THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA'S VIOLENCE ON THE BEHAVIOR OF CHILDREN:-
When children are taught how to tie their shoes, it is because of how their parents showed them. When children are taught how to do math problems, it is because of how their teachers showed them.
So with all of these role models, why is there so much violence? It is because children learn from what they see, even if it's on the big screen. Violence in the movies should have strict regulation because it has negative effects on the behavior of children.
First, we must define the "negative effects" of children's behavior. "In 1991, children under the age of ten committed more than 1000 acts of aggravated assault and 81 cases of forcible rape. Juveniles 12 and under committed ...murder, robbery, larceny-theft, and forcible rape"(Bennett 32). Generally, we can all assume that the aforementioned crimes are wrong,but the fact that they were committed by children, shows a fault in the society. It is hard to believe that simply viewing a movie could be so detrimental to children. But there is indeed evidence of specific reenactments of actions in movies. Evidence "...comes in the configuration of corpses, mutilated by disturbed teenagers to resemble victims in slasher movies..."(Violence in America Bender&Leone 163). If movies are so bad for children, wouldn't it be easy to just not allow children to see "violent" movies? This seems to be a simple solution, but one that cannot work for many reasons. The main reason is, mainstream movies that do well in the box office tend to air on public television. "We now view movies on television replete with graphic sickening violence. Some television stations now show these movies in the early evening, when children could be watching"(Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society Tipper Gore 60). Unfortunately, most of these movies are extremely violent, containing graphic sex scenes, bad language, and of course violent deaths. From his book, The Index of Cultural Indicators, William Bennett says, "The following are the approximate number of deaths recorded in five popular movies:
MOVIE DEATH COUNT
Die Hard 2 264
Rambo 3 106
The Wild Bunch 89
Robocop 2 74
Total Recall 74
New movies are just as packed with violence. In the movie Natural Born Killers, by Oliver Stone, a young couple named Mickey and Mallory fall in love. Being so carefree, as young lovers are, they terrorize the country by killing people for sport. Mickey ends up in jail, starts a riot in the jail, kills MORE people, and escapes to return with Mallory. There is excessive violence throughout the entire movie and it portrays violence and murder as a comical subject.
It's not just the movies that are dangerous, but also the commercials for the movies. A commercial during a Saturday morning cartoon show advertized a Clint Eastwood festival with captions from a movie containing a graphic murder scene.(Gore 60)
Throughout the past thirty years, violence in the media has increased, and so has violence in our society among young people. "The fastest growing segment of the criminal population is our children"(Bennett 30). There have been several tests conducted over the past three decades determining what causes social violence.
The National Committee on the causes and prevention of violence reported in 1969 that violence in the media had a negative effect on children. Violent films encourage violent forms of behavior and promotes violence in daily life as being acceptable. Professor Malamuth, chairman of communications studies at the University of California and Professor Edward Donnerstein, a psychologist at the Center for Communications Research at the University of Wisconsin, have both conducted studies that suggest viewers of media violence are detrimentally affected.
Many psychologists seem to agree that the more violence viewed, the more accepting children are of violence, the more it desensitizes them, and the more likely they are to become violent. Dr. Eron and Huesman of the University of Ilinois did a 22 year study of violent behavior due to "a diet of violent entertainment."
The quarter of the children with the heaviest exposure to violence in 1960 at ages nine and ten were found to be convicted of of criminal offences during their adult lives 150% more often than the quarter of children with the smallest exposure to violent entertainment.
Violence has been prominent in film for many years and has not subsided to say the least. There are obvious negative effects on children who view violent films, varying from petty theft to murder and rape. Children should be taught to not watch violent films and parents should discuss with their children the dangers of watching violent films.
Media's Effect On Girls: Body Image And Gender Identity:-
Did you know?
Gender identity begins in toddlerhood (identifying self as a girl or boy) with gender roles being assigned to tasks early in the preschool years (Durkin, 1998).
A child's body image develops as the result of many influences:
A newborn begins immediately to explore what her body feels like and can do. This process continues her whole life.
A child's body image is influenced by how people around her react to her body and how she looks.
A pre-adolescent becomes increasingly aware of what society's standards are for the "ideal body."
Media's Effect on Body Image
The popular media (television, movies, magazines, etc.) have, since World War II, increasingly held up a thinner and thinner body (and now ever more physically fit) image as the ideal for women. The ideal man is also presented as trim, but muscular.
In a survey of girls 9 and 10 years old, 40% have tried to lose weight, according to an ongoing study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (USA Today, 1996).
A 1996 study found that the amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos is associated with their degree of body dissatisfaction and desire to be thin (Tiggemann & Pickering, 1996).
One author reports that at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are "unhappy with their bodies." This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen (Brumberg, 1997).
In a study among undergraduates media consumption was positively associated with a strive for thinness among men and body dissatisfaction among women (Harrison & Cantor, 1997).
Teen-age girls who viewed commercials depicting women who modeled the unrealistically thin-ideal type of beauty caused adolescent girls to feel less confident, more angry and more dissatisfied with their weight and appearance (Hargreaves, 2002).
In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends" (Mundell, 2002).
In another recent study on media's impact on adolescent body dissatisfaction, two researchers found that:
Teens who watched soaps and TV shows that emphasized the ideal body typed reported higher sense of body dissatisfaction. This was also true for girls who watched music videos.
Reading magazines for teen girls or women also correlated with body dissatisfaction for girls.
