Television, Films and Video games

VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA

TELEVISION PROGRAMMES• It has been found that cartoon comic violence can lead to young children having nightmares

and have a negative affect on their sleeping patterns.

• Excessive TV watching in childhood and adolescence (8+ hours a day) is associated with an increased risk of criminal convictions and anti-social behaviour in young adults.

• TV programmes such as Looney tunes, Scooby Doo and Pokemon have been criticised for their flippant use of violence and the more sinister side to their programmes which most children and parents would disregard.

• However, children from a young age learn from what they see and hear and so exposing them to these programmes (in excess) could harm them and distort their view on the world in their later years.

• There is currently a debate into whether the TV programme ‘Luther’, which is shown at 9pm on BBC 1, is too violent for TV. This shows that viewers and critics are starting to question broadcasters and whether they are pushing the limits of violence that is able to be shown.

FILM• 90% of all movies contain some type of violence.

• Children grow up watching superhero films, such as Spiderman, The Avengers and Superman. They see the superheroes fight against the ‘bad’ people and escape unhurt and sometimes without a scratch.

• This means that children are more likely to copy or imitate the violence they see ‘good guys’ use because they believe that they are invincible.

• Films such as Cars 2, Monsters inc and Despicable me have been criticised and questioned as to whether they are too violent for children.

• It is hard to find a level of violence that is acceptable for children to see and the difference between a level of violence that could be harmful if consumed in excess.

• Many Disney films have recently been found to have a more sinister and disturbing meaning to them, to that of what we first thought. The Lion King’s hidden message is that in life, in order for you to be successful, other people will have to pay.

VIDEO GAMES

• The connection between video games and real life violence is still unclear and the level to which video games affect viewers aggression levels is unsure.

• 68% of video games contain violence.

• Most children start playing video games around the age of 4.

• Children start to become desensitized to violence after excessive consumption of video game violence.

• Gunman, Adam Lanza, who shot 20 children and 6 teachers in Newton, was supposedly found to have been motivated by violent video games. This shows the extreme power that video games can have.

• However, there are still articles disagreeing with these statements and saying that there is no correlation between violent video games and aggression levels.