r does not exists in the real world. For example, because young children do not understand the line between fantasy and reality, one may find children “crawling down storm drains looking for them [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]” (Minow & LaMay, 1995: 33). This example clearly represents that children do not understand that their favorite characters are only made-up characters and that they do not exist in reality. However, many children may act upon their favorite movie or film character in such way, that they will try to imitate them.Young children instinctively imitate actions, or rather model human behavior by observation without always possessing the intellect or maturity to determine if such actions are appropriate. For example, in Bandura’s modeling studies children expressed more aggressive behavior toward the blow-up doll called Bobo, when they observed an adult model “verbally and physically attack the doll in real life, on film, or in a cartoon (Westen, 1996: 206). Therefore, due to the televisions’ programs role-model capacity to promote real world violence, there is a deep concern that watching violent programs on television will cause children to become more aggressive. As a result of viewing violent programs on television, children may become more aggressive toward other children, use violence and aggressiveness in their play, and use violence to solve their problems (Buckingham, 1997: 33; Abbot, 1997: 112).Also, it has been suggested that young children will more likely imitate violent acts seen on television and model themselves to the character they like, if “the perpetrator of the violence is rewarded or at least not punished and when violence is presented as justified” (Ledingham et al., 1993:4). A study has shown that children will more likely “pretend” or “imitate” the aggressor from a violent television program, when the aggressor is presented as the...
