Violent Programs on Television Lead to Aggressive Behavior by Children

The media has the potential to yield many negative effects in the development of a child. Media violence can lead to aggression in children. As mentioned earlier, an average person has viewed approximately 15,000 hours of television by the time they graduate high school. In that time, it is said that almost 18,000 acts of violence including murders, robbery, beating, bombing, and assault will be viewed. With the extent of this data, there is a definite correlation between the media and aggression in youth. The more violence students watch on television or are exposed to from different media sources, the more prone they are to be violent and aggressive as they get older, especially during adulthood. Studies have shown that even small exposure

The debate whether violence in the media increases aggression in children has been going on for decades. There have been hundreds of studies, experiments and articles supporting and opposing both sides of the argument. This essay is going to examine an article supporting and an article opposing the debate. The articles include “The Influence of Media Violence in Youth” which supports media violence causing aggression through the use of evidence that includes short and long term effects of media violence, theories as to why media violence causes aggression, factors that influence aggression and ways to counteract the negative effects (Anderson et

There is a strong agreement among American society that violence in the country is on the rise. It is easy to see why this is a strong argument among the American people, especially because of the rising popularity of violent video games and television programs. However, as these violent video games and television shows are creating their own place in our society, the reports of violence among children are escalating. This correlation has been studied extensively in the scientific community in an attempt to discover whether media violence does negatively impact children but there has yet to be a consensus. There is a split between those that believe that children are becoming more violent because they are exposed to violent media and

Television is the mainstream of our culture. Violence on television has been a topic of conflict since before 1950. There have been repeated debates on how to protect children from the harmful effects of violence on television. Television is one form of modern media that influences the everyday lives of people. Televised violence has a major effect on how children perceive the world and how they behave. "American television has become the most violent in the world. It is for this reason why researchers have focused their attention toward television violence" (Cantor & Hoffner 424-4-25). Children enjoy watching television and now with the increased technology of cable and movie

In the United States children watch an average of three to fours hours of television daily (Cantor & Wilson, 1984, p. 28). Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. Studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may become insensitive to violence. Consequently, they tend to gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems by imitating the violence they observe on television; and they identify with certain characters, good or bad. Therefore, extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater

Over the past two decades, hundreds of studies have examined how violent programming on TV affects children and young people. While a direct "cause and effect" link is difficult to establish, there is a growing consensus that some children may be vulnerable to violent images and messages.

In the media there is a great deal of violence and nobody can really deny that. However, the effects media has on children and young adults have been debated for years. In this paper I will be discussing the effects of media violence, the other factors, and the possible solutions to alleviate this global issue.

The article “Violence As Fun” by Randall Sullivan brings up this issue, arguing that parents need to be educated on the dangers of allowing their children to watch violent TV programs. The author supports this with evidence from a report conducted by The American Psychological Association, where they concluded that early substance abuse, access to weapons, isolation, and widespread display of violence in media; the latter being greater, contributes to the violent behaviors in adolescents. He also points out that since the 1950s, aggravated assaults have increased seven times. The passage further emphasizes that many TV outlets know the damaging effects that violence in media has on juveniles, yet only a few acknowledge this fact. Sullivan’s

Many people still have several questions they want answered, such as, is media violence actually affecting children or are children already prone to violence drawn to media violence? Some experts have shown short and long-term negative effects occur in children from watching violent media; however another group of experts have shown that media violence is only one of many risk factors leading to aggression developed in children. These two groups need to continue more research and go beyond that to find true solutions. Nevertheless, no sources were found to say that media violence has no influence on the increase in modern culture’s violent actions. The key to discovering the true correlation between violence in children and media violence is to continue research until a solution is

Comstock, G. (2008). A Sociological Perspective on Television Violence and Aggression. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(8), 1184-1211. doi:10.1177/0002764207312009

Numerous studies conducted in the past have clearly demonstrated that exposure to media violence does have a significant influence on violent and aggressive behavior. This is particularly the case amongst children where fictional media violence has been linked to increased aggression both in the short-term and in the long-term. This text highlights the extent to which media violence is related to violent/aggressive behavior.

The purposes of this project were to examine TV violence and analyze how TV violence may influence children’s aggression. In Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment, results showed that children who observed aggressive models toward the Bobo doll were more likely to imitate that behavior than children who observed non-aggressive models. Male children were more likely to imitate the model if they were the same-sex compared to female children. Male children displayed more physical aggression compared to female children. The females were likely to show physical aggression when they witnessed an opposite-sex model perform in an aggressive model group. However, females were likely to show verbal aggression when they witnessed a same-sex model perform in

No Clear Link Between Television Violence and Aggression   There is a great deal of speculation on the role of television violence in childhood aggression.   Research demonstrates there may be other intervening variables causing aggression.   These variables include IQ, social class, parental punishment, parental aggression, hereditary, environmental, and modeling.   With all of these factors to taken into consideration it is difficult to determine a causal relationship between television violence and aggression.   It is my hypothesis this relationship is bi-directional - violent television causes aggressive behavior and aggressive people tend to watch more violent television.

          Due to violence on television, children become less sensitive to that pain and suffering of others or to become more aggressive to others. It also makes children more fearful to the world around them. (Abelard 1) Viewing habits of children observed for many decades deduced that violence on TV is associated with aggressive behavior, more than poverty, race, or parental behavior. It also reported that a TV show contains about 20 acts of violence an hour.

As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the