The Relationship between Watching Violent Movies and Real Life Violence - Case Study Example

Violence in Real Life Electronic media contributes immensely towards people’s lives. Over the years, advancement in technology has led to diverse changes in how people live and interact. Electronic media managed to change the way people used to learn, communicate, play, and explore the world. Technology also enables young people, middle aged as well as old people to socialize and share information which was not possible in the olden days. Unfortunately, most people believe that technological advancements have only positive contributions to human life. Majority of them tend to forget that technology can also result to some problems in life. Unfortunately, this is not true. Advancement in technology has led to the invention of some things which when misused lead to some setbacks in the society. For instance, advancement in technology has led to the media taking part in abusing the viewers; some media programs involve showing violent movies that hamper with the psyche of the viewers. According to the statistics provided by Media Education Foundation, it is also evident that media violence has increased in the society because of advancement in technology (Media Violence: Facts and Statistics, 2005). This is evidenced by not only media violence becoming sadistic, but also because of its association with graphics and sexual practices. In tandem to this, there are also some other occurrences that associate technological advancement with violence. For instance, Sandy Hook Elementary School located in Newtown and Buell Elementary School located in Michigan are some of the surprising shootings that startled the whole world. The above occurrences make this paper very crucial, for it will provide detailed information on the relationship between watching violent movies and real life violence. Violence in America has a very curious history. It was very intense in 1950s and 1980s. During those times, youth gang violence was very evident; it was dominated by media. Unfortunately, it seems violence intensifies with time. This is evidenced by the severity of violence in 1970s than early 1950s. In 1970s, many people were beaten to death by violent gangs. A good example of a violent gang that existed in early 1960s includes Chicago Latino gangs. Chicago Latino gangs were among the gangs that specialized in violence in America; their violent offences by-passed those committed by non-gang adolescents. Sorry to say, research shows that the rate of violence increases with changes in time. This is also evidenced by the increased rate of violence currently. To some extent, the occurrence of violence is as a result of advancement of technology. Most people have adopted new ways and practices that result to increase of aggressiveness. This is evidenced by the writings of many researchers including Savage. In his article, Savage postulates that violent movies are associated with aggression. In justifying his claim, he argues that media violence is the main contributing factor for criminal behavior (Savage, 2004). Additionally, Savage also asserts that excessive exposure to television makes many children in the society to become violent. According to him, digestion of the images portrayed in the violent movies makes children develop some sense of aggressiveness. To justify his point, Savage argues that it is through the aggressiveness adopted from the violent movies that children experiment some violent acts in the society. In connection to this, “Taylor and Huesmann also claim that exposure to violence on television and in video games increases the risk of violent behavior on the viewer’s part just as growing up in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of violent behavior” (Huesmann & Taylor, 2006 p.1). Additionally, Huesmann and Taylor also claims that exposure to violence leads to emergence of both short term and long term detrimental effects to the viewers. In his writing, Savage also concurs with Huesmann and Taylor’s opinion; he also relates teen violence with some violent TV programs. According to him, some TV programs teach young kids on how to kill (Savage, 2004). To strengthen his point, Savage also expounds on how American Media Association expressed its dislike of some programs that hampered with the morals of young children. In his work, Savage also details on how the report provided by the Senator Orrin Hatch condemned some media programs. According to him, Senator Orrin associated youth violence with media violence (Savage, 2004). In his writing, Savage also postulates that it is the media that led to the introduction of the Children’s Defense Act in 1999. According to him, “the congress backed the introduction of the act so as to ensure amicable punishments were passed to adults who loved exposing children below the age of 17 to sexual or violent content materials” (Savage, 2004 p. 2). According to Savage, most people, particularly children love imitating what they see. For instance, he claims that exciting scenes provide physical stimulations that may change the behavior of the viewer immediately (Savage, 2004). His argument also concurs with that of Huesmann and Taylor who claim that “children who see the violent film clip behave more aggressively immediately afterward than those viewing the nonviolent clip” (Huesmann & Taylor, 2006 p.4). Thus, it is through this in-built character that majority of the children end up practicing violent acts in the society. It is also evident that the rates of aggression increases for children who watch television violence occasionally. This is also evidenced by the work of Huesmann and Taylor. In their findings, they found out that approximately 11% of the young boys who watched violent movies were convicted of crimes compared to the previous 4%, 69% (compared with 50% of other boys) of them had pushed or shoved their spouses (Huesmann and Taylor, 2006). According to Savage, most of the behaviors learnt by children remain engraved in their brains, and thus, violent