this as "flawed reasoning when it comes to violence in Hollywood

In this age of technology, it's very safe to say that a large majority of the world's population has played at least one video game. This can vary from playing games on console, like Xbox-One, Playstation 4, and for the older generation, the NES to playing mobile games like Tetris. There are many consoles that span from the creation of video games. This has opened opportunities to make several kind of games. These can vary from side-scrollers like Super Mario Bros. on the NES, to Role-playing games (RPG) like Final Fantasy IX on the Playstation 1. While this has caused some great games to surface, it has also allowed intense violence to be let into games. Parents and anti-gaming communities state that this is why kids can become violent. This is false, because violent games can be avoided to prevent this issue, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has even made various precautions to make sure parents know what they're purchasing. Comprehensible symbols, detailed lists, and age restrictions prevents children from "becoming violent".

The evolution of video games has taken a drastic change since the 1970’s when video games were first introduced. Since then every decade video games have become more violent in nature with strong language and realistic to suit society today. Craig Anderson states that with more violence in video games they would sell better than games with less violence (Anderson, Gentile, and Beckley pg.5). Violent video games really became popular when the first person shooter games were invented so that we could see through the eyes of the player, as if we were really experiencing it. Society wanted better graphics and games as time went on new technology was invented and society matured in electronics. This meant that for game creators would have to come up with something better selling than the last. Creators would make the games more violent and more realistic each time so that way they can keep the interest of their consumers. Each game would increase in blood or gore slowly, but what really got consumers to buy their games would be the update of graphics in the consoles or games. This is due to the drastic changing of technology and the maturing of consumers wanting better and newer violent video games. Violent video games can cause children to behave violently if not correctly supervised.

The graphics in games now make the game almost look as if it were real life. That has brought the video game industry a lot more players and part of those new gamers are young children. The issue is when a child is presented with a violent video game that has really good graphics the child has a better understanding of what is going on in that game. Because children can relate what is going in the video game to the real world, that leads children to believe that the actions being done in that video game are accepted in society. If the children believe that its right from them to do violent actions that they learned from the game there attitude starts becoming more aggressive. Anne Harding says “children who watch violence in the media can internalize the message that the world is a hostile place...”.

In today’s world, there is an endless amount of information available to people everywhere around the globe. Mass media is definitely shaping our world, whether it is in a positive way or a negative way. Television and the radio waves provide us with hours of entertainment. The emergence of the Internet allows us to access thousands of pages of information within the reach our very own fingertips. But with the convenience of all this information comes along a certain level of responsibility. As a society, we Americans must decide what is appropriate information and entertainment for the masses to access and enjoy. But does today’s society give too much leeway in what it thinks as “appropriate?” Does increased

In the book Critique of Violence ,author Walter describes Violence as "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, male development, or deprivation .The violence that is portrayed in the media has been debated for decades ,and it has rose a question about how does it influence the youth?. From movies to video games society has been accustom to seeing violence in their everyday entertainment. Since children are easy to be influence by their environment, it is safe to say that violence in the media can and will contribute to violent behavior.