What Kind Of Introduction Does Centerwall Employ?
ENTERWALL 1. What kind of introduction does Centerwall employ? Describe the introduction’s parts.
Talks about how kids mimic just about everything they see. And how preschoolers watch 27 hours of tv that they cant distinguish from fanrasy on tv. 2. What are the positive features of the Notel study? Consider sample size, data gathering procedures, longitude, and corrections for bias. 45 1st and 2nd graders in 3 towns of inappropriate aggression b4 tv. .. 2 yrs later same kids were observed again. They had another group observe the kids to make sure the information wasn’t bias. Two control communities rates did not change. But he rate amoung the notel children increased 160%,
3. What does Centerwall gain by including a …show more content…
second study? What does the second study show about the first? Another study observing a 45 3rd, 4th, 5th graders from 2 towns. Observed in 1973 and received tv until 77. Aggressiveness of boys in the 2nd community increased when tv was later introduced.
4. Why does Centerwall compare research from South Africa with research from America and Canada? How does this make his article more authoritative? 5. Centerwall declares, “These studies confirmed the beliefs of most Americans.” How does this claim help us to accept his article? 6. The three major television networks conducted research that revealed a causal relationship between watching television and committing violence. What did the networks do with their findings? 7. Near the end of his study, Centerwall cites a Los Angeles Times poll that shows 71% of the public support violence ratings for television programming. What does this suggest about his proposals? He suggest that we should limited what kids watch on tv since it calims to impact on their behavior becoming more aggressive. He also talks about how promoting time channel locks, program rating systems, and viewer education about the hasards of violent programming as a way to prevent kids from seeing violent shows.
8. Centerwall closes with a recommendation. Is his recommendation feasible in terms of technology, cost, and social acceptance?
RHODES 1. Compare/contrast Rhodes’ introduction to Centerwall’s in terms of tone and content. 2. In paragraph three, how does Rhodes treat the views of the nation’s most prestigious medical and health associations? Where does Rhodes directly lie? 3. In paragraph seven, what is missing in Rhodes’ references to other studies? 4. In paragraph eleven, Rhodes refers to students’ reports about their own propensity for violence. How accurate is such self-evaluation likely to be? 5.
Does Rhodes conclusion follow from his preceding discussion? The moral entrepreneurs are at it again, pounding the entertainment industry for advertising its Grand Guignolesque confections to children. If exposure to this mock violence contributes to the development of violent behavior, then our political leadership is justified in its indignation at what the Federal Trade Commission has reported about the marketing of violent fare to children. Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman have been especially quick to fasten on the F.T.C. report as they make an issue of violent offerings to children.
But is there really a link between entertainment and violent behavior?
The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institute of Mental Health all say yes. They base their claims on social science research that has been sharply criticized and disputed within the social science profession, especially outside the United States. In fact, no direct, causal link between exposure to mock violence in the media and subsequent violent behavior has ever been demonstrated, and the few claims of modest correlation have been contradicted by other findings, sometimes in the same
studies.
History alone should call such a link into question. Private violence has been declining in the West since the media-barren late Middle Ages, when homicide rates are estimated to have been 10 times what they are in Western nations today. Historians attribute the decline to improving social controls over violence -- police forces and common access to courts of law -- and to a shift away from brutal physical punishment in child-rearing (a practice that still appears as a common factor in the background of violent criminals today).
The American Medical Association has based its endorsement of the media violence theory in major part on the studies of Brandon Centerwall, a psychiatrist in Seattle. Dr. Centerwall compared the murder rates for whites in three countries from 1945 to 1974 with numbers for television set ownership. Until 1975, television broadcasting was banned in South Africa, and ''white homicide rates remained stable'' there, Dr. Centerwall found, while corresponding rates in Canada and the United States doubled after television was introduced.
A spectacular finding, but it is meaningless. As Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California at Berkeley subsequently pointed out, homicide rates in France, Germany, Italy and Japan either failed to change with increasing television ownership in the same period or actually declined, and American homicide rates have more recently been sharply declining despite a proliferation of popular media outlets -- not only movies and television, but also video games and the Internet.
