Television Violence and Children
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The topic chosen for this report is how television (TV) violence exerts an impact on children. For over three decades, researchers and policymakers have conducted extensive research on the short-term and long-term effects of TV violence on children (Krcmar, 1998; Gunter, Charlton, Coles, & Panting, 2000). According to the National Television Violence Study that examined over 10,000 hours of programming from different channels during the period from 1994 to 1997, young people were exposed to 10,000 acts of per year contained in 61 percent of the shows (cited in Villani, 2001). While early studies had concluded that viewing TV violence is positively correlated with aggression, more recent research studies had emphasized the need to adopt more sophisticated approaches by considering the type of violence and its context, as well as the viewers' reactions and interpretations of the violence (Krcmar, 1998; Gunter et al., 2000). This researcher's reason for choosing this topic was to enhance the understanding of the effects of TV violence on children by delving into the underlying psychological mechanisms that affect how viewers interact with the TV violence and interpret it. More important than the identification of the existence of the relationship between TV violence and aggression in children is the need to understand the nature of the child viewers' responsiveness to this programs containing violence. This exploration of the topic thus acknowledges that vie
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also been formulated to address the possible short-term effects of TV violence: "priming and arousal" (Huesmann et al., 2003, p. 202). In the case of priming, the viewing of guns on the TV may trigger a past instance that is associated with aggressive scripts acquired in a different context. As a result, individuals in this instance may respond aggressively within the short-term period after the viewing of the scene. The other short-term effect is related to the feelings of excitability and general arousal that result from viewing violence on TV. The intensity of the physiological responses to the programs may undermine the ability of the mind to control aggressive behavior.
Rather than select specific theories that best explain how exposure to TV violence impacts children, this researcher contends that each of these theories provide a piece of the composite picture that encapsulates the phenomenon. Essentially, some of these theories may be more apt in capturing the relationship for certain individuals than others, depending on their unique characteristics, their demographics, environment, and the type of exposure to TV violence. The findings of two recent empirical studies, which incorporate a variety of measures, demon
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Approximate Word count = 3209
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)
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