Identification with television stars (for girls and boys), and models (girls) or athletes (boys), positively correlated with body dissatisfaction (Hofschire & Greenberg, 2002). Media's Effect on Gender Identity
Many children watch between two and four hours of television per day. The presence or absence of role models, how women and men, girls and boys are presented, and what activities they participate in on the screen powerfully affect how girls and boys view their role in the world. Studies looking at cartoons, regular television, and commercials show that although many changes have occurred and girls, in particular have a wider range of role models, for girls "how they look" is more important than "what they do."
In a 1997 study designed to study how children described the roles of cartoon characters, children (ages four to nine) "perceived most cartoon characters in stereotypical ways: boys were violent and active and girls were domestic, interested in boys, and concerned with appearances" (Thompson, 1997).
Children suffer from parental meth addiction
Thousands affected in nation's heartland
OTTUMWA, Iowa - Jittery babies, mistreated toddlers, strung-out mothers: Cheryll Jones’ pediatric nursing practice is far from what it was when she started out 30 years ago — long before methamphetamine invaded this riverside Corn Belt town. 
“If anybody told me my primary caseload would be kids exposed to illicit drugs, I’d have said they were crazy,” said Jones, who now runs a local task force helping the most helpless victims of the nation’s meth epidemic — small children whose parents make and use the highly addictive drug.
The scars are inflicted in myriad ways: Exposure to the drug in the womb, contamination from toxic chemicals used in home-based meth manufacture, explosions and fires, long-term neglect from parents obsessed with their drug habits, physical abuse and sexual abuse. Many of the meth-lab homes are filthy, often strewn with drug paraphernalia and pornography; meth-making chemicals have been found in diaper bags and toy chests.
The Psychological Effects of Media Violence on Children and Adolescents :-
Research on media violence is often misunderstood by the general public. One reason has to do with research methodology. We can't randomly assign children early in their lives to watch different doses of violence on television and then 15 years later see which children committed violent crimes. But the same type of limitation also exists for medical research: We can't randomly assign groups of people to smoke differing amounts of cigarettes for 15 years, and then count the number of people who developed cancer.
Tobacco researchers conduct correlational studies in which they look at the amount people have smoked during their lives and then chart the rate at which they have succumbed to cancer. They control statistically for other factors, of course--other healthy and unhealthy behaviors that either reduce or promote the tendency to develop cancer. Then they can find out whether smoking contributed to cancer, over and above these other influences. And since they can't do cancer experiments on people, they use animal studies. These are artificial, but they tell us something about the short-term effects of tobacco that can't be found from correlational studies. Putting the two types of research together, we now have powerful data about the effects of smoking on the development of cancer.
Similarly, media violence researchers do longitudinal studies of children's media exposure and look at the types of behaviors they engage in over time. They also control for other factors, such as previous aggressiveness, family problems, and the like(1). They don't look at media violence in a vacuum; they examine whether there is a correlation between television viewing and violent behavior, even controlling for other influences. They also do experiments. Like the animal experiments for cancer, these are not natural situations, but such experiments fill the gaps they cannot fill otherwise. Experiments are designed to show short-term effects, like increases in hostility or more accepting attitudes toward violence--changes that we know increase the likelihood of violent actions, both in the short term and in the long run.
A second reason for the misunderstanding of the media-violence work is that most public discussions of the problem focus on criminal violence and ignore the other unhealthy outcomes that affect many more children. In an attempt to clarify the issues, I will first discuss the research consensus about some of the major consequences of exposure to media violence, illustrating the general trends in the data with specific studies that make the outcomes more comprehensible. I will then discuss some of the implications of these findings for parents and educators, and for society at large.
Effects of Media Violence on Aggression, Desensitization, and Interpersonal Hostility :-
Most of the research and public attention has focused on the important question of whether viewing violence in the media makes children and adolescents more violent. The question is not, of course, whether media violence causes violence, but whether viewing violence contributes to the likelihood that someone will commit violence or increases the severity of violence when it's committed. The most direct and obvious way in which viewing violence contributes to violent behavior is through imitation or social learning. There is a wealth of psychological research demonstrating that learning often occurs through imitation, and, of course, most parents know that children imitate televised words and actions from an early age. Media apologists, who cannot deny that imitation sometimes happens, try to argue that the effects are trivial because children know better than to imitate anything that's really harmful. We are all familiar with incidents in which criminal and lethal violence has had an uncanny resemblance to a scene in a movie. However, any crime is the result of many influences acting together, and skeptics and even researchers will point out that isolated anecdotes cannot be generalized to society at large. Because most children are so fully immersed in our media culture, it is usually difficult to link a specific media program to a specific harmful outcome, even though some similarities between media scenarios and subsequent acts seem too close to be considered coincidences.(2)
Once in a while researchers get the chance to conduct a "natural experiment" that makes a vivid and compelling point in a systematic and rigorous fashion. This happened in the mid 1990's in Israel, shortly after World Wrestling Federation was introduced to Israeli TV. Noting news reports that this program had resulted in a crisis of playground injuries in schools, Dafna Lemish of Tel Aviv University conducted a nationwide survey of elementary school principals, with follow-up questionnaires of teachers and students in selected schools.(3) What Lemish found was that more than half of the principals responding to her survey reported that WWF-type fighting had created problems in their schools. The principals had no trouble distinguishing the imitative behavior they were suddenly seeing from the martial-arts type behaviors that had occurred prior to the arrival of WWF. The new behaviors occurred during re-creations of specific wrestling matches that had aired, and included banging heads, throwing opponents to the floor and jumping onto them from furniture, poking their eyes with fingers, pulling their hair, and grabbing their genital areas. Almost half of the responding principals reported that these new behaviors had necessitated first aid within the school, and almost one fourth reported injuries (including broken bones, loss of consciousness, and concussions) that required emergency room visits or professional medical care. Although most of the children involved were old enough to know that the wrestling they were watching was fake, this knowledge did not stop many of them from trying out the moves themselves. The mayhem continued throughout Israel until programmers agreed to reduce the frequency with which WWF appeared, and until schools initiated media literacy programs designed to counteract the program's effects. During the past few years, there have been news reports of groups of children imitating WWF matches in the United States,(4) and of physicians dealing with the consequences of such imitation on a regular basis.(5)
More disturbingly, studies have reported that desensitization leads children to wait longer to call an adult to intervene in a witnessed physical altercation between peers,(7) and results in a reduction in sympathy for the victims of domestic abuse.(8) Few people would argue that these are healthy outcomes. Today's youth have greater opportunities for desensitization to media violence than ever before. We now have so many television channels, so many movies on video, and so many video- , computer-, and Internet-based games available, that media-violence aficionados have a virtually limitless supply and can play intensely gruesome images over and over, often in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
A third common outcome of viewing violence is an increase in hostile feelings. Some people argue that the well-substantiated correlation between chronic hostility and violence viewing simply shows that people who are already hostile are more likely to choose violence as entertainment. Well, it=s true that violent, hostile people are more attracted to media violence,(9) but research shows that the relationship goes both ways. A 1992 field investigation(10)
National Institute on Out-of-School Time:
In 69% of all married-couple families with
children ages 6-17, both parents work outside of
the home. In 79% of single-mother families and
84% of single-father families with children ages
6-17, the custodial parent works outside of the
home (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001).
