The Role Of Violence In Popular Culture

Every society has their own set of values, customs, and traditions that have been accepted within the society. In the United States, violence has been accepted as part of the American popular culture. Television, movies, and video games are the most influential form of violence in popular culture in adolescents and teenagers. Violence is anything that uses physical force to hurt, kill, or damage something or someone. These are taking away the innocence from the children and are causing them to mature too soon. Children have developed a more aggressive behavior as a result of being exposed to the ample amount of violence being portrayed on television, in movies, and in video games. Children, on average, watch about four hours of television
on a daily basis, according to Kyla Boyse, a pediatrician and child psychologist at the University of Michigan Health System. Television is a great influence on the development of behaviors. Unfortunately, there is a substantial amount of violence being portrayed on the television. Extensive research has proven that television violence may result in an increase of aggressive behavior in children. The American Psychological Association (APA) explained research that was conducted by two psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann and Leonard Eron. They observed elementary students and continued to observe them into adulthood. Huesmann and Eron found that elementary children that had been exposed to many hours of violence on television showed increased levels of aggressive behavior when they developed into teenagers while the children that were not exposed to violence did not have an aggressive behavior. The study also showed that an exposure of violence on television can desensitize them to the violence in the world around them.
Violence in television can result in becoming desensitized to violence.
Jeff Jacoby mentions in his article, “A Desensitized Society Drenched in Sleaze”, “…when blood and mayhem and sleazy sex drench our popular culture, we get accustomed to blood and mayhem and sleazy sex. We grow jaded.” As children continue watching violence on television, they begin to accept violence as a way to solve problems and will imitate the violence. They will also become unaware of the violence that is happening in the world and may not think that it is a problem. Children become less empathetic and more aggressive because of the violence portrayed in
television.
Television is not the only form of popular culture that portrays violence.
Movies are also a major form of popular culture that portrays an ample amount of violence. The New York Times’ article, “Gun Violence in American Movies” written by Michael Cieply included a study of the top grossing movies from 1950 to 2012. The study focused on how many appearances of violence are in each movie. The results showed that the violence has more than doubled in that time. The researchers also found that violence in PG-13 movies have surpassed the violence in R-rated movies. The Los Angeles Times included in the article “Violence, Risky Behavior in Big Films” written by John Horn that children may imitate the behavior in the movies. Children need to be monitored on how much television and movies they are watching. Even if the show is PG-13, does not mean that there is little violence. If children continue to watch violence in movies, they will imitate the violence and will become more
aggressive.
Video games will also have a huge impact on children. Video games make the player become a part of the game and makes it more realistic. According to Andrea Norcia, author of “The Impact of Video Games”, video game players are more engaged both physically and mentally than people watching television or a movie. This creates an even more impact of behavior change than television and movies. The video games that portray a good atmosphere and encourage the players to help others, show more empathy in children and children will want to become more helpful. Studies have also shown that violent video games have a link to more aggressive children and teenagers. In a 2011 study conducted by Craig Anderson, director of the center for the study of violence at Iowa State University, after a week of daily video gaming, brain scans of a small group of volunteers showed less activity in the regions connected to emotions, attention, and inhibition of impulses compared to participants who played non-violent video games (Times). Violent video games are becoming more relevant and popular in our society which is a concern to many parents. Children and teenagers spend an average of seven hours a day playing video games (Norcia). The most popular violent video games are “Call of Duty” and “Grand Theft Auto”.
“Call of Duty” is a game that takes place in a war setting, putting the player as a first-person shooter. The player is viewing the game as a perspective of soldiers in the military. The point is to shoot as many people without getting shot. The player is supposed to protect themselves along with their teammates. “Grand Theft Auto” is about stealing cars and completing special missions without getting caught by the police. The player has access to many weapons and can shoot and fight people in the game. These games encourage violence and the player gets rewards by doing so.
Video games will also increase aggressive behavior in a much more effective way than television and movies. The violent acts are being continually repeated throughout the games. Repetition is one of the best ways to effectively teach people. Because repetition is used a lot in video games, they are one of the most influential forms in media (Norcia).