Violence in the Media: The Depiction of Violence in the Media and the Impact on the Public, Especially Children

*Editor's note: This article is the tenth in a series of editorials for a project for my Virtual High School class. The project is geared toward educating the public to develop an awareness of the enormous social and political impact that news reporting has upon our media culture and to promote the examination and challenge of the media.

Violence in the media has been prominent for thousands of years. Even the ancient Romans used violence in their "media." In 380 B.C., Saint Augustine lamented that his society was "addicted to gladiator games and drunk with the fascination of bloodshed."

With all of this violence in the television we watch, there has to be some profound impact on us. Consider this story of Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D., dean of Harvard University's School of Public Health. Dr. Prothrow-Stith travels around the country delivering speeches on the growing crisis of violence as a public health issue in society. She often relates the story of a young gunshot victim being treated in a Boston hospital emergency room .He expressed surprise that his would actually hurt. "I thought, boy, he's really stupid, anybody knows that if you get shot, it's going to hurt. But it dawned on me that what he sees on television is that when the superhero gets shot in the arm, he uses that arm to hold onto a truck going 85 miles an hour around a corner. He overcomes the driver and shoots a couple of hundred people while he's at it."

Violence affects children of all ages. In 1956, researches conducted an experiment which compared the behavior of twenty four children watching television. Half of the children watched a violent episode of the cartoon Woody Woodpecker. The other twelve children watched the non-violent cartoon The Little Red Hen. The searchers then observed the children at play. The children who watched the violent cartoon were much more likely to hit other children and break toys.

The Kaiser Family Foundation conducted research in 2003 similar to the researchers in 1956. The researches discovered that 47% of parents with children between the ages of four and six report that their children have imitated aggressive behaviors they viewed on television.

"Researches have also pursued the link between media violence and real life aggression by examining communities before and after the introduction of television." On the other hand, a number of studies also suggest that media is only one of a number of variables that put children at risk of aggressive behavior. The media is not always the "bad guy" in these situations.

The media and violence has an influence on our culture. Scientists are trying to determine whether that influence is good or bad. Viewer discretion determines whether or not that influence truly makes an impact.

Whitney Black, Editor-in-Chief