Overweight children and adolescents are at an
increased risk of developing type II diabetes,
cardiovascular problems, orthopedic
abnormalities, gout, arthritis, and skin problems.
Being overweight also is likely to negatively
affect children's social and psychological
development and it has been linked to the
premature onset of puberty
The more violence children watch on TV, the
more likely they are to behave in aggressive or
harmful ways toward others, become less
sensitive to others' pain and suffering, be more
fearful of the world around them, and increase
their appetite for violence in entertainment and
in real life (Center for Media Education, 1997;
American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001).
Results from the 2002 Monitoring the Future
study of 44,000 8th, 10th and 12th graders
showed that more than half of 12th graders have
used an illicit drug, 30% have used some drug
other than marijuana and 11% have used
ecstasy. Percentages of 8th and 10th graders
using any illicit drug declined and were at their
lowest level since 1993 and 1995 respectively.
Cigarette smoking has declined 50% in each
grade since its peak in 1996 (NIDA & NIH,
2002).
Despite a steady growth in the juvenile
population over the past decade, there has been
a 23% drop in juvenile violent crime arrests
since 1996. In 2000, juveniles accounted for
12.2% of arrests for serious violent crime, down
4.4% from 1999. This decline is due in
significant part to the nearly 43 percent decline
in violent crime arrests of black youths, the
largest decline among represented racial groups
(Children's Defense Fund, 2002).
Black youths across all age groups are more
likely to be victims of violent crime than their
white counterparts. Black males ages 15-19 are
murdered at a rate more than seven times that
of white males in the same age group (U.S.
Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2001).
Children and youth spend time after school
in a variety of ways
The best data available indicates that there are
approximately 8 million children ages 5 to 14
that spend time without adult supervision on a
regular basis. This number includes 4 million
children between the ages of 5 and 12 and
What Can Be Done -- and Why It's So Difficult :
The research I've described above provides overwhelming evidence that growing up with unrestricted access to media violence is, in the least, very unhealthy for young people. Nonetheless, media violence comes into our homes automatically through television, and is actively marketed to children and adolescents (even when the content is labeled as appropriate only for "mature" audiences).(32)
Moreover, it is extremely difficult to disseminate the message of media violence's harms. An important component of this difficulty is the fact that violent entertainment is a highly lucrative business and the entertainment industry is loath to communicate information suggesting that its products are harmful. An intriguing analysis by Bushman and Anderson, comparing the cumulative scientific evidence to the way the issue has been reported in the press, revealed that as the evidence for the aggression-promoting effect of media violence has become stronger, news coverage has implied that the relationship was weaker and weaker.(33) 
Parents have been given tools, such as media ratings and filtering devices like the V-chip, but publicity for these tools has been so sporadic that parents have little understanding of what they are or how to use them.(34)
Parents need to receive better information about the effects of media violence, and they need more convenient and reliable means of understanding what to expect in a television program, movie, or video game.
Parents also need information on parenting strategies that will help them counteract some of the negative effects of media violence on their children. Research in cognitive development, for example, has explored effective ways to reassure children who have been frightened by media threats.(35) Strategies for coping with media-induced fears need to be tailored to the age of the child. Up to the age of about seven, nonverbal coping strategies work the best.(36) These include removing children from the scary situation, distracting them, giving them attention and warmth, and desensitization.(37) Eight-year-olds and older can benefit from hearing logical explanations of why they are safe. If what they saw is fantasy, it helps children in this age group to be reminded that what they have seen could never happen.(38)If the program depicts frightening events that can possibly occur, however, it may help to give older children information about why what they have seen cannot happen to them(39) or to give them empowering instructions on how to prevent it from occurring.(40)
As for reducing the aggression-promoting effect of media violence, research is just beginning to explore mediation strategies that can be used by parents and teachers. In a study published in 2000,(41) we tested means of counteracting the effects of classic cartoons, a genre involving nonstop slapstick violence that trivializes the consequences to the victim. This study showed not only that watching a Woody Woodpecker cartoon could increase boys' endorsement of aggressive solutions to problems, but that empathy-promoting instructions could intervene in this effect. Second- through sixth-grade boys were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) a no-mediation group, who watched the cartoon without instructions; (2) a mediation group who were asked, before viewing, to keep in mind the feelings of the man in the cartoon (this was the tree surgeon who was the target of Woody=s attacks); and (3) a control group, who didn't see a cartoon. As is usually found in such studies, the children who had just seen the violent cartoon without instructions scored higher on pro-violence attitudes than those in the control condition (showing stronger agreement with statements like, "Sometimes fighting is a good way to get what you want"). However, the children who were asked to think about the victim's feelings showed no such increase in pro-violence attitudes. As a side-effect, this empathy-promoting intervention reduced the degree to which the children found the cartoon funny. An empathy-promoting intervention may therefore have a dual benefit -- intervening in the direct effect of viewing and perhaps reducing future choices of similar fare. More research is needed to explore other ways to intervene in the negative effects of media violence.
