Violence in the Media - Essay Example

Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, the Supreme Court ruled that the media admittedly has taken on an intrusive pervasiveness in American life. The explicit and indecent matter reaches citizens over the airwaves in the very seclusion of the home where family privacy should reasonably prevail over the First Amendment civil liberties of outsiders. Through the incursion of the media into the home, adult material is abnormally available to children too young to grasp its full meaning. The facility with which the home has unhealthy exposure to television broadcasts fully warrants specific legislation on the handling of indecent programming with regard to children (FCC v.

Pacifica Foundation). In keeping with this line of thought, the Federal Communications Commission has been actively supporting legislation to restrict explicitly violent (as well as indecent) material to the late evening hours, when the majority of children are likely not to be viewing the set (Labaton 2). Even though lower courts have rejected the suggestion that violence is equivalent to obscenity, the question has never been addressed by the Supreme Court (Greiner 1). If effective political action can move the Supreme Court to concur with the argument that violence merits an assessment equivalent to obscenity, legislation may meet the Supreme Court's standard of strict scrutiny and ensure that limits of the sale of graphic video games to children can be upheld as constitutional (Schatz 1). c) The Constitution relates to the topic in that The First Amendment, besides protecting artistic freedom of expression, basically reaffirms equal rights for society, parents, and children in the matter.

The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." What is at issue here is primarily the right of responsible citizens to petition the government for legislation to protect at-risk and immature young minds from callous exposure.