Other social science that supposedly undergirds the theory, too, is marginal and problematic. Laboratory studies that expose children to selected incidents of televised mock violence and then assess changes in the children's behavior have sometimes found more ''aggressive'' behavior after the exposure -- usually verbal, occasionally physical.
But sometimes the control group, shown incidents judged not to be violent, behaves more aggressively afterward than the test group; sometimes comedy produces the more aggressive behavior; and sometimes there's no change. The only obvious conclusion is that sitting and watching television stimulates subsequent physical activity. Any kid could tell you that.
As for those who claim that entertainment promotes violent behavior by desensitizing people to violence, the British scholar Martin Barker offers this critique: ''Their claim is that the materials they judge to be harmful can only influence us by trying to make us be the same as them. So horrible things will make us horrible -- not horrified. Terrifying things will make us terrifying -- not terrified. To see something aggressive makes us feel aggressive -- not aggressed against. This idea is so odd, it is hard to know where to begin in challenging it.''
Even more influential on national policy has been a 22-year study by two University of Michigan psychologists, Leonard D. Eron and L. Rowell Huesmann, of boys exposed to so-called violent media. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which mandated the television V-chip, allowing parents to screen out unwanted programming, invoked these findings, asserting, ''Studies have shown that children exposed to violent video programming at a young age have a higher tendency for violent and aggressive behavior later in life than children not so exposed.''
Well, not exactly. Following 875 children in upstate New York from third grade through high school, the psychologists found a correlation between a preference for violent television at age 8 and aggressiveness at age 18. The correlation -- 0.31 -- would mean television accounted for about 10 percent of the influences that led to this behavior. But the correlation only turned up in one of three measures of aggression: the assessment of students by their peers. It didn't show up in students' reports about themselves or in psychological testing. And for girls, there was no correlation at all.
Despite the lack of evidence, politicians can't resist blaming the media for violence. They can stake out the moral high ground confident that the First Amendment will protect them from having to actually write legislation that would be likely to alienate the entertainment industry. Some use the issue as a smokescreen to avoid having to confront gun control.
But violence isn't learned from mock violence. There is good evidence -- causal evidence, not correlational -- that it's learned in personal violent encounters, beginning with the brutalization of children by their parents or their peers.
Talks about how kids mimic just about everything they see. And how preschoolers watch 27 hours of tv that they cant distinguish from fanrasy on tv. 2. What are the positive features of the Notel study? Consider sample size, data gathering procedures, longitude, and corrections for bias. 45 1st and 2nd graders in 3 towns of inappropriate aggression b4 tv. .. 2 yrs later same kids were observed again. They had another group observe the kids to make sure the information wasn’t bias. Two control communities rates did not change. But he rate amoung the notel children increased 160%,
3. What does Centerwall gain by including a …show more content…
second study? What does the second study show about the first? Another study observing a 45 3rd, 4th, 5th graders from 2 towns. Observed in 1973 and received tv until 77. Aggressiveness of boys in the 2nd community increased when tv was later introduced.
4. Why does Centerwall compare research from South Africa with research from America and Canada? How does this make his article more authoritative? 5. Centerwall declares, “These studies confirmed the beliefs of most Americans.” How does this claim help us to accept his article? 6. The three major television networks conducted research that revealed a causal relationship between watching television and committing violence. What did the networks do with their findings? 7. Near the end of his study, Centerwall cites a Los Angeles Times poll that shows 71% of the public support violence ratings for television programming. What does this suggest about his proposals? He suggest that we should limited what kids watch on tv since it calims to impact on their behavior becoming more aggressive. He also talks about how promoting time channel locks, program rating systems, and viewer education about the hasards of violent programming as a way to prevent kids from seeing violent shows.
8. Centerwall closes with a recommendation. Is his recommendation feasible in terms of technology, cost, and social acceptance?
RHODES 1. Compare/contrast Rhodes’ introduction to Centerwall’s in terms of tone and content. 2. In paragraph three, how does Rhodes treat the views of the nation’s most prestigious medical and health associations? Where does Rhodes directly lie? 3. In paragraph seven, what is missing in Rhodes’ references to other studies? 4. In paragraph eleven, Rhodes refers to students’ reports about their own propensity for violence. How accurate is such self-evaluation likely to be? 5.