In conclusion, media violence has many unhealthy effects on children and adolescents. Even though violence has been and will continue to be a staple of our media environment, it is appropriate to speak out when especially problematic presentations are aired in contexts in which children are likely to see them and when inappropriate programming is actively marketed to vulnerable young people.(42) Although the entertainment industries are mostly concerned with profits, they sometimes react to large-scale criticism, and sponsors and local television stations prefer to avoid public censure.
Most children plug into the world of television long before they enter school: 70% of child-care centers use TV during a typical day. In a year, the average child spends 900 hours in school and nearly 1,023 hours in front of a TV.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), kids in the United States watch about 4 hours of TV a day - even though the AAP guidelines say children older than 2 should watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming.
And, according to the guidelines, children under age 2 should have no "screen time" (TV, DVDs or videotapes, computers, or video games) at all. During the first 2 years, a critical time for brain development, TV can get in the way of exploring, learning, and spending time interacting and playing with parents and others, which helps young children develop the skills they need to grow cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally.
Of course, television, in moderation, can be a good thing: Preschoolers can get help learning the alphabet on public television, grade schoolers can learn about wildlife on nature shows, and parents can keep up with current events on the evening news. No doubt about it - TV can be an excellent educator and entertainer.
But despite its advantages, too much television can be detrimental:
Research has shown that children who consistently spend more than 4 hours per day watching TV are more likely to be overweight.
Kids who view violent events, such as a kidnapping or murder, are also more likely to believe that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them.
Research also indicates that TV consistently reinforces gender-role and racial stereotypes.
Children's advocates are divided when it comes to solutions. Although many urge for more hours per week of educational programming, others assert that no TV is the best solution. And some say it's better for parents to control the use of TV and to teach children that it's for occasional entertainment, not for constant escapism.
That's why it's so important for you to monitor the content of TV programming and set viewing limits to ensure that your child doesn't spend time watching TV that should be spent on other activities, such as playing with friends, exercising, and reading.
Violence
To give you perspective on just how much violence kids see on TV, consider this: The average American child will witness 200,000 violent acts on television by age 18. TV violence sometimes begs for imitation because violence is often demonstrated and promoted as a fun and effective way to get what you want.
And as the AAP points out, many violent acts are perpetrated by the "good guys," whom children have been taught to emulate. Even though children are taught by their parents that it's not right to hit, television says it's OK to bite, hit, or kick if you're the good guy. And even the "bad guys" on TV aren't always held responsible or punished for their actions.
The images children absorb can also leave them traumatized and vulnerable. According to research, children ages 2 to 7 are particularly frightened by scary-looking things like grotesque monsters. Simply telling children that those images aren't real won't console them, because they can't yet distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Kids ages 8 to 12 are frightened by the threat of violence, natural disasters, and the victimization of children, whether those images appear on fictional shows, the news, or reality-based shows. Reasoning with children this age will help them, so it's important to provide reassuring and honest information to help ease your child's fears. However, you may want to avoid letting your child view programs that he or she may find frightening.
Risky Behaviors
TV is chock full of programs and commercials that often depict risky behaviors such as sex and substance abuse as cool, fun, and exciting. And often, there's no discussion about the consequences of drinking alcohol, doing drugs, smoking cigarettes, and having premarital sex.
For example, studies have shown that teens who watch lots of sexual content on TV are more likely to initiate intercourse or participate in other sexual activities earlier than peers who don't watch sexually explicit shows.
Alcohol ads on TV have actually increased over the last few years and more underage children are being exposed to them than ever. A recent study conducted by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at Georgetown University found that the top 15 teen-oriented programs in 2003 had alcohol ads.
And although they've banned cigarette ads on television, kids and teens can still see plenty of people smoking on programs and movies airing on TV. This kind of "product placement" makes behaviors like smoking and drinking alcohol seem acceptable. In fact, kids who watch 5 or more hours of TV per day are far more likely to begin smoking cigarettes than those who watch less than the recommended 2 hours a day.
Obesity
Health experts have long linked excessive TV-watching to obesity - a significant health problem today. While watching TV, children are inactive and tend to snack. They're also bombarded with advertising messages that encourage them to eat unhealthy foods such as potato chips and empty-calorie soft drinks that often become preferred snack foods.
Too much educational TV has the same indirect effect on children's health. Even if children are watching 4 hours of quality educational television, that still means they're not exercising, reading, socializing, or spending time outside.
But studies have shown that decreasing the amount of TV children watched led to less weight gain and lower body mass index (BMI - a measurement derived from someone's weight and height).
