The Positive Effects of Media Violence Essay -- Media Violence, 2014

A inform shooting has just taken place. As I write this, the newscaster wonders if on that point is any connection between this and other school shootings, whether through method or motive. There will likely be a discussion on one of the myriad talk shows later, the present scrolling headline at the bottom reading something along the lines of Shooters Played flushed Video Games or Teen Killers Watched Action Movies. And why not? force-out in the media has received an ample amount of attention in the olden few years. The prevailing opinion seems to be that the effects of violent idiot box programming and video games on electric shaverren is harmful, damaging, and possibly influencing violent acts in turn. still children have long been drawn to violent fantasy scenarios, whether it be Beowulf or Gunsmoke or Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. There is a magnetic withdraw for children toward these types of stories and there has been since the dawn of time. Children like the shoote rs in capital of Finland be an aberration, the sociological equivalent of a defective gene. Far from creating coevals after generation of serial killers and gang bangers, violent stories can be and usually atomic number 18 beneficial to the young people that they target.My own development would be painfully lacking without such tales. In my youth I was an unhandy, overweight child with no social skills. In this vacuum of social input, I was at present drawn to comic books. Spider-Man was by far my favorite. There was an appeal there in reading about the hero beating up his villains, and I admired this fictional character so much that I took to stub his credo With great power comes great responsibility. The emphasis that drew me in and thrilled me overly inspired me.Later, as a still awkward teenager, I fell in love with martial arts films. Again, the violence and action drew me in. In the fantastic athleticism of Bruce Lee, Yuen Biao, and Jackie Chan, I also discovered a se nse of right and wrong, of honor and nobility. There was a moral code in these films imparted through the characters, not much variant from the moral codes extant in Medieval tales of knights slaying dragons or in the stories of Wild West lawmen. Lacking a father figure in my own life, these characters (who were no doubt strong and in control of their lives) gave me something to calculate to, some sense of what a grown man should be and how he should i... ...y purposeless. Comic books and fantasy films offer a way for these children to escape such stresses, if only for a small period of time. The heroes of such stories usually pommel their foes into complacency, and this can offer a feeling of empowerment to outcast youth, correct if only vicariously, that they tend to not experience in their lives. For every yobbo that has ever picked on them, or every verbal abuse that theyve received, they are able through such media to gain some measure of assertion back.Like most issues, violence in the media is a complicated and grizzly issue. But put aside the knee-jerk reaction that incidents like Columbine and Helsinki engender, and its easy to see how every child needs to slay a dragon, even if its just a virtual one.Works CitedSipes, Richard G. War, Sports and aggression An Empirical Test of Two Rival Theories. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 75, zero(prenominal) 1. (Feb., 1973), pp. 64-86.Lorenz, K. (1963)On Aggression. San Diego Harcourt Brace, reprinted in 2012.Block, Jerald J, MD. Lessons From Columbine Virtual and Real Rage. American ledger of Forensic Psychiatry, Vol. 28, Issue 2. (Feb., 2007), pp. 3-25.