Violence in Media

Rocio Luna

English 101

K. Lawler

27 September 2012

Violence in the media today has become quite a heated debate. In this day and age children spend a large portion of their time watching television, playing video games, and surfing the web. Technology has a major impact on society; some may even say it's the cause behind children's violent behavior. Violence in media isn't solely to blame for their children's violent behavior. There are other factors involved such as; natural emotions, physical circumstances, and even lack of parental advisory.

Violence stems from the effects of our natural emotions that we experience on a daily bases. These feelings such as; power, anger, greed and aggression are not a direct result of the media. These emotions we feel are based upon our struggles and the conflicts we experience throughout our lives. Many people do not know how to release these emotions and express them without causing harm. Instead they hold onto these emotions resulting in an unhealthy behavior and outbursts. There is no positive result from containing these emotions within oneself. Many parents believe that violent video games are to blame for the reason their children act out in an aggressive manner.

It's much too simple to point a finger at the media and say ‘Tommy was such a good boy before he started spending all of his time playing Call of Duty." Call of Duty is a popular video game that has players go back in time to historical war battles and they have to kill as many enemies as they can in the amount of given time. A winner is determined by whoever has the most kills, whether it is by using a gun, grenade, knife or even bombs. Parents can be quick to judge just by knowing the basics of this game and blame it for their children's behavior. On the contrary a psychologist by the name Melanie Moore stated, "Children need violent entertainment in order to explore inescapable feeling that they've been taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings into a more whole, more complex, more resilient selfhood."

Experiencing these emotions through let's say, a fantasy game world, can actually help a child in a positive way by allowing them to express their emotional struggles. Comic-book creator Gerard Jones said, "Integrating the scariest, most frequently denied fragments of their psyches into fuller sense of selfhood through fantasies of superhuman combat and destruction enables people to pull themselves out of emotional traps." There are several artists and film-makers such as George Carlin and Auto Preminger that agree with Mr. Jones. This shows that looking for alternative ways to vent anger and other emotions is completely natural among children.

Physical circumstances play a key role to