Commercials
According to the AAP, children in the United States see 40,000 commercials each year. From the junk food and toy advertisements during Saturday morning cartoons to the appealing promos on the backs of cereal boxes, marketing messages inundate kids of all ages. And to them, everything looks ideal - like something they simply have to have. It all sounds so appealing - often, so much better than it really is.
Under the age of 8 years, most children don't understand that commercials are for selling a product. Children 6 years and under are unable to distinguish program content from commercials, especially if their favorite character is promoting the product. Even older children may need to be reminded of the purpose of advertising.
Of course, it's nearly impossible to eliminate all exposure to marketing messages. You can certainly turn off the TV or at least limit kids' watching time, but they'll still see and hear advertisements for the latest gizmos and must-haves at every turn.
But what you can do is teach your child to be a savvy consumer by talking about what he or she thinks about the products being advertised as you're watching TV together. Ask thought-provoking questions like, "What do you like about that?," "Do you think it's really as good as it looks in that ad?," and "Do you think that's a healthy choice?"
Explain, when your child asks for products he or she sees advertised, that commercials and other ads are designed to make people want things they don't necessarily need. And these ads are often meant to make us think that these products will make us happier somehow. Talking to kids about what things are like in reality can help put things into perspective.
To limit your child's exposure to TV commercials, the AAP recommends that you:
Have your kids watch public television stations (some programs are sponsored - or "brought to you" - by various companies, although the products they sell are rarely shown).
Tape programs - without the commercials.
Buy or rent children's videos or DVDs.
Understanding TV Ratings and the V-Chip
Two ways you can help monitor what your child watches are:
TV Parental Guidelines. Modeled after the movie rating system, this is an age-group rating system developed for TV programs. These ratings are listed in television guides, TV listings in your local newspaper, and on the screen in your cable program guide. They also appear in the upper left-hand corner of the screen during the first 15 seconds of TV programs. But not all channels offer the rating system. For those that do, the ratings are:
TV-Y: suitable for all children
TV-Y7: directed toward kids 7 years and older (children who are able to distinguish between make-believe and reality); may contain "mild fantasy violence or comedic violence" that may scare younger kids
TV-Y7-FV: fantasy violence may be more intense in these programs than others in the TV-Y7 rating
TVG: suitable for a general audience; not directed specifically toward children, but contains little to no violence, sexual dialogue or content, or strong language
TV-PG: parental guidance suggested; may contain an inappropriate theme for younger children and contains one or more of the following: moderate violence (V), some sexual situations (S), occasional strong language (L), and some suggestive dialogue (D)
TV-14: parents strongly cautioned - suitable for only children over the age of 14; contains one or more of the following: intense violence (V), intense sexual situations (S), strong language (L), and intensely suggestive dialogue
TV-MA: designed for adults and may be unsuitable for kids under 17; contains one or more of the following: graphic violence (V), strong sexual activity (S), and/and crude language (L)
V-chip (V is for "violence"). This technology was designed to enable you to block television programs and movies you don't want your child to see. All new TV sets that have screens of 13" or more now have internal V-chips, but set-top boxes are available for TVs made before 2000. So how exactly does the V-chip work? It allows you to program your TV to display only the appropriately-rated shows - blocking out any other, more mature shows.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires that V-chips in new TVs recognize the TV Parental Guidelines and the age-group rating system and block those programs that don't adhere to these standards.
For many, the rating system and V-chip may be valuable tools. But there is some concern that the system may be worse than no system at all. For example, research shows that preteen and teen boys are more likely to want to see a program if it's rated MA (mature audience) than if it's PG (parental guidance suggested). And parents may rely too heavily on these tools and stop monitoring what their children are watching.
Also, broadcast news, sports, and commercials aren't rated, although they often present depictions of violence and sexuality. The rating system also doesn't satisfy some family advocates who complain that they fail to give enough information about a program's content to allow parents to make informed decisions about whether a show is appropriate for their child.
So even if you've used the V-chip to program your TV or a show features the age-group ratings, it's still important to preview shows to determine whether they're appropriate for your child and turn off the TV if the content becomes inappropriate for your child.
Teaching Your Child Good TV Habits
Here are some practical ways you can make TV-viewing more productive in your home:
Limit the number of TV-watching hours:
Stock the room in which you have your TV with plenty of other non-screen entertainment (books, kids' magazines, toys, puzzles, board games, etc.) to encourage your child to do something other than watch the tube.
Keep TVs out of your child's bedroom.
Turn the TV off during meals.
Don't allow your child to watch TV while doing homework.
Treat TV as a privilege that your child needs to earn - not a right to which he or she is entitled. Tell your child that TV-viewing is allowed only after chores and homework are completed.
Try a weekday ban. Schoolwork, sports activities, and job responsibilities make it tough to find extra family time during the week. Record weekday shows or save TV time for weekends, and you'll have more family togetherness time to spend on meals, games, physical activity, and reading during the week.
Set a good example by limiting your own television viewing.
Check the TV listings and program reviews ahead of time for programs your family can watch together (i.e., developmentally appropriate and nonviolent programs that reinforce your family's values). Choose shows, says the AAP, that foster interest and learning in hobbies and education (reading, science, etc.).
Preview programs before your child watches them.
Come up with a family TV schedule that you all agree upon each week. Then, post the schedule in a visible area (i.e., on the refrigerator) somewhere around the house so that everyone knows which programs are OK to watch and when. And make sure to turn off the TV when the "scheduled" program is over, instead of channel surfing until something gets your or your child's interest.
Watch TV with your child. If you can't sit through the whole program, at least watch the first few minutes to assess the tone and appropriateness, then check in throughout the show.
