Television Violence on youth with respect to India And Abroad

Presented By- Anil Kumar

Introduction
Television plays a vital role in influencing adolescents to adapt violent behavior be in any part of the world, Observing violent programs need not automatically encourage the occurrence of aggressive behavior. Among other things, this depends upon the way they perceive violent programs. According to observational learning theory, watching violent programs can encourage or influence the occurrence of aggressive behavior in the following way: Firstly, violent programs can provide indications of how to act aggressively (acquiring new aggressive behavioral patterns) Secondly, violent programs can provide indications for the most functional behavior in a particular behavior in particular situations (which kinds of behavior are rewarded and which are punished). Thirdly, violent programs may suggest particular ideas. Fourthly, seeing violent programs may remove inhibitions with respect to aggressive behavior. Among other things this may occur through desensitization (removal of fear of aggression).

In addition, disinhibition can occur as a result of the notion that others (the television models) also act aggressively. In this context it is also important how people in the violent program itself react to such aggressive behavior. If it is played down , this may also have a disinheriting effect. Finally the emotional arousal evoked by violent programs may also have the effect of stimulating aggression. Unlike the theories discussed earlier, this is not regarded as a necessary condition for the occurrence of an aggression stimulating effect. Arousal facilitates such an effect, but is not a must. WWE or Professional wrestling has become the latest fad among adolescents. There is a concern among the public and school personnel, including teachers, school psychologists, and counselors, that it influences their behavior in an aggressive manner. It is also thought that teen perceive wrestling as reality instead of perceiving it as fantasy. With the majority of adolescents watching professional wrestling, it is important to understand how they actually perceive professional wrestling and if it promotes aggressive behavior.

Carthasis
Psychoanalytic Theory defines catharsis as an emotional release, this emotional release is linked to a need to release unconscious conflicts. For example, experiencing stress over a work-related situation may cause feelings of frustration and tension. Rather than vent these feelings inappropriately, the individual may instead release these feelings in another way, such as through physical activity or another stress relieving activity. Aristotle describes catharsis as the purging of the emotions of pity and fear that are aroused in the viewer of a tragedy. Feshback (1961), the best known proponent of the catharsis hypothesis, does not believe occurs automatically. Violent programs only have effect of reducing aggression when children have been made angry beforehand.

Impact of violent content

Impact of violent content

Television has the potential to unite communities, provide information to allow positive cultural, social and environmental change, and to create a true global village. It also has the potential to alienate, dissocialize, to promote aggressive and negative behaviors, provide negative and inappropriate role models to our children, and to create negative values such as values of consumption and possession. During the past two decades there has been considerable debate on the issue of the impact of television violence on youth behavior. Many in the television industry deny television's contribution to youth violence. The Net-generation refers to people born between 1977 and 1997.

There have been many studies that identify an association between exposure to violence in entertainment and violent behavior, but these studies do not prove that exposure causes violent behavior. They show that there is a risk that exposure to media violence will increase the likelihood of subsequent aggressive behavior. This risk can be increased or decreased by a large number of other factors. Recent research into the effects of pornography and violent video/computer games is starting to draw similar conclusions, although findings suggest that pornographic films, especially those containing violence, can contribute to callous sexual behavior and violence towards women. The relationship between what we see and what we do is extremely complex. Some of the more important variables are context in which violence is portrayed, the age of the viewer, the sex of the viewer, the ability of the viewer to differentiate between fantasy and reality, and justified and unjustified use of force.

Television has a large social cost. Television viewing removes us from the physical reality of our current lives and often for extended periods of time. When we watch television, we stop social interaction conversation becomes fractious and partial, if it continues at all. While we watch television we miss the verbal interaction that allows for sharing, learning and building collective perspectives. Television changes culture in more ways than we can imagine. In the United States, half of the population now report watching television while eating dinner, and more than a third watch while eating breakfast or lunch. People in the US spend more time watching television than they do talking with their spouses (four to six times more) and playing with their children (an average of twenty minutes each day compared with four hours of television viewing). The situation is no much different in the UK where 46 percent of people say that at the end of a working day all they want to do is watch television. It is, in fact, the number one leisure time pursuit in much of the developed world.

Case Study
Adnan Patrawala, 16, son of a businessman from the up market Lokhandwala area in Andheri (West), was found murdered, a day after he was allegedly kidnapped by three youths who knew him and had demanded Rs 2 crore as ransom from his family. A "friend" that Mumbai teenager Adnan Patrawala met on Orkut could have been involved in his kidnapping and murder. Adnan had been regularly communicating with a person named 'Angel' on Orkut, who had invited the teenager to meet her. The kidnappers put up this fake profile to lure Adnan into their trap. Adnan and Angel had planned to meet each other Adnan his friends to meet Angel. The conversations between Adnan and Angel indicate that the two may have even exchanged phone numbers.

Case Study
MUSIC VIDEOS

With the expansion of cable systems into virtually every neighborhood in the United States and thus access to MTV and other national music stations, music videos have become daily viewing material for children and adolescents in the 1990s. Rich et al. demonstrated that about 15% of 518 randomly selected music videos contained individuals engaged in interpersonal violence, with a mean of 6.1 violent acts per violence-containing video. Attractive role models were aggressors in 80% of violent music videos. White females were most likely to be shown as victims. Blacks were overrepresented in terms of U.S. demographics as being victims and aggressors, whereas whites were underrepresented. The authors concluded that these videos are creating and reinforcing false stereotypes that black males are the main aggressors toward white females. This issue is particularly worrisome for an adolescent audience that is struggling with issues of identity, and developing internal models about conflict resolution, race and ethnicity, and malefemale relationships.

Conclusion
Television can be a powerful entertainment and education tool for youth given the right programming. However, we can say that television, and media in general, can also have a very negative influence. Apart from children being negatively influenced some studies indicate it can shorten attention span, distort body image, and work in conjunction with other factors to escalate obesity, create fear, and increase aggressive and anti-social behaviors if exposure is unmonitored and unlimited. The influence of media on youth extends to health related issues. Although television has the power to educate on nutrition, exercise, and a wide variety of health related issues, it can also be a negative force through images and advertisements which influence viewers to make poor food choices or to overeat. In addition, excessive television viewing can result in inactivity which further contributes to excessive weight gain and poor fitness levels.

Not just the programs even advertisements specifically targets children and are more vulnerable than adults to their influence.

In conclusion we can say that adults must assist children in questioning and thinking critically about the messages they see on TV. Limiting television viewing time and encouraging physical activity are precautions that parents should consider. Parental role modeling, the behavior of peers, and other factors play into this as well, but the effect of media is indeed strong.
Certainly, the media often portrays men as aggressive, women as passive. In addition, women are often portrayed with a focus on their beauty and sexuality. (Or perhaps their homemaking skills) These images, often repeated, can influence how both women and men feel women should not only look, but also how they should behave. If all these things are looked at in a broader perspective then surely the influence of television on children could be reduced considerably.

Bibliography
Websites http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/effect-professional-wrestlingviewership-children http://www.indiabix.com/group-discussion/influence-of-online-socialnetworks-on-our-youth/ http://www.cssforum.com.pk/css-optional-subjects/group-i/englishliterature/388-aristotles-concept-catharsis.html http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/aug/20adnan1.htm Books Television violence: a child's-eye view By T. H. A. van der Voort Television violence: a guide to the literature P. T. Kelly Violence on television: distribution, form, context, and themes Barrie Gunter, Jackie Harrison, Maggie Wykes Research paperhttp://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/2002/2002strandt.pdf

Thank You