Media Effects on Violent Behavior

Media Effects on Violent Behavior

In this article it talks about how different forms of media influence people to be violent. Media influences people to commit criminal acts or violent behavior. Aggression is what causes violent behavior and criminal acts. In the article there were natural, field, and laboratory experiments that took place. For instance, natural experiments of the television were taken place in three different locations in Canada, the study consisted of forty-five children that were observed. The observations said that both physical and verbal aggression increased among the children. In the media, “Violence is a popular form of entertainment” (Felson 103). Children come home after school to watch television routinely. Watching television routinely cause’s children to show short-term effects on aggressive behavior. For example, children having wrestling matches and imitating the moves in the school yard after they watched WWF last night. Technology advancements have cause media to be expressed in all forms. Today, media has expressed violence over the Internet, radio, news, cable, and video games. Expressing media in all of those categories targets and attracts a bigger audience. Since technology has advance an increase in a number of violent acts within school, events, and public places have shown significantly. When you go into retail stores to buy video games, all of the video games contents consist of violence. Video games are action packed and it consists of violence. Grand Theft Auto is a video game that is introduce to a younger audience that consists of high physical aggression, drugs, money, shooting, killing, profanity, and prostitution. This video game can display somewhat everyday life and what possible outcomes can happen to people in life.

The media has displayed violence as being acceptable in society. For example, violence in the media is displayed through films, books, and sports. Boxing and wrestling is a sport where violence is an acceptable form of entertainment. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a good example of “Socialization [which] plays a role in violence because it is believed people are more violent because they learn to be violent from their parents, peers, and the mass media” (Felson 116). Floyd Mayweather Sr. (Floyd Mayweather’s father) grew up boxing and training elite fighters such as his son. Now his son, Floyd Mayweather is the most paid-watched boxer in the world, thanks to his father teaching him forms of violence. Also, pornography is a factor in increase of violence among women because they way they are portrayed differently. Women in pornography can be viewed as aggressive, sex toys, intimate, or promiscuous. This leads to negative attitudes toward women that cause the likelihood of rape or other forms of violence. Media influences violence because of how much people value it, violence can trigger people to do a violent act that they just seen or experienced. The reason is the thrill and excitement that triggers the person to participate in the act. Finally, media influences violence on a small percentage of people because its effects are weak and not consistently observed.

Scholarly Article Link:

<http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.temple.edu/stable/pdfplus/2083426.pdf?acceptTC=true&>
~Russel Saber