Hum/114 University of Phoenix Material Essay

In this article titled “Analyzing Arguments: Those You Read and Those You Write” goes over multiple strategies and examples to help you analyze the meaning and purpose of a specific argument and how to strengthen your own.

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.

It is a matter of great importance how much of media content children are exposed to and what exactly they are viewing on media. The issue of violence is not a new phenomenon among children and keeps increasing with time and change in technology and information technology. The causes of violence in children are seen to be multifactorial and exposure of children to media violence is said to be an important factor when it comes to the etiology of behaviors that are violent among children.

This essay aims to discuss whether violence in media contributes to the violence in the society. The essay will first define who the society is and what constitutes as violence in both the media and in society. It will then discuss audience reception studies and the uses and gratifications theory as to how the audiences receive the media and what they do with it. With evidence from supporting articles and a survey done, this essay will argue that violence in the media does not contribute to the violence in society.

         My research led me to form some new hypotheses on the correlation of violence in the media, namely television, movies, and video games, to the rise in violent behavior in adolescents. For this essay, I will focus on male adolescents. I will use multiple lenses for my research to (1) establish the increase in violent acts by adolescents in the past two decades; (2) use proven research to show the impact of media violence on the individual; and (3) to illustrate my "recipe for disaster," four correlations that contribute to the effects of media violence on male adolescents.

Gentile and Bushman (2012) hypothesized that not only exposure to the media violence, but also other risk factors exclusively and mutually increases the risk of aggression in children.

Violent behavior is something that is innate to the human brain. It has been an instinct of humans since the beginning of our creation or our evolution from a primal state in order to primarily survive and maintain our supremacy atop the hierarchy of all living organisms. We are naturally violent creatures, and this natural tendency for us to exhibit violent behavior isn’t helped by the extreme lack of shelter from and glorification of violent actions through mainstream or alternative news outlets as well as depictions of such actions through other forms of media such as: movies, entertainment television, cartoons, and video games. According to the professing of multiple studies the violence in today’s massive multimedia culture is to be blamed for much of the violence of which we witness on a daily basis within our country. The professing of these studies is reflective of the drastic increase in societal violence in the United States during 1965. A year that marked the first time a generation raised on television would come of the average age of committing violent crimes. (Bushman, 2001, Media Violence and the American Public, pg. 478) These copious amounts of violence that are depicted in our cultures mass media outlets have negative effects on both adults and children. While we exercise our naturally violent minds through seeing and hearing such acts of violence on a daily basis, not only do we

Robert Peters may have gone to prestigious schools and may work for a big company that are working to make the world a better place, but with the argument that there is too much violence in media, he

Media Violence is definitely harmful to children as the exposure of media violence can desensitize children (age 6-12) to violence and in the real world; violence becomes enjoyable and does not result in apprehensiveness in the child. There have been several studies and experiments regarding the adverse effects of violence used in video games, television, as well as movies. With both preschool and school-aged children, studies have found that they are more likely to imitate the violence they see on screen if someone they see as a 'good guy ' is using the violence to solve a problem, especially if there are no realistic consequences for the violence. Examples are marvel comic characters such as Spiderman, The Hulk, Batman. These characters appear unhurt after smashing a building; this may lead to young adolescents thinking that violence will solve the problem. The relationship between media violence and children are positively related, if the media content contains violence, it will show in the behavior of the child eventually. Quantity is also another factor that plays an important role in influencing a child. Excessive TV watching in childhood (3+ hours a day) is associated with an increased risk of criminal convictions and anti-social behaviors in young adults. The main claim is to prove that media violence will affect a child’s behavior, using the research and experiments as evidence. One common reaction to television violence is fear, which has received a good deal

There has been continuous research with regards to the relationship that exists between media violence’s and the behavior of the viewers. Some of this research has focused on children and teenagers. Despite most of them indicating the absence of a strong relationship with real life violence, there have been proof that it affects other aspects such educational performance and social relationships.

Media violence has been tremendously growing and attaining the hazardous extents. Two-thirds of TV shows contain some kind of violence. Most self-involving video games contain some violent matter in it. For example, if you manufacture guns, you do not need to give any advertisement, because it is done by the amusement industry. Aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, hallucinations, and fear of being mishandled were caused by the media violence, was explained in a 2009 Policy Statement on Media Violence, by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The increase in aggressive behavior happens by watching violent video shows on TV, and by playing violent video games.

Literature Review: The article presents an issue with exposure to media violence. Children ages 2-18 watch an average of twenty-six hours a week of television. Sixty percent of programs being watched display violence. Children exposed to aggressive scenarios are likely to imitate those behaviors. Children

Since 1982, the National Institute of Mental Health, along with other reputable health organizations has collected data that connects media violence, with violent acts. Conclusions deduced from this data prove that violent programs on television lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch those programs. Television violence affects young people of all ages, all socio-economic levels, and all levels of intelligence.

A plethora of research has examined the relationship between media violence and the effects on children. Media violence is ubiquitous and comes in many forms, television and film, computer and video games, internet, music and radio and newspapers and magazines. However, the media that dominates the studies are television, then computer/video games and to a lesser degree music. Three types of evidence support the hypothesis that exposure to media violence is harmful to children. First there is anecdotes and case studies, then correlational studies and third the results of numerous experiments (Bernstein et al. 2006). However there are the sceptics that suggest the evidence is not conclusive in anecdotes and case studies, while correlations

This theory that violence portrayed in media somehow brings about violent behavior is baseless however and there have been no peer-reviewed studies proving any negative causal effects violent media has. This highlights a problem