Media Violence

Media Violence

Is media violence the cause of aggressive violent behavior among kids in the United States? I'm going to discuss how media violence plays a major role in violent behaviors. Some would disagree with me by blaming the person performing the violent actions and not the violence in the media. Nearly every kid by the age of 18 has watched almost 200,000 acts of violence on TV. This amazing statistic doesn't even include violence in video games, music or movies.

The first form of media violence that I'm going to discuss is video games. This is one of the hottest topics right now because of certain games that promote stealing cars, nudity, beating people up, robbing and pretty much anything else you could imagine. One of the games that I was mostly referring to is Grand Theft Auto. I have played GTA and it is a very violent game that shows nudity and also promotes stealing cars. A lot of video games send out violent messages that young children should be playing because there minds are still developing and they often have trouble from telling what's real and what's fantasy. Violent video games also lead to aggressive thoughts and behavior. On most violent games now they put an age requirement on the outer package of the game but the problem is young children are still getting their hands on these violent games. To help prove my point even further in 2003 congress introduced H.R. 669, which protects children from violent sex acts as well as violence. As a result of this bill stores are not allowed to sell or rent video games that show sex, nudity or contents that are harmful for minors. One major problem that still arises is stores are still selling violent games to minors and if the store is caught they could receive some sort of penalty.

The next type of media violence is music or music lyrics that has come under much scrutiny. While doing research on the internet I didn't find any scientific studies of how music lyrics relate to violent behavior but after what your about to read you will see how it could relate to violence. There are all sorts of different genres of music but I'm going to focus on rap. The graphic lyrics in rap contain rape, suicide, murdering cops, robbery, violence against women, violence against someone who looks different than you, theft, drug use and so on. The sad thing about it is these rappers are promoting violent actions to young