A Focus on Media

A huge focus of mine when it comes to violent crime revolves around the idea that violent crime in the media affects us as a whole society. We see action films with chase scenes and combat scenes and just general streetfighting scenes, and while they're interesting and exciting for us as movie-watches to see, what affects do they have on the overall population who watches them and possibly learns from them?

This article explains the forms of violence in the media that children and adolescents are exposed to, and the long term influence these media outlets could have on children throughout their life. The article itself it chocked full of facts about the film and media industry and how they work with the portrayal of violent crime. 15% of music videos have some form of impersonal violence. Television programs overall show an average of 812 violent acts per hour. Most children will watch 200,000 acts of violence on television by the time they turn 18.

But exactly what input does that have on how we act in social groups, or what we think about violence in general. Sure, it's been drilled into our heads since we started watching TV that its influence is greater than we could imagine, but is it really? This article say yes. It states that children under four cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy, and may therefor become immune to the idea of excessive violence and may grow up to think it is a normal occurrence. Ideas of a hero complex where the hero is violent and then worshiped for being so lodge in the minds of children and could have serious affects on problem solving as they grow up. With the whole population acting on ideas such as this, does that make us as a whole society more violent, simply because of the culture we live in? It seems crazy to think we, as Americans- civilized, self-sufficient, intelligent Americans- could be predisposed to violence and things we almost think of as barbaric, just because of the things we watch and the society we live in.

My question is, what do you think? We've all sat down with a good superhero movie, or even a horror or action thriller, but does that make us more susceptible to break out into a fight? Because I watched the latest Batman film, does that mean I'm doing to infiltrate Wall Street, or take out a couple dozen cops or so?

What do you think, how does violence in the media affect our ways of thinking and interacting?