Media violence has declined as Media culture has expanded.

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Violence has declined as media culture has expanded was an interesting part of chapter five for me. We all know media has drastically changed over the decades, but it’s interesting to read and put into perspective what Sternheimer’s discussing. She touches on how “traditional media like television has grown from a handful of channels to hundreds,” and are available through an array of online sites. Additionally, she discusses how media culture has expanded, and Jenna also mentioned it in her post how young teen crime rates in the United States have been declining.

Moreover, In the article Marketing Violence: The Special Toll on Young Children of Color was interesting and made me wonder about my video game usage when i was an adolescent. Additionally, i found it interesting when Diane mentioned “the regulation of children’s television, marketing violence to children through the media has become increasingly prevalent.” In addition, she elaborates on how the programs themselves, toys, video games, and other products are linked to violence, undermine play, and how they depict racial stereotypes. Moreover, Diane discusses how marketing violence to children has increased on television. For example, she uses GIJoe, TeenageMutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, and pro-wrestling. In addition, she continues to elaborate on how  “the number of acts of violence steadily increased in the most popular children’s shows.” For example, she cited Lisosky which stated that a Power Ranger show episode “averages about 100 acts of violence, twice as many acts as in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was the previously most successful show.”

Lastly, in reading Sternheimer and Diane’s article, both are similarly intertwined. Both Sternheimer and Diane provoked thinking and led me to question the intentions of all the video games i played back when i was young. Additionally, i as i try and remember the television episodes, i can see the marketing violence throughout the media.

October 19th

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I don’t believe in blaming the media for all problems concerning youth and violence they see as they play these video games.  It’s so true that as a society we look for something or someone to blame when shootings occur in schools, movie theaters, post offices and military bases.  I believe that yes, we can be influenced by video games for example when I played Mortal Kombat with my siblings we would act out these moves on one another and sometimes our friends at school. however, I find it very difficult to understand why society doesn’t recognize that their should be restrictions on what games should be sold to children if their parents allow it then they should take responsibility in explaining to them the difference between what is real and what is fantasy. Also education on firearms is important I think to tell your kids guns  that indeed guns are dangerous and that this is just a game.

Week 8 Readings

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Good evening guys! Sorry for posting so late, I’ve been busy studying and reading for midterm stuff.

This week’s readings were really interesting. I really appreciated Sternheimer’s in-depth look as to why research on media violence is not that valuable or truthful. I also found the connections between media violence and real violence interesting. Both Sternheimer and the Levin article mentioned the environmental factors that contribute to violent behavior, such as poverty, community, and neighborhood violence.  Sternheimer also mentioned that racial inequality plays a part in violence. I did appreciate Sternheimer’s emphasis on the fact that violence has gone down and that media does not play a major role in violent acts. I wish the media (news and the like) would stop taking this angle and construing both research and actual crimes as though television and video games are to blame. It sends a bad message to the rest of society and makes everyone extremely paranoid, when in actuality, issues are really related to behavior and environment.

The Levin article was interesting to me as a future teacher. Although I want to teach high school, the section about how children play was fascinating. I never thought about the difference between types of play (imitative and restrictive) and how different types of toys can actually promote types of play.

Did these articles change your thinking about media and its relation to violence? Did you agree or disagree with the authors?