Mass Media and its Influences on Children Today
Mass Media And Its Influences On Children TodayParents all around the country are faced with children in distress almost every night all year round. Often their children are shaking and weeping, they have nightmares and climb into their parent's bed refusing to sleep alone. At this point parents wonder whether their child is reacting to the bully who threatened him/her at school. Most likely this is not the case; since this is a pure product of the children's imagination or perhaps the reenactment of something they have seen on TV. In the case of the Columbine High School incident it was a fatal combination of mafia movies versus real people whose lives were obscurely taken away.When Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the two teenage boys involved in the shooting) ended their lives, their suicide carried the explicit message that in the end they retained power over themselves. Their shooting rampage was an act of retaliatory violence. They saw themselves, more or less correctly, as victims of prejudice-motivated violence. They were stereotyped and discriminated against, verbally and physically assaulted on a regular basis. They lacked the resources to cope with their situation and perceived the school system, the teachers and
However, radio and television not only informed and educated people, but they also provided them with a different, livelier form of entertainment. The singular focus on an event by highly skilled producers and news people is transformative. The result is that only a small segment of existing explanations are framed. Television and movies, by their very nature, have the ability to introduce children to frightening events and images, as well as unrealistic ideas. The transformative aspect of the focus has two consequences which are the following: the importance of the event is magnified by the level of attention dedicated to it, and an event must be mainstream in order for it to be important. According to a study conducted by the National Institute on Media and the Family in the Fall 1996 an overwhelming 88% of parents believed that mass media has an enveloping influence on their children. As Thomas De Zengotita writes in his essay one of the boys that participated in the shooting appeared one morning in a local television show. On this matter De Zangotita writes, "Those in the mainstream have a piece of the action-their material interests are increasingly vested in the immaterial economy. Changes in the social organization of the news media, in particular the large quantity of news channels, permit the focus on single events at a greater level of intensity which could not be provided before. Today's technology has advanced tremendously, and yesterday's T. Thus, careful and deliberative analysis of complex issues is also not permitted; hence, most of the stories told are somewhat deformed. The one and only purpose of the newspaper was to spread news. Decades ago people who were eager to learn about events happening around the world invented the newspaper.
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