Violence On The Tube :: essays research papers

Violence on the TubeOne Saturday morning many old age ago, I was watching an episode of the Roadrunner on television. As Wile E. Coyote was pushed off of a cliff by theRoadrunner for the fourth or twenty percent time, I started laughing uncontrollably. Ithen watched a Bugs Bunny show and started laughing whenever I saw Elmer Fuddshoot Daffy Duck and his bill went twirling around his head. The next day, Ipushed my brother off of a cliff and shot my dog to see if its head would twirlaround.Obviously, that last sentence is not true. Some people call back thatviolence on the tube is one of the main factors that leads to real-life violence,but in my opinion, television is just a minor factor that leads to real-lifeviolence and that it is the parents responsibility to memorize kids the difference.According to Rathus in Psychology in the New Millennium, observationallearning may account for most human learning (239). Observational learningextends to law-abiding parents and peers, clas sroom learning, reading books, andlearning from media such as television and films. Nearly all of us have beenexposed to television, videotapes, and films in the classroom. Children in day-care centers frequently watch Sesame Street. There are filmed and videotapedversions of great works of literature such as Orson Welles Macbeth. Nearlyevery school shows films of laboratory experiments. provided what of our viewing outside of the classroom? Television is alsoone of our major sources of informal observational learning. According to Sweetand Singh, viewing habits range from the child who watches no television at allto the child who is in front of the television nearly all waking hours. Theysay that on average, children aged 2 to 11 watch about 23 hours of televisionper week, and teenagers watch about 22 hours per week (2). According to thesefigures, children spend less time in the classroom than they do watchingtelevision. During these hours ofviewing, children are constantly being shown acts of violence.Why? Simple violence sells.People are drawn to violence in films, television dramas, books,professional battle and boxing, and reports of crime and warfare. Doesviolence do more than sell, however? Do media portrayals of violence begetviolence in the streets and in the home?It seems clear enough that there are connections between violence in themedia and real violence. In the 1990s, for example, audiences at films aboutviolent urban youth such as Colors, Boyz N the Hood, and succus have gotten intofights, shot one another, and gone on rampages after the showings.