Violent Childrens Programs - Research Paper Example

Violent Children’s Programs Technology has significantly changed several things such as general perspective about lifeboth positively and negatively. Although there are numerous benefits associated with the technological changes especially in the media industry such as social networking, several social damages can be attributed to the media. The arrival of mass media especially television has led to a long time influence on the society especially children and the adolescents by changing their normal attitudes to attitudes that are consistent with the programs they watch from the entertainment media. The extent of violence and the contexts in which it occurs has been consistently high over the years and has been rising. This essay examines, analyzes, and explains violent children programming from a content analysis perspective as it relates to network shows such as Nick, Disney, and Toon. Continuous watching of television may manipulate viewers' ideas of what the daily world is all about and even induce some violent behaviors in children by changing their general mindset about violence. The media's power to shape perceptions and attitudes is thus questionable. Certain scenes in children programming such as cartoons where animated characters are continuously run over or thrown from the higher grounds but remain dead for a while portrays death as temporary. At times, bullies and violent characters are viewed as heroes thus instilling the mindset in children (Leonard & Christy 78-82). The children’s cartoons are some of the highly violent TV programs that are frequently aired by most TV channels. Unfortunately, the innocence in children is more exposed to violence than the adults by frequent airing of violent scenes in children programs than adult’s programs. Interestingly, the violent acts in the children programs are usually portrayed in a way that authenticates violence by making the actions either funny or acceptable. When either a child or an adult views a violent act, there may be unpleasant effects that may either be long or short term on the viewer (Leonard & Christy 78-82). An exposure to media violence especially to a young child has tremendously strong impact on an individual that may make the child develop very aggressive and violent way of life when he grows up. It is therefore very risky to allow a child to be exposed to such kind of risky media content (Brocato et al. 99-102). The contentious issue is how does the TV violence affect our way of life, attitude and even behaviors yet it is just a matter of just watching a mere material. Many grownups are always glued to their TVs in the evening or over the weekends in the name of watching a favorite soap opera. Seemingly, TV programs are one of the worst addictions, which may even literally steal our time and most significantly totally change our mindset irrespective of our age or sex. Most people have postponed doing some very important tasks in the excuse of watching a favorite TV program. It is therefore true that what a person listens to and watches can suddenly change an individual’s style of leaving either regularly or occasionally (Facts for Families, n.p). During the stage of development, children should adopt a way of life that is moral and acceptable to the society by guiding them on what they should watch and listen. What is instilled on a child’s mind while growing can either strengthen or weaken after sometime. An activity or an organ changes its task to adopt to the function that is routinely used as explained in use and reuse theory in biology. This same theory applies to the content of a program watched and the attitude change of the individual because of the program’s content. It is therefore obvious that when children watch violent movies, they will eventually adopt violent behaviors. The ultimate behavior of the child is further strengthened by previous experiences and societal influences (Leonard & Christy 78-82). Disney Films Disney films are several movies released by the Walt Disney Company, which is one of the leading companies in video production. Some of the animated movies released by the Walt Disney Company are Pinocchio, Fantasia Dumbo, three caballeros, and sleeping the beauty. The Disney Company is amongst the firms that embrace culture of violence and actions in their cartoon movie contents. Although it has some of the best kid movies, the instances of violence are very common. Disney movies are not left out when it comes the tendency of incorporating violent and aggressive acts in their movies. Although the films are well defined to fit the children’s needs, they at least contain significant elements of violence. In fact, most of the animated movies contain an immense amount of violence. From the films, aggression was regularly kicked off by the huge percentage of characters that were portrayed to be very bad. However, the well-behaved characters are justified especially when done by good people in the society. It is important to note that Disney films is very popular among the children and therefore any form of violence portrayed will affect many children. Due to the Disney films popularity, most children repeatedly watch the movies thus continuously changing their attitudes and behaviors in the end. The behavior of children watching these violent animated films produced by Disney movies do express aggressive and violent acts towards fellow children in real life situations. Even though, Disney movies contain some positive message and advice to children, the children quickly absorb the violent content (Coyne & Whitehead 382-384). Aggression The acts of violent behaviors are normally absorbed in children’s mind whether it is physical act of aggression or indirect assault. Both kinds of hostilities may be so worrying and detrimental to the viewers of the programs. Some of the indirect aggressions include rumors, disregard, filthy looks, avoiding others in a group or influencing and controlling other peoples’ emotions negatively. A child may use indirect aggression to lure other children in doing bad acts or even avoiding others unless they do what the aggressor wants. Indirect aggression in both sex and may be harmful in females who really value relationship hence may use this