Does Rhodes conclusion follow from his preceding discussion? The moral entrepreneurs are at it again, pounding the entertainment industry for advertising its Grand Guignolesque confections to children. If exposure to this mock violence contributes to the development of violent behavior, then our political leadership is justified in its indignation at what the Federal Trade Commission has reported about the marketing of violent fare to children. Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman have been especially quick to fasten on the F.T.C. report as they make an issue of violent offerings to children.
But is there really a link between entertainment and violent behavior?
The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institute of Mental Health all say yes. They base their claims on social science research that has been sharply criticized and disputed within the social science profession, especially outside the United States. In fact, no direct, causal link between exposure to mock violence in the media and subsequent violent behavior has ever been demonstrated, and the few claims of modest correlation have been contradicted by other findings, sometimes in the same
studies.
History alone should call such a link into question. Private violence has been declining in the West since the media-barren late Middle Ages, when homicide rates are estimated to have been 10 times what they are in Western nations today. Historians attribute the decline to improving social controls over violence -- police forces and common access to courts of law -- and to a shift away from brutal physical punishment in child-rearing (a practice that still appears as a common factor in the background of violent criminals today).
The American Medical Association has based its endorsement of the media violence theory in major part on the studies of Brandon Centerwall, a psychiatrist in Seattle. Dr. Centerwall compared the murder rates for whites in three countries from 1945 to 1974 with numbers for television set ownership. Until 1975, television broadcasting was banned in South Africa, and ''white homicide rates remained stable'' there, Dr. Centerwall found, while corresponding rates in Canada and the United States doubled after television was introduced.
A spectacular finding, but it is meaningless. As Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California at Berkeley subsequently pointed out, homicide rates in France, Germany, Italy and Japan either failed to change with increasing television ownership in the same period or actually declined, and American homicide rates have more recently been sharply declining despite a proliferation of popular media outlets -- not only movies and television, but also video games and the Internet.
Other social science that supposedly undergirds the theory, too, is marginal and problematic. Laboratory studies that expose children to selected incidents of televised mock violence and then assess changes in the children's behavior have sometimes found more ''aggressive'' behavior after the exposure -- usually verbal, occasionally physical.
But sometimes the control group, shown incidents judged not to be violent, behaves more aggressively afterward than the test group; sometimes comedy produces the more aggressive behavior; and sometimes there's no change. The only obvious conclusion is that sitting and watching television stimulates subsequent physical activity. Any kid could tell you that.
As for those who claim that entertainment promotes violent behavior by desensitizing people to violence, the British scholar Martin Barker offers this critique: ''Their claim is that the materials they judge to be harmful can only influence us by trying to make us be the same as them. So horrible things will make us horrible -- not horrified. Terrifying things will make us terrifying -- not terrified. To see something aggressive makes us feel aggressive -- not aggressed against. This idea is so odd, it is hard to know where to begin in challenging it.''
Even more influential on national policy has been a 22-year study by two University of Michigan psychologists, Leonard D. Eron and L. Rowell Huesmann, of boys exposed to so-called violent media. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which mandated the television V-chip, allowing parents to screen out unwanted programming, invoked these findings, asserting, ''Studies have shown that children exposed to violent video programming at a young age have a higher tendency for violent and aggressive behavior later in life than children not so exposed.''
Well, not exactly. Following 875 children in upstate New York from third grade through high school, the psychologists found a correlation between a preference for violent television at age 8 and aggressiveness at age 18. The correlation -- 0.31 -- would mean television accounted for about 10 percent of the influences that led to this behavior. But the correlation only turned up in one of three measures of aggression: the assessment of students by their peers. It didn't show up in students' reports about themselves or in psychological testing. And for girls, there was no correlation at all.
Despite the lack of evidence, politicians can't resist blaming the media for violence. They can stake out the moral high ground confident that the First Amendment will protect them from having to actually write legislation that would be likely to alienate the entertainment industry. Some use the issue as a smokescreen to avoid having to confront gun control.
But violence isn't learned from mock violence. There is good evidence -- causal evidence, not correlational -- that it's learned in personal violent encounters, beginning with the brutalization of children by their parents or their peers.