behaviors learnt via watching violent movies stick to an individual even to adulthood. In his article, Huesmann also argues that excessive watching of violent movies leads to individuals becoming antisocial (Huesmann, 1986). To justify his point, he claims that most aggressive children prefer violent movies to other types of movies. He also asserts that there is a significant difference between children who watch violent movies and those who do not watch violent movies. According to him, those who watch violent movies are more aggressive than those who do not watch violent movies (Huesmann, 1986). In tandem to this, a source material from Media Education Foundation “Media Violence: Facts and Statistics” also expounds on how mass media affects people’s attitudes and behaviours. According to it, violent images and ideas are very influential to youths’ ways of living and behaving (Media Violence: Facts and Statistics, 2005). In his article, Savage also provided a case of President Kennedy’s assassination in late November 1963. According to him, he wanted to know if there was any relationship between the assassination of President and increase in violence in 1960s. Surprisingly, his findings showed that something else apart from the President’s assassination led to the increase of violence with time in the U.S. that time (Savage, 2004). In tandem to this, Savage also researched on the effects of introduction and licensing of the television broadcasts between 1949 and 1952. His findings on the use of the televisions correlated with increase in violence in the U.S. according to him, the materials consumed during that time made people to develop some negative attitudes towards some things in life, and as a result led to some cases of violence (Savage, 2004). This was also evidenced by the increase of homicides after publicizing fights; “majority of the violent persons murdered someone due to imitation, excitement, frustration, or altercations associated with the fight or related gambling losses” (Savage, 2004 p. 9). In connection to this, Huesmann and Taylor (2006 p.7) also provide the case of Marilyn Monroe to stress on the contribution of violence news to the increase of violence in real life. According to them, the publicizing of the Marilyn Monroe effect led to the rapid increase of the cases of suicides in the U.S. Additionally, they also claim that news coverage on suicide leads to approximately 2.5% increase in real suicides. Violent movies also correlate with intellectual achievement. Majority of the people who are not good academically do seek for violent movies so as to satisfy their personal interests. According to Huesmann (1986), this is as a result of the believe children with poor academic skills have towards violent programs. Huesmann argues that such children believe that violent programs expound on real life. This is also evidenced in Western countries where boys and girls associate themselves with watching violent movies. According to Huesmann, a low intellectual achievement makes a child feel frustrated and as a result lead to that child spend a lot of time watching violent movies so as to obtain the success he or she missed while at school (Huesmann, 1986). Unfortunately, such children end encoding the violent scenes they see on the scripts for their future behaviour. It is also evident that most people love characterizing themselves with some characters that they see in some movie scripts (Ferdon & Hertz, 2007). Although some of the characterizations have some positive impacts in life, it is evident that others do lead to some social constraints. For instance, Huesmann argues in his work that children who identify themselves with television characters have the potential to becoming violent because of the influential aggressive scripts they observe (Huesmann, 1986). According to him, most boys become more violent than girls because of the attachment they have to violent acts and aggressive characters. In conclusion, advancement in technology has contributed immensely towards bettering the life of human beings. It has led to the invention of devices such as phones and computers that enhance communication. It has also managed to unite people all over the world; it has led to the world to appear like a small village. However, advancement in technology has also impaired with the morals of most people. The invention of movies particularly violent movies has resulted to occurrence of violence in real life. It is through the programs that show violent scenes that most people learn some evil practices such as ‘how to kill.’ It is also through the emergence of violent movies that most people become antisocial and as a result become aggressive. Thus, it is recommendable for the producers to reconsider reducing or stopping the production of violent movies so as to reduce the rate of occurrence of violence in the society. References Savage, J. (2004).Does viewing violent media really cause criminal violence?A Methodological Review. Pergamon,10 (2004) 99 – 128. Retrieved from http://bscw-app1.let.ethz.ch/pub/bscw.cgi/d5907581/Savage-Does%20viewing%20violent%20media%20really%20cause%20criminal%20violence.pdf Ferdon, C. D.& Hertz, M. F. (2007). Electronic Media, Violence and Adolescents: An Emerging Public Health Problem.Journal of Adolescent Health, 41, S1-S5. http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/1054-139X/PIIS1054139X07003643.pdf Media Violence: Facts and Statistics (2005). Media Education Foundation. Huesmann, L. R. (1986). Psychological Processes Promoting the Relation Between Exposure to Media Violence and Aggressive Behaviour by Viewer. Journal of Social Issues, 42:3. 125-129. Retrieved from http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/83383/1986.Huesmann.PsycProcesPromottheRelaBetExpostoMedViol&AggBeha.JourofSocialIssues.pdf?sequence=1 Huesmann, L. R. and Taylor, L. D. (2006). The Role of Media Violence in Violent Behaviour. Annual Rev. Public Health. 27:393-415. doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.26.021304.144640. Read More