ogical Association, 1992; Donnerstein, Slaby, & Eron, 1992). All of these reports agree with each other about the harmful effects of television violence in relation to the behavior of children, youth, and adults who view violent programming.The only thing that we know about the effects of exposure to violence and the relationship towards juvenile delinquency we gather from correlational, experimental and field studies that demonstrate the effects of this viewing on the attitudes and behavior of children and adults.Children begin watching television at a very early age, sometimes as early as six months, and are intense viewers by the time that they are two or three years old. In most cases the amount of televised viewing becomes greater with age and then tapers off during adolescence. ). The violence that is viewed is more important than the amount of television that is viewed. According to audience rating surveys, the typical American household has the television set on for more than seven hours each day and children age 2 to 11 spend an average of 28 hours per week viewing. (Andreasen, 1990; Condry, 1989; Liebert & Sprafkin, 1988)The most important documentation of the amount of violence viewed by children on television are the studies conducted by Gerbner and his colleagues on the nature of American television programs. The results of these yearly analyses of the amount of violence on American television for the 22-year period 1967-89 indicate a steady but growing high level of violence. (Gerbner & Signorielli, 1990) Programs especially designed for children, such as cartoons are the most violent of all programming. How many times have we all seen the Coyote try to kill the RoadRunner? GI Joe and many other programs also represent violence and the use of deadly weapons.Overall, the levels of violence in prime-time programming have averaged about five acts per hour and children’s Saturday morning programs have averaged about 20 t...
