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And today, television plays a huge role in our system of mass communication. Unfortunately, television is thought to have an impact on the beliefs and actions of viewers, especially of children and teenagers. Most boys and girls who see violent acts performed on television are more likely to become violent and aggressive in their own lives. Two Chicago doctors, Leonard Eron, and Rowell Huesmann followed the viewing habits of a group of children for twenty-two years. They concluded that watching violence on television encourages violent and aggressive behavior. Programs, advertisements, and even the news is giving the public a warped view of reality. Since most people have little experience with crime and violent acts, they are more likely to believe what they see on television. By distorting reality, television has caused the increase of violence because of learned behaviors, sex roles and other stereotypical attitudes, and the desensitization of children. One of the main reasons television creates a fair amount of violence in society is the fact that children learn the specific behaviors they observe. It has been established above all that children watch television to keep themselves occupied and for amusement. Television has and informative and social function. Children have said from television they get ideas, learn about good and evil, and get an idea of reality. Dr. George Camshich's analysis on the effects of television is the "vicarious socialization that television conveys our values and norms to maturing individuals in a way that could affect how they function in society" (Williams, 161). In order for a child to be influenced significantly by a particular program, they must find the programs credible. The child then develops opinions through different sources(parents, teachers, peers), and then the child will have their own experiences, relating what they saw on television with the similar situation they have encountered in their own lives. It is true that the programs that have the greatest influence are the ones that deal in matters we have no knowledge of. An example of this is the scenario of a child who has no experience with death, but is confronted with it on television. When he or she is told that their Grandmother has died, the child asks, "Who shot her?" (Van Der Voort, 72). This proves that television will fill the gaps in a child's immediate experience, therefore altering the way they think about and understand certain situations, causing them to act a certain way based on what the television program has taught them. Young audiences exposed to mass media portrayals of violence learn how to perform violent acts. Audiences who have learned violent behavior from television are likely to exhibit that learning, (or engage in acts of violence), if they encounter a situation similar to the portrayal situation, and expect to be rewarded for that violent behavior. Lab experiments performed on children and aggression have been done where children are randomly picked and observed alone after watching a violent film, a non-violent film, or no film. The children are then given the same toys as in the film and observed on their behavior. The results of this experiment clearly state that children who watch aggressive behaviors imitate the behaviors and are more aggressive than the children who watched non-violent films or none at all. Another experiment done by Streuer, Applefield and Smith in 1971 consisted of five pairs of preschool children. One child from each pair watched a ten-minute aggressive cartoon each day for eleven days. The other child watched non-aggressive cartoons. The children that had watched the aggression behaved that way during free play. In another naturalistic experiment(done in a natural setting), the behaviors of children were examined on the basis of how much television they watch, and the results support the conclusions of the lab and field experiments. "Television viewing is positively related to aggressive behavior" (Williams, 307). Stanley and Riera in 1977 have documented incidents in which violent acts seen on television have been imitated in real life. These experiments prove that aggression is learned behavior, and television is a main source of learning available to children today. The establishment of sex-roles that television has made is another important contributing factor to increased violence. It seems as though the barriers between male and female roles on television have been well embedded, and this distorts reality further, and therefore has a profound effect on the child who is viewing. Male characters outnumber female characters by seventy percent on both adult and children's programs. When women have leading roles, they usually appear in comedic roles more often than crime or drama programs. They are employed primarily in clerical, nursing, and entertainment positions, while men are employed as professionals such as doctors and lawyers. "Television confirms if not exaggerates these biases by portraying markedly more males than females in programs, by showing males in dominant roles, by having women more often victims of violence, and with only a few exceptions, by showing that the career world is primarily a male one" (LaRose, 26). The fact that women are often times victimized on television demonstrates violence as a social power. Surveys taken show that females occupy one-third of prime-time roles, and less than one-third percent of roles on Saturday morning television. In PBS programming, the network responsible for some of the most popular children's shows, the ratio of male to female roles is two to one. Children who watch this get the message the programs are sending out: men are always in the professional, powerful roles, while women are in marital, romantic, and family roles. "Despite the vitality of the women's movement throughout the early 1970's, there is no evidence that this has been reflected in changing sex-roles on television" (Williams, 29). As a result, the effects on television portrayals of sex-role attitudes range from ages kindergarten to the sixth grade. The children in this age group that watched a lot of television were more likely to give more stereotyped answers to questions about sex-roles than light television watchers. The same experiment but this time reversed was conducted by Davidson, Yascha, and Tuser. They concluded that when sex-roles were reversed(when women had more power), after children viewed these programs they were less likely to answer questions from a stereotypical standpoint. Clearly, this shows the influence television has on the viewpoints of children. These viewpoints will eventually lead to beliefs which may bring out hostility in the individual when met with opposition. The belief that women are inferior to men is a belief that does not express reality, only the fake reality seen on the television. However, women are not the only group that is victimized in a way by television. It also creates a distorted view of ethnic minorities. Hispanic characters are often portrayed as unskilled and semi-skilled laborers. Usually they are cast as comic characters or in law-breaking or law enforcing roles. Since children are usually unfamiliar with different minority groups, it is likely that television will influence their views of these groups. The establishment of sex-roles and other stereotypical attitudes on television is a contributor to increased violence. If women and non-whites are frequent victims of violence on television, the viewer gets the impression that these groups are made for the role of the victim, therefore, increasing discrimination and violent acts directed towards therse groups. The final and probably most profound effect that television has on children is desensitization. When an individual watches a violent act on television the immediate effects are that they learn aggression, and also included in that is an increased arousal effect, increased excitement, and increased heartrate. However, with repeated exposures to displays of violence the strength of the arousal decreases(Cline, Croft and Courrier, 1973). This is what desensitization basically is. As the person becomes less sensitive to certain acts of violence, they themselves become more violent individuals, and may even develop a moral approval of aggressive acts. All restraints are greatly reduced, including guilt, fear of retaliation, and the disapproval of others. Seeing a violent program also results in a reduced inclination to regard violence seen afterwards as actual violence. Experiments show that the emotional reactions of children decrease upon the second viewing of the same violent act or a new act. Seeing constant brutality, viciousness, and unsociable acts results in hardness, intense selfishness, even mercilessness, proportionate to the amount of exposure the child has to violence on television, and its play on the native temperament of the child. Some children cease to show resentment to insults and indignities. Some children even showed cruelty toward helpless old people, women, and other children. Albert Bandura and his colleagues conducted a laboratory experiment that dealt with Bibliography: Word Count: 1500
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