children are constantly being shown acts of violence. Why? Simple: violence sells. People are drawn to violence in films, television dramas, books, professional wrestling and boxing, and reports of crime and warfare. Does violence do more than sell, however? Do media portrayals of violence beget violence in the streets and in the home? It seems clear enough that there are connections between violence in the media and real violence. In the 1990’s, for example, audiences at films about violent urban youth such as Colors, Boyz N the Hood, and Juice have gotten into fights, shot one another, and gone on rampages after the showings. The MTV cartoon characters, Beavis and Butt-head, who comment on rock videos and burn and destroy things, may have been connected with the death of a 2-year-old and a burned room in Ohio. The victims 5-year-old brother, who set the blaze that killed the 2-year-old, had begun playing with fire after he observed Beavis and Butt-head to say that fire is fun. A few more examples are shown on the picture to the left (Leland 47). Obviously, these are just a few isolated incidents. If everyone acted this way after watching violence then we would really have a problem. Children are routinely exposed to murders, beatings, and sexual assaults just by turning on the television set. The public is wary of it, of course. Psychologists, educators, and parent groups have raised many questions about the effects of media violence. For example, does media violence cause real violence? If there are causal connections between media violence and real violence, what can parents and educators do to prevent the fictional from spilling over into the real world? Media violence affects children through observational learning, disinhibition, increasing arousal and priming aggressive thoughts, and desensitization. The Mean World Syndrome, which suggests that children who watch a lot of violence on television may begin to believe that t...
