Role of Media in Social Violence - Essay Example

The youngsters are getting more and more involved in the negative activities of bullying and negative social behaviors at school and offices. These attitudes can be observed since the period of early childhood and it all significantly depends upon the exposure to the media programs that promote violence. Nonetheless, every means of media does not participate in enhancing such attitude but the content which includes violence is notably promoted through movies. Human beings have a mental capability to have continuous learning and their personalities are known to be impacted by the content that they see and read regularly (Escobar-Chaves and Anderson, 147). There are, however, two schools of thought that are arguing about the presence of violence in media. The first one tends to establish that the promotion of violence is aggravating inhumane behaviors in the society and the other one argues that violence in movies helps the community to know about the current negative behaviors in the societies and therefore, provide food of thought for intellects and policymakers that have to develop interventions to manage the problem.

Previous researches depicted the fact that media has a significant correlation with behavior alteration. It is not only stated that media causes bad behavior to increase and people also conceive themselves to follow the demonstrated behaviors on the big-screen. There have been several empirical types of research and surveys that have effectively explored the extent to that media promotes bad behaviors in the community (Huesmann and Taylor, 393) Media content nowadays is intended for the mature audience but due to insignificant control, children have been known to expose to inappropriate material and it causes behavioral disequilibrium and confusion. Media is taken as a threat to public health and if violence is being frequently transmitted without any prominent control method then, the condition will worsen and that is for sure. Media has an impact on people of every age but in the case of children, it works faster and in a deeper sense. The content may include television shows, video games, and movies. According to some recent studies, it has been found that news media also significantly impacts the behaviors of the people (Escobar-Chaves and Anderson, 149).

There are two groups with divergent views about the featured problem. One is in favor of the stance that media has a significant impact on public behavior and it is promoting violence while the other claims that media has been a source for highlighting social problems and therefore, making a positive contribution towards the community. However, researchers have been working with both statements. According to a general view, media has adverse effects on the audience in many regards, for instance, the younger viewers, who watch television 2 hours on an average without any control, suffer from many disorders such as school absenteeism, sleeping disorders, underage sexual relationships and bullying the colleagues at educational institutions (Carnagey and Anderson, et al., 178). Alternative views suggest that this is the problem with viewers’ age limit because the content was not intended for underage. Video games, on the other hand, are intended for kids and these are full of violent activities. Children imitate the activities and stunts which are performed by the heroes of the games and movies which may cause harm as well. Another source of violence is watching wrestling shows (Huesmann and Taylor, 393). Nevertheless, the opposite view states that video games are sources of entertainment and the kids of the 21st century are well aware of the fact. The imitation of heroes helps the children in taking risks in life that will build their character and decision power in the long run.

Conclusively it can be established that media has a significant impact on the behaviors of people in divergent ways. The negative effects of media are more strong than the positive ones. The role of parents in terms of exercising proper and due control over the content that is accessible to their children will go a long way regarding maximizing the benefits and minimizing the costs. These interventions may include controlled access to media channels Parents have to maintain strong checks and balance over the children’s activities so that they may remain safe.