Blog 15

Human Nature

Pick up a history book and its guaranteed you’ll read about violence almost instantly. It’s part of our human existence. We all naturally have tendencies to become violent. Its how societies are possible and how empires were built. Fear and violence play a major role in our lives. Violence to me is something we are born with internally naturally and nurtured by our environment as well. Television plays a role in increasing violence but its not the main cause by far. To solely blame television is ludicrous or assuming it’s the main reason.

The word television was first uttered between 1922 to 1927. It is considered by far the most influential device in the media. Television made its first debuted in the RCA Pavilion of 1939 World’s Fair located in New York City. The following next two years were followed by the regulation of television by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). They granted the first television station license. Three major networks were operating by the late 1940’s early 1950’s they were CBS, NBC, and ABC in the United States. At that time about nine percent of Americans households had television this equaled to about six million people. This was after World War Two where television began to boom. A decade later about 60 million households had television than by 1965 about 93% of Americans had at least one televisions in their home.

Television became phenomena rather quickly. It was always closely examined even from the very beginning. People have always speculated about it and its content. Some believed very early on that specific programming that was violent influenced children. The government even stepped in and started making investigations with the White house Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. They held meetings on radio and television violence as early as 1952.

Violence and television have always coexisted. “Violence on television may be presented in many different forms and settings. It may be performed by heroic characters or by villains. It may be rewarded, or it may be punished. Violence may occur without much victim pain or suffering, or it may cause tremendous physical anguish. It may be shown close-up or at a distance.” (pg18). Under this assumption about violence on television it may appear that anything on the small screen is violence or therefore anything in life as well. It almost isn’t fair to blame television for increase in violence if to some degree even a positive gesture shown can have traces of violence. As I child I remember watching my favorite super heroes such as batman and super man defeating evil forces through violence to send a positive message. Whether a good or bad message it can be easily seen how children can be influenced to imitate their heroes or villains.




It is a well known fact that violence sells. “Media executies know it. More viewers means higer ratings, which add up more advertising dollars. So, as the National Institute of Mental Health has found, 80% of all television programs contain violent acts. But the violence is like a drug: viewers delevope a tolerence for it, so media “pushers” give them steadly more”(pg26). Today when you trun on your t.v there are numerous crime shows such as CSI, Law and Order and 24 . They all exhibited death and violent acts.
At a young age you cant tell fiction from fact. “Psychologist agree that up to ages 3 and 4, children cant distinguish fact from fantasy on T.V. For them, T.v is a reflection of the world, and it’s not a friendly place. Still, juvenile viewership is high.” (pg 26). This is parenting skills must come into place. You must talk to your child about what is fiction and what is reality. When I was growing up I could distinguish from the two. I knew and understood that television was entertainment but I cannot speak for everyone. I witnessed children who took television literally.
Parents play a major factor between televion violence and their children. My mother personally spoke to me about how entertainment and reality were separate things. I watched many violent cartoons and shows because my televion was never censored by my mother but I always had her guiding me and telling me what was right and wrong. The television was not my educator my parent was. Even if parents don’t have good judgment of televion exposure to their children there are ratings.
Televiosn 13 inches or larger are equipped with a microprocessor called the V-chip. “The FCC has adopted rules requiring all television sets with picture screens 33 centimeters (13 inches) or larger to be equipped with features to block the display of television programming based upon its rating. This technology is known as the "V-Chip." The V-Chip reads information encoded in the rated program and blocks programs from the set based upon the rating selected by the parent”. This helps in the efforts for decreasing any possible way of television creating more violence in society. T.V ratings are also given to all programs to show what age groups are appropriate to watch them. The ratings are TV Y (all children), TV Y7 (directed to older children), TV Y7 FV (directed to older children-fantasy violence), TV G (general audience), TV PG (Parental guidance suggested), TV 14 ( parents strongly cautioned), and TV MA (mature audience). As you can see the ratings go across the whole spectrum of content on TV.
I have to shift the attention to a factor I think is more influential to violence in society and that would have to be music. From personal experience I can say music plays a major in peoples lives. People indentify with music and even dress and act as their idols do as well as behave. Televsion has played a role in music too. There is MTV which is a televison music station. “The rock video is genterating the beat for todays youth”, [ Barry L Sherman and Laurence W. Etling state. They also agrue that] the risee of youth culture over the past thirty years “has been one of the most dramatic aspects of a culture change in American society since the adoptation of motorized travel,” and the music video as displayed on cable channel MTV has been extremely influential in shaoing that culture.” (Pg150). Music has great power in societies. Some can send positive messages and other send violent negative ones. An example of that can be metal rock. Many songs depict killings, bloodshed and fighting. Many concerts have moush pits, which are, people dancing while hitting each other which has become very popular.
Some have said that television no longer is the driving force in influencing today’s youth’s behavior. “In 1989, the American Medical Association released a report that concluded that music is greater influence in the life of a teenager than television.” (Pg151). Music is everywhere. Today it can literally be very single place you are with the introduction of mp3 players. In this case parental control is much harder. “Historically, older generations have railed against supposed decadent and immoral influences in the music their children listened to…such as jazz and rhythm and blues, were once condemned for immoral messages…today the focus is on rock and rap, and major concern is that some songs in these genres encourage and incite young people to violence.” (Pg28). It’s a cycle in every generation. Music and behavioral acts can be linked especially when examining teenagers.
Teenagers who are insecure or have low self-esteem usually turn to music for direction. “Dr. king compared music preferences with participation in violent behavior for 470 adolescents patients over three years. Heavy metal music was the choice of 59 percent admitted for chemical dependency. Of those, 74 percent were involved in violence, 50 percent in stealing, and 71 percent in sexual activity”(pg153). This data from the research shows how much music can promote negative activity by insinuating or out right saying that its okay to do drugs, sexual activities and commit violence. On a much more sad note there have even been suicide notes with lyrics on them. One teens parents went as far as to suing the artist Ozzy Osbourne “ after their son committed suicide while listening to his song:
Where to hide, suicide is the only way out
Don’t you know what its really about.
(“Suicide Solution,” Ozzy Osbourne)

There’s overwhelming evidence that music can be much more impactful than television and they can even work together as I mentioned with MTV. Another growing greater violence advocate is video games.