Talk to your child about what he or she sees on TV and share your own beliefs and values. If something you don't approve of appears on the screen, you can turn off the TV, then use the opportunity to ask your child thought-provoking questions such as, "Do you think it was OK when those men got in that fight? What else could they have done? What would you have done?" Or, "What do you think about how those teenagers were acting at that party? Do you think what they were doing was wrong?" If certain people or characters are mistreated or discriminated against, talk about why it's important to treat everyone equal, despite their differences. You can use TV to explain confusing situations and express your feelings about difficult topics (sex, love, drugs, alcohol, smoking, work, behavior, family life). Teach your child to question and learn from what he or she views on TV.
Talk to other parents, your child's doctor, and your child's teachers about their TV-watching policies and kid-friendly programs they'd recommend.
Offer fun alternatives to television. If your child wants to watch TV, but you want him or her to turn off the tube, suggest that you and your child play a board game, start a game of hide and seek, play outside, read, work on crafts or hobbies, or listen and dance to music. The possibilities for fun without the tube are endless - so turn off the TV and enjoy the quality time you'll have to spend with your child
School violence, which was little heard of until the 1999 Columbine, Colorado, school shootings, is in the headlines again. Most recently, the devastating massacre at Virginia Tech, where a student killed more than 30 other students and instructors before taking his own life, has brought school violence to the fore.
As terrible and frightening as incidents like these are, they are rare. Although it may not seem that way, the rate of crime involving physical harm has been declining at U.S. schools since the early 1990s.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fewer than 1% of all homicides among school-age children happen on school grounds or on the way to and from school. The vast majority of students will never experience violence at school or in college.
Still, it's natural for kids and teens — no matter where they go to school — to worry about whether this type of incident may someday affect them. How can you help them deal with these fears? Talking with kids about these tragedies, and what they watch or hear about them, will help put frightening information into a more balanced context.
Reaching Out to Your Kids
It's important for kids to feel like they can share their feelings, and know that their fears and anxieties are understandable.
Rather than waiting for your child to approach you, consider starting the conversation. Ask kids what they understand about these incidents and how they feel about them.
Share your own feelings too — during a tragedy, kids may look to adults for their reactions. It helps kids to know that they are not alone in their anxieties. Knowing that their parents have similar feelings will help kids legitimize their own.
At the same time, kids often need parents to help them feel safe. It may help to discuss in concrete terms what you have done and what the school is doing to help protect its students.
What Schools Are Doing
Many schools are taking extra precautions to keep students safe. Some schools have focused on keeping weapons out by conducting random locker and bag checks, limiting entry and exit points at the school, and keeping the entryways under teacher supervision. Other schools use metal detectors.
Lessons on conflict resolution have also been added to many schools' courses to help prevent troubled students from resorting to violence. Peer counseling and active peer programs have also helped students become more aware of the signs that a fellow student may be becoming more troubled or violent.
Another thing that helps make schools safer is greater awareness of problems like bullying and discrimination. Many schools now have programs to fight these problems, and teachers and administrators know more about protecting students from violence.
vulgarity & in cinema and its impact on society and children:
recently it has been noticed that vulgarity in Indian cinema is increasing a lot. India, known for its rich cultural values inherited from thousands of years of tradition and ethical values , is now going thru a very different phase. On one side India is growing fast economically and globally and on other side our cultural values are dying. Due to sudden and fast exposure to west, in its endeavour to copy western lifestyle, our younger generation have gone much ahead of west without understanding it properly, we should have taken good things of west , instead we are taking all bad things first and one direct impact is that vulgarity in India cinema have gone up considerably which is directtly effective minds of not only kids but adults also. Over exposure of bodies , increase in nudity and vulgar gestures have increased a lot in the name of freedom. Because of this our present generation have become just confused and is no where, neither they are fully western and nor they are left indian. They think that by wearing less clothes and showing bare body and by exposing vulgar movements of body like gyration of hips , sensual expressions etc , they have become modern. It is absolutely wrong, modernism is by thoughts and your thinking and not of bare bodies and vulgarity. I am not against personal freedom, it should be there, but in a proper way.for example what is the need of showing sexual foreplay in the songs, what is the need of showing hot sensual foreplay scenes and gestures and movements in songs , what is the need of showing very vulgar movements of men and women and also abusive language. Indian cinema is known and resptected for high quality music and it is a most powerful and most popular medium of family entertainment in India and is watched by all family members including kids, songs are also watched on TV more then movies, now think what effect it will have on children who are not supposed to be exposed to all these adult entertainments before a certain age. World wide adult entertainments are not allowed and is not considered proper to be exposed to kids, but in India we are showing it on mass media in songs ??? will it not vitiate the thinking of kids, will they not behave abnormally, songs have become like a soft porno movie !! is it good for our children or society ??? We all are humnans and have all kinds of need including sexual desires I am not against sexual freedom and adult entertainment but it should not be exposed to kids, we can have separate adult channels which are paid and kids do not have access to that. Indian govt should check it, otherwise our next generation shall be weak and perverted. It not only effect young children and kids but also adults and teenagers, there is already alarming increase in the rate of rapes and sexual crime in India, including New delhi, which is now not safe for women of any age. Every day on media we see rape and sexual abuse reports of female of all ages , right from 15 days old to 60 year old and these crimes are committed mostly by young boys, don't you think that it is direct result of this improper overexposure of sex and vulgarity in mass media and cinema. I feel that india have gone much ahead of USA in the effort to copy USA, they should have taken other many many good things from USA which are healthy and good for progress , its a pity and shame,why can't we make our own style strong and let the world follow it like they respect us for our rich culture, love&peace, yoga, respect for women, Information technology and for intelligent and sharp minds .
