Government Regulation of Media

What May Our Children Watch “We hold these truths to be self-evident” that all children will continue to explore and discover. You may remember, as I certainly do, those adolescent days when anything someone said, or any image we saw was impacting to our lives. Reflecting on that, I now want you to ponder on this; how are the images or words that our children encounter in our media affecting their impressionable minds? We may only control so much, we can only monitor so much, but will we or should we allow our media, without regulation, to continue corrupting the minds of our youth? I believe, in order to form a more perfect union, that government should make every constitutional effort to stabilize the media that is pumped into our children’s lives. Much is at stake when talking about the advertisement that affects our children. The combination of media and promotion is a viable way of advertising. In each of these mediums, there is an opportunity to leave an indelible mark on a child’s life. Some may say that a child does not spend enough time in front of a television; that advertisement could not be impactful, and that a parent should be the one to worry about the child’s development. That’s a flawed statement, because according to Advertising Educational Foundation (AEF) a child watches about four hours a day of television. So by the time that child finishes high school, he would have spent double the amount of time in front of a television than in school. On that note, the children’s spending power is estimated to represent $500 billion of the foods, clothing, and entertainment markets. (AEF) We must realize that industry is aware of this and will use it to their advantage to sell their products in the masses. What measures have been made to tame the power of such powerful industries? Government censorship of media has always been a sensitive issue due to the fact that we do not want to infringe on the first amendment, but measures have been made to