Final Statement

Our blog explored a variety of aspects of our argument to ban sex and violence on television. We made sure to focus on sex and violence equally because both of these aspects of television were in our argument. During our research we found that it was easier to find information about banning violence more than banning sex on television. We found several statistics on how when children see violence they are more likely to repeat the same actions that they see on television in real life. We not only discussed how violence on television has affected kids, teens and adults in the past and present, but we talked about how keeping violence on television will affect kids, teens and adults in the future. On the other hand, we also used statistics in the miscellaneous posts to show our viewers how sex on television affects children. For example, shows like Teen moms shows kids that if they are pregnant at a young age that they will be able to become famous. In reality if you get pregnant young there are more cons than there are pros. With the evidence that we have on our blog it shows our viewers that banning sex and violence on television will help our society.

Finding evidence for us to use in our blog about why we shouldn’t ban both sex and violence was a challenge. To have a great argument we knew that we needed to discuss the opposing side to our argument. Not only did we have to find sources that was the opposing side to our argument, but we had to discuss why the opposing side was wrong. There are very few people that disagreed with our argument which made it difficult for us to find resources for our refutation. 

Interestingly enough, writing the refutation only helped us to understand our side of the argument better. While writing the refutation we had to state what the specific article is stating and as well as telling the reader why this article is wrong. The refutation posts was not the only post that helped us to explain why sex and violence should be banned on television. With the miscellaneous posts and the use of social media, twitter, it helped us to get our opinions out to others. When someone comes to our blog they will not only have posts with just writing, but we have videos and pictures that go with each one of our posts. We made sure that our twitter would have our readers a way to interact with us. We used twitter to have true or false questions, as well as statistics and real life examples. 

The biggest takeaway from this assignment would have to be the teamwork that our blog needed to have to be successful. With the different ideas and creative ways that each group member came up with made our blog more successful. We all figured out how to use wordpress to express our opinions on our topic. At first we had trouble figuring out how wordpress worked, but we worked together to organize all of our categories and tags. 

Twitter: True or False

Check out the true or false tweets this week. Feel free to respond with your answers.

 

 

Sex and violence isn’t that bad…Or is it?

Dave Smith wrote an article discussing how children can not get away from sex and violence, especially sex, because commercials and producers will use what ever it takes to sell a product or to gain viewers. Smith makes states several statistics and one of the statistics that stood out the most was, “studies show that the more “real-life” the violence portrayed, the greater the likelihood that it will be “learned.” This statement was made from the American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement. The more violence that is seen on television by young viewers the more likely that they are going to reenact this actions. With the same actions that are being made on television being made in real-life situations the more dangerous our society will become.

Another statistic that smith discusses how violence affects young children. The statistics states that a child younger than 8 years old will not be able to determine what is real-life and not real life. A child under 8 years of age, learn that violence is an acceptable solution to resolving even complex problems, particularly if the aggressor is a hero. When the hero uses aggression the young child may see that it is fine to use aggression in situations that do not need to use aggression. 

The last statistic that stood out in this article states, reducing the amount of time grade-school children spend watching television games and watching television can make them less aggressive toward their peers. Smith went on to discuss that even though parents do have control of what to block what is on television most parents do not do this. As well as children at a young age can figure out the parental codes that parents may put on the television. When children know their parents are not home or know their parents are not paying attention they will turn the television show that their parents do not allow them to watch. 

After reading this article, it is more evidence towards why we are making the argument to ban sex and violence on television. Banning sex and violence on television will help children to be less aggressive towards other children. Children mind is like a sponge and will soak up anything that they may see and hear. Banning sex and violence will help our society to be less violent. 

reference:  http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-all-the-sex-and-violence-in-the-media

Who’s to Blame for Violence on Television

The figure to the left is a poll taken asking “Who do you think have the most responsibility for keeping children from seeing too much sex and violence on televisions and movies these days?” 86% answered with parents having the most responsibility and I agree. Parents need to be the ones who have the ultimate control on what their children watch. It is going to be too hard for television to regulate all the violence that occurs. It is the job of the parents to make sure that their children only view what they want them to see.

Growth of Violence on Television

In this image, one can see the continued growth of violence on television. If violence keeps growing at this rate on television, children will continually be affected. It is the job of parents to make sure they monitor and control what their children are watching on television.

Monkey See, Monkey Do — Violence Effects Kids

The more violence children are exposed to, the more they will think it is normal. Children are becoming “sensitized” to violence on television. They think it is “cool” and “normal”. They are becoming more engaged with this behavior and it is becoming more common in society.

Violence in the Media: Effects on Children

This video really describes how violence on television really affects children. It is a great display of the evolution of violence portrayed in movies and television. The growth of violence put into shows grew based on the growth of technology. It is interesting to see how effect of violence on children grew as scene became more graphic.

 

There is no link between Media and Violence

In the article, “We Worry Too Much About Fictional Violence”, by Jonathon Gotschall, it states that the media has no link to violence. The video games and films that we play and watch do not have a connection to us, as people, to becoming violent or aggressive. Steven Picker who is a scientist that researches violence on television and media states, “we consume more violent entertainment than we ever have before and yet we’ve never been at lower risk of a bloody demise. The more violent entertainment we’ve consumed, the more peaceable and law-abiding we’ve become.” He is stating that the amount of violence on television does not have an effect on how violent people are today, but that the more violence that is on television the more likely we are not to be violent.

With video games today there tends to be more violence that occurs like in call of duty, halo, and grand theft auto. In these video games, Gottschall discusses, that there is a moral to every story or plot that is happening in these virtual games. “Fiction preaches that violence is only acceptable under defined circumstances-to protect the good and the weak from the bad and the strong.” The aim of some of these games are to kill the bad guys and the good guys get rewarded. Gottschall last argument states, “Even if we could keep unstable people from consuming imaginary violence, they could still find plenty of inspiration from the nightly news, history, holy scripture, or their own fevered dreams”. With all that being said, that is why we believe that television should ban violence on television. 

Putting someone on television who has had violently is going to make others believe that it is good to participate in violent behavior because then they would be recognized on television. When kids, teens and adults see these television shows they may believe that they may be seen as hero’s or celebrities. In reality these kids, teens, and adults are killers because of the media. Even though we may be at lower risk of a bloody demise that doesn’t mean that people have not thought about violent acts. The more that violent acts are shown on television the more the people are reminded that they could act violently. In just video games alone, 89% of the top-selling video games contain violence, about half of all games contain serious violence, and 17% feature violence as the primary focus of the game. If 9 out of 10 video games are violent then how many television shows and movies have violent context in them? 

Reference:

http://edge.org/response-detail/23745

Is nudity, sex, and violence good to show on television?

http://voices.yahoo.com/is-there-too-much-sex-drugs-violence-television-4980506.html

This article discusses different television shows like MTV and the different shows that it shows.

Violence is not glamourous

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-fall-the-glamour-of-sexual-violence-as-only-seen-on-tv-8633392.html

Violence on television is some what portrayed glamourous, but in real life violence is not glamourous.