Sex and Kids :
Children and sex are inextricably linked in the conservative imagination. They are the lure and the fear, the bait and the trap, a measure of how far decent social behavior has gone down the tubes, of how a morally corrupt liberal social agenda has replaced God-fearing purity. Whether the issue is sex education, the banning of pornography, condom distribution in schools, or the specter of day-care centers overrun by ritual satanic abusers, the linkage of kids and sex is sure to make headlines, tempers boil, and, unfortunately, bad social policy. But there are plenty of situations where the linkage of kids and sex raises scarcely an eyebrow on the right or the left.
Think of those numerous ads in the
New York Times Magazine that feature pubescent boys and girls in scanty, sexy summer clothes by Calvin Klein or Gap. Think of TV soap advertising (particularly Ivory) that depict daddies and children frolicking naked in the bathtub. Or the Fruit of the Loom ad featuring a drop-dead hunk of a dad and his 6-year-old son walking hand-in-hand in their undies to take a morning leak together. Think about 60 years of the Coppertone ad where a dog is pulling a little girl's bathing suit down, exposing her left buttock. Kids and sex have always been a staple in advertising.
In the past Hollywood films have been careful about children and sexuality. Films like Lolita and Baby Doll--both early 1960s--knew they were breaking taboos when they ventured into this territory. Films in the 1970s and 1980s seemed more concerned with presenting children as instruments of evil (The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen) than as sexual, although in our culture evil and sexuality are undoubtedly linked. But recently kids and sex have reappeared in Hollywood films. The Little Rascals positions its grotesque children in highly sexualized, adult poses. Interview With The Vampire gives us a nine-year-old vampire girl with the sexuality of an adult. The Professional, in its original version, was so explicit about the sexual tension between a 12-year-old girl and a 38-year-old hit-man that the more overt sexuality was cut for U.S. distribution. No doubt about it, kids and sexuality are becoming acceptable fare for mainstream movies.
Ironically, this acceptance seems to go against the grain of current social policy and political thought. Look at a recent action by Janet Reno in a "kiddy-porn" case that is on its way to the Supreme Court. Several years ago, a Pennsylvania State University graduate student ordered video tapes through the mail containing images of young girls on a beach. Although clothed in bathing suits the girls were video-taped in a sexual manner with lingering shots of the (clothed) pubic region. The graduate student was charged with violating a 1978 Federal child porn law which makes it a crime to receive or distribute pictures of minors engaged in a "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area." The graduate student appealed--and lost--his argument being that the existing law, and its repeated interpretations, stipulated that the minors be nude, or at the very least that their genitals be visible under clothing. When Solicitor General Drew S. Days reviewed the Supreme Court brief for the Administration he agreed with the defense, disagreed with the lower court rulings, and stuck to the traditional reading of the law. His decision was intended to preserve the child pornography law by not allowing it to be so broadly interpreted as to be unconstitutional.
The moderate and far-right then accused the Clinton administration of being soft on child porn. Their campaign escalated until the Senate was forced to deal with the issue. All 100 members voted for a resolution condemning the Days brief, stating that it did not reflect Congressional understanding of the scope and intent of the original 1978 law. Several months ago, Attorney General Janet Reno submitted a brief to the Supreme Court in which she endorsed the constitutionality of the State Appeals Court. Arguing that "neither nudity or discernability of the genitals through clothing is a required element of the offense" she added "I believe that the government must argue for that legitimate interpretation of the statute, which prohibits the receipt and possession of child pornography to the maximum extant allowed under the Constitution." In an unusual action the administration's brief was submitted to the Court signed by Attorney General Reno, not Solicitor General Days. Reno added in her statement: "As I am ultimately responsible for the positions taken by the United States, the brief filed today adopts the interpretation made by the Third Circuit, which I believe to be the correct one. For this reason it bears my signature rather than that of the Solicitor General."
So what does all this mean? The law states that minors in child porn must engage in "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area." Yet in this case the video tapes in question were of clothed children who were apparently unaware that they were being video-taped. The defining element in the "obscenity" here is based more on intent and the perception of the viewer rather then on the material itself. Under the new, broader interpretation other factors might enter into the evaluation of what constitutes child pornography: context, narrative, effect on the viewer, even differing cultural standards.
It has always been hard to talk about kids and sex. We have few guidelines and even fewer cultural support systems that allow us to think honestly about the sexuality of children, exploitation, responsibility, and cultural norms. What we do have, however, is a media and a culture that is obsessed with kids and sex, with representations of sex and innocence, with images of child sexual titillation, and the dangerous, taboo pleasures of sexual menace.
Children film sex on their mobiles:
Children are using mobile phones to film each other having sex and are then sending the images to classmates, reports The Sunday Times.
"Experts say the trend is growing and draw comparisons to the “happy slapping” craze in which children use mobile phone cameras to film assaults on members of the public.
Two weeks ago a 13-year-old boy was caught with footage on his mobile phone of two fellow pupils aged 15 having sex near their school in Warwickshire.
In another case last summer a 16-year-old boy used his mobile phone to film a 14-year-old girl having sex in a bedroom at a house party in Perth and sent the images to his school friends.
Some blame the trend on the ease with which children can access pornography on the internet or mobiles, so they become desensitised to images normally regarded as shocking.
Andrew Durham, a consultant practitioner at the Sexualised Inappropriate Behaviours Service, which deals with children’s sexual problems, said: “It is now a feature within young people’s culture that these incidences get filmed. It is similar to the way people use phones to film others being assaulted.”
... Experts believe many children are unaware that sending pornographic images can fall foul of the law.
