The Impact of Media Violence on Society and Responsibilities

The definition of violence

If we open our dictionaries , looking for the word “violence”,we’ll find out that there isn't a definition for such word, just along we will find a list of synonyms as “aggressiveness”, “brutality”, “cruelty”, “impetuosity”, “ferocity”, etc. and even these nouns denote only qualities of the same concept, which anyway remains obscure and incomplete. Therefore resorting to the “visual” meaning we are used to give to them, we can conclude that violence is: “ a class of acts, a category of actions and behaviors which are distinguished for an equivocal and erroneous utilization of strength that can degenerate in something worst” like the displays I previously mentioned.

What is the influence of media on violence?

Every day, from morning to night, we watch ordinary tv sequences of murders, unlawful imprisonment, shootings and each kind of crime but, unfortunately the Media’s majors, (the state ones or even the privates ones) appear not to be interested in the quality of their programs and it seems that they don’t care about how much violence there is in them. Twenty-five per cent of tv programs broadcaster in prime time like news, movies- holds “extremely harsh” material while on children’s channels up to thirty-two violent acts have been noticed for every hour of broadcasting. Then the remaining seventy-two per cent of the audience around the world believe that this “cruel/violent entertainment ” increases criminality, playing an important role in passing on illegal attitudes and insane feelings. Yet it should be obvious that children and teenagers, are influenced in general from the media and in particular from TV: more than three thousand studies leaded in different countries explain that there’s a tread union between the mock violence and the real one.

Studies on the effects of television violence

Firstly, psychiatrist Brandon Centerwall, from Washington university, reports that the introduction on of tv in South Africa coincided with the doubling of homicides and killings. Then Leonard Eron followed a group of eight hundred and seventy-five people of both genders for many years, finding out that who saw more cruel sequences on tv committed even the most ferocious and serious crimes and that they were more aggressive under the effect of alcohol and drugs and were brutal in punishing their babies who in their turn, at the same age of their parents, showed a potential of latent fury and signs of psychological instability. During one of his conferences Eron once said “What they learnt from the tv screen seems passes on to the next generation”, adding that boys are significantly more choleric than girls after watching violence on tv. Finally, doctor Jordan Grafman wanted to analyse the reaction of twenty-two teenagers between fourteen and seventeen while they were watching violent images in a different order of intensity: slight, average, extreme violence. They were monitored by magnetic resonance which examined their mental activity: through this experiment they discovered that greater was the violence shown, less were the emotional reactions of the onlookers.

The role of families and governments

Experts ask an effort to families who should control as much as possible the activities of both children and teenagers, but how is it feasible with computers, smart phone, tablets and all the technologies which sell wholesale violence to the highest bidder? The word has to cross to Governments. At the moment, in Italy, the “Code of Self-regulation” foresees that in the “saved band”- as it’s called the period of time where the tv sows must respect the age of the audience- between seven o’ clock am and 10 o’ clock pm during the news scenes particularly “either brutal or harsh” mustn't be on the screen while for the movies every Major has to appoint a committee of self-control for deciding if a programe is right or not for the saved band. Then the Authority elected by the Government keeps a watch on the application of this code of conduct, sanctioning transgressions.

The responsibility of media companies

But, definitely every attempt will fail if a limit for children’s exposition to violence on tv won’t be a part of the public health agenda and Media Majors won’t sweep under the carpet their responsibilities. As a matter of fact that the managers of this big companies- above all into profits and looses coming from advertisement-reject charges by Public Opinion moving doubts against the studies and supporting the idea that there isn't a correlation between cruelty on the screen and criminality in the streets, because the first one is just a reproduction of the second. Nevertheless if the audience follows what tv suggest, either buying that king of item or, in our case,killing with the same “modus operandi” before seen on the screen, what exactly reproduces what? And if advertisement is so petty, why broadcasting companies spend every year billions on it?