technique to hurt others in the group and assume control over others (Brocato et al. 99-102). This kind of aggression may only be evident when the child is old enough to use their social and verbal skills to manipulate their peers. Gender disparity makes female children prone to indirect aggression due to their ability to boys since girls mature faster than boys. Moreover, socioeconomic status of an individual also has direct relationship with the indirect aggression such that children from higher socioeconomic status experience aggressiveness towards others than the children from lower socioeconomic background. The impact of indirect aggression may affect the victims in their lifetime and in most cases, experiences various problems such as lower self-esteem, depression, and loneliness than people who are not victims (Leonard & Christy 78-82). Media vs Indirect Aggression Viewing of indirect aggression is assumed tricky and very few researches has been done to prove the portrayal of this kind of aggression on TV. In most cases, only physical aggression was portrayed in many TV programs that targeted male children while indirect aggression, which was popular among adolescents, targeted female children. Indirect aggression is frequently aired in most of the TV programs without many people noticing while the evidence of this kind of aggression is increased subsequent change of behaviors. The adverse effect of indirect aggression makes it an important subject to study compared to physical aggression (Coyne & Whitehead 384-385). Purpose of the Study The study is to find out how indirect aggression is portrayed in children movies and its ultimate influence of indirect aggression in children since children are much more vulnerable to the media influence than any other age group. Procedure The procedure involved in determining the portrayal of indirect aggression involved watching of several Disney films while coding indirect aggression variables such as sex of attacker, character appearance, type, and explanation of the assailant. Discussion It was concluded that Disney films that were animated comprised of many indirect aggression which were almost 9.23 acts per hour against the earlier which gave a number of 9.34 times per hour. It was further found that most portrayed indirect aggression were socioeconomic inclusion, indirect spiteful joke and lastly blame induction. There exists two types of indirect aggression namely less dangerous indirect aggression such as gesturing behind someone’s back which is less harmful and more dangerous indirect aggression such as spreading rumors which is very harmful (Coyne & Whitehead 391-394). Non verbal kind of aggression were found to be more used than gossiping as was earlier stated. It was further clear that sex difference also played a huge role as far as the effects of indirect aggression is concerned where females were more prone than their female counterparts were. In a meta-analysis of indirect aggression studies, sex difference was only apparent during adolescence and this was very true since sex difference can only be found at a later stage of child’s life (Oberle, Kimberly & Kimberly 1331-1332). The studies also found that human characters were portrayed as more indirectly aggressive than animal characters since indirect aggression involves language and social skills, which animals do not have. In addition, bad characters that are unjustified for their actions are most likely portrayed in indirect aggression thus informing the viewer that indirect aggression is not an acceptable behavior. This was against the research, which argued that indirect aggression is justified especially if the character is a female. Indirect aggression portrayed by good characters is justified by most children viewers who in turn practice it (Coyne & Whitehead 391-394). The people in the higher socioeconomic status were more portrayed as direct aggressors followed by middle class and finally low class individuals. However, the Disney films portray indirect aggression to be unacceptable especially amongst the wealthy fellows although it is very common in the high-class families. The issue of indirect aggression is however reduced by the Disney films. The company tries as much as possible to ensure violent incidents are not portrayed especially among children viewers (Leonard & Christy 78-82). General Aggression Model (GAM) which suggests that violent characters exposed on the media greatly affects the characters of the viewers negatively and the children who are largely exposed to these aggressive characters tend to develop these aggressive behaviors. Constant show of animated programs should not be geared towards children alone since there are many adults who also enjoy watching them. Animated films and any other cartoon movie need to stick with its original purpose, which was to show cartoons only with minimal or even no violence in it since the greatest challenge with the cartoon networks was when they decided to resort to scenarios that targeted boys. The Cartoon network should be resurrected by adhering to the old rules that would not greatly interfere with a child or any other viewer. Companies producing movies should revisit their old wide libraries and air the old cartoons that may lure even the adults to watch. The issue of societal decay that involves negative changing of children attitudes and behaviors should be avoided. Works Cited Brocato, D., et al. "Television Commercial Violence: Potential Effects on Children." Journal of Advertising 39.4 (2010): 95-107. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.. Coyne and Whitehead. “Indirect Agression In Animated Disney Films,” Journal Of Communication (2008): 382-395. Facts for Families. “American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.” Children and TV Violence 13 (2011): Web. Apr. 2013. Leonard, A., and Christy Ashley. "Exploring The Underlying Dimensions Of Violence In Print Advertisements." Journal Of Advertising 41.1 (2012): 77-90. Web. 3 Apr. 2013. Oberle, E., Kimberly, S., and Kimberly, T. "Understanding The Link Between Social And Emotional Well-Being And Peer Relations In Early Adolescence: Gender-Specific Predictors Of Peer Acceptance." Journal of Youth and Adolescence 39.11 (2010): 1330-42. Web. 3 Apr. 2013. Read More