Violence in Media

"Media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts." (The Influence Of Media Violence On Youth, Wartella) The way that violence in the media can affect children more quickly is by short- term exposure. "Short term exposure increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions and it triggers an automatic tendency to imitate observed behaviors." (The Influence Of Media Violence On Youth, Wartella) Children can commit bad acts as they are young, they can think about bullying others and being mean to people and they can become easily agitated. Children can also copy the violent activities that media portrays. "Long term exposure increases the likelihood of aggression later in life, physical assaults and spouse abuse." (The Influence Of Media Violence On Youth, Wartella) Children being affected in a long-term way can make the child have a high chance of committing bad acts when they get older. They also stay the same and behave the same way they do, as how they were when they were younger. Children being influenced by violence in the media in long-term exposure may have violence become a part of their everyday life and find it an acceptable way to solve their personal problems.

Movies, which is a type of media has a very high influence on children and contain a very high amount of violent content that are associated with youth violence. "Two thirds of Hollywood films that were released in 2001 were rated "R." (Facts and Statistics, Media Education Foundation) This means that violence was portrayed in most of the movies that came out in 2001. "Characters portrayed in the media may become models that influence the child's attitudes, beliefs, and behavior." (Fact Sheet Media Violence, Southern California Academic Center of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention) By watching movies with violence being displayed in them, children tend to like a character and want to be just like the character. This would make the child think it is okay on how the character acts and possibly make the child act just like them because they think it's reality. Violence being displayed in movies can also have an influence on the children to have low levels of empathy; meaning that the child wouldn't get affected by other people's thoughts, emotions and/or behaviors.

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