Last month, in one of the first such court cases, a 16-year old boy admitted passing on video footage of a friend having sex with an underage girl. "
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Today, 99 percent of American homes have a television and 87 percent a VCR, 54 percent of children have a television and video games in their bedrooms, and watching videos is America’s
favorite leisure activity. The average American child consumes media for 6 hours and 43minutes each day, spending twice as much time each year with media as they do in school. Video
games generate $10 billion in earnings a year, more than the motion picture industry. Children
average 90 minutes of video gaming per day and fantasy violence games are the most popular among children from the fourth grade on. Given what we know through research, why is violence marketed to children? To quote Dr. David Walsh, author of Selling out America’s
Children, “Violent entertainment is aimed at children because it is profitable. Questions of right or wrong, beneficial or harmful, are not considered. The only question is ‘Will it sell?’”
Entertainment media are a major industry in the United States and our number one export to the rest of the world. The entertainment industry is not only economically important, but it carries
powerful messages, messages of who we are, how we live, and what we dream. It represents the spirit and culture of America - to ourselves, to the world, and to history. It is a powerful tool, a
tool that we should not use casually. As medical professionals, pediatricians want parents and the entertainment industry to understand that films, video games, music, television programs and the
Internet can have powerful effects on child health. They can be used to teach wonderful, enlightening and entertaining lessons to children but also can show graphically violent, cruel, and terrifying images that can lead to aggressive behavior in some children and nightmares, fearfulness or other emotional disturbances in others. Free speech and open discussion of society’s concerns protect our liberty. We do not want
censorship, which is both unconstitutional and ultimately unsuccessful in a free society. However, as U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) asserted, “Free expression does not necessarily have to lead to moral chaos. Let us join together in finding ways to help parents raise their children to be good, productive citizens.” We must approach the media
and their potential health effects on children as a reality of contemporary life. With this in mind, we need to decide what sort of life we want that to be.
Parents, health professionals, policymakers and the entertainment industry each bear someresponsibility. For example, parents should ensure that their children are thoughtful, critical consumers of media. They should set content and time limits on media use, monitor and discuss
the media their children consume, and take TVs and video games out of the children’s bedrooms.
Health care professionals need to recognize the effects of media on child health and ask abou media use as part of their evaluation of health risks. Pediatricians should alert and educate parents when positive media opportunities arise, either educational or informational. Policymakers need to enforce and in some cases, strengthen laws and regulations that protect
children as media consumers. They should increase the funding available for media research and support media education programs in American schools that have been demonstrated to be
effective. Lastly, the entertainment industry needs to acknowledge that it is an important and powerful force in American society, one that affects all of us in many ways. Its products have both positive and negative effects on children and their health. Too often scientific research on the
effects of media on children and adolescents is ignored or denied by some in the entertainment
industry. Yet the leading medical groups in this country, including the American Academy of
Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, AmericanPsychological Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry---representing more than half a million health professionals---all echo the same conclusion. In July, these organizations issued a joint
statement on the impact of entertainment violence on children. The conclusion, based on decades of research, is that viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children. It is time for everyone in the entertainment industry to join us in protecting and promoting the health of our children.
If the entertainment industry accepts our invitation, we can start talking about reasonable and practical solutions, none of which has to do with bans, censorship or restrictions on creative
activities. For example, pediatricians in California volunteer their time to work with writers and producers in conveying child health issues accurately and appropriately in television shows and
movies. We hope media producers will use the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Media Resource Team’s offer to serve as a resource for accurate information on pediatric medicine and child and family health and well-being. Many in the entertainment industry are parents,
grandparents, aunts or uncles themselves. As individuals they care deeply about children and youth. We are simply asking them to take their personal values into the workplace as they pursue
their business of selling movies, games and music. Though many producers and consumers of entertainment media express helplessness to change the flood of violence, this problem will only be solved through caring people—media producers and media consumers--deciding to reject violent media. As the entertainment audience, we must focus on what we want our young people
to learn and how we want them to behave. To do so, we must support positive entertainment products and reject negative and dangerous media products. To extend the philosophy of a wonderful movie, Field of Dreams, “If you do not come, they will not build it.”
MEDIA MATTERS
In order for children and adolescents to be protected from the damaging effects of media, they must learn to “read” and understand media messages for what they are, rather than passively
accepting them at face value. If they are media literate, young people can consume and enjoy media, embracing positive content and rejecting negative, hurtful, or dangerous material. Media
education teaches us to be selective, critical viewers who make informed choices and can evaluate and modulate media’s effect on ourselves and on society.
Media Matters, a national public education campaign launched three years ago by the American Academy of Pediatrics, helps pediatricians, parents and children become more aware of the
influence that media have on child and adolescent health. Through lecturing at medical schools, speaking to families, visiting elementary schools, and addressing community groups, AAP
members have been raising important issues of concern such as the media’s relationship to violent behavior and aggression, substance abuse, obesity and poor body-image.
CONCLUSION
Ultimately, we are all in this together and we should seek a collective solution. Parents, health professionals, the entertainment industry and policymakers have critical roles in discussing and addressing the increasing amount of media violence in society, particularly when it comes to the health of children and adolescents. We are a society with great resources, economic and human.
We have been very successful at developing and preserving our economic resources. The American entertainment industry has plenty of creativity, innovation and vision. They can respond to the FTC report findings and stop the marketing of violent to our youth. They can make socially responsible entertainment and they can make money, preserving economic
resources. Given the overwhelming body of research indicating the danger posed by media violence to the normal, healthy development of our human resources, we need to focus onnurturing and preserving those resources, our children and our nation’s future.
