Violence as Entertainment Statistics

STATISTICS

Yello Dyno Monthly Memo: The Recipe for Making Kids Into Killers...You can prevent tragedy.

Violence as Entertainment

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Should We Censor Violence in the Media? (PDF)
- By Meera and Jan Wagner

Yello Dyno Violence in Media Memo
- Jan Wagner, June, 2005

• Nearly 40% of the violent incidents on television are initiated by characters who possess qualities that make them attractive role models.

•One-third of violent programs feature “bad” characters who are never punished.

• More than half of the violent incidents feature physical aggression that would be lethal or incapacitating if it were to occur in real life.

• At least 40 percent of the violent scenes on television include humor.

• 60 percent (up 3 percent from the 1996 results) of television programs contain violence and more than 60 percent of the violent incidents involve repeated behavioral acts of aggression.

• Youngsters who watch two hours of cartoon each day are exposed to five hundred high-risk portrayals of violence per ear that teach aggressive behaviors.

• TV ratings tend to attract many children to very violent, inappropriate programs by alerting kids to their existence.
- Facts from the National Television Study: Federman, Joel (ed.), National Television Violence Study, Vol. 3, Executive Summary. Santa Barbara: University of California, 1998, 29-42 ("The National Cable Television Association (NCTA) awrded a three-year contract to Mediascope, Inc. to administer the largest study of television content ever undertaken. Mediascope, in association with the Universities of Califirnia, Nort Carolina, and Texas conducted the research...Unlike past studies, this project did not merely count the number of violent acts and report them. Rather the researchers developed mine contextual features to measure the harmful effects of that violence." - Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano )

• Viewing violence increases fear of becoming a victim of violence resulting in increased mistrust of others.
- Violence As Entertainment, Crime Prevention Resource, Fort Worth, TX.

• Over 1000 studies attest to a casual connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in children.
- Violence As Entertainment, Crime Prevention Resource, Fort Worth, TX.

• Exposure to violence is the most influential contributor in explaining children's violent behaviors in elementary and middle school children.
- Violence As Entertainment, Crime Prevention Resource, Fort Worth, TX..

• 61% of TV programming contains violence, with children's programming being the most violent.
- Violence As Entertainment, Crime Prevention Resource, Fort Worth, TX.

• Young children are likely to imitate what they see on TV, particularly if the behavior is performed by an attractive role model and is either rewarded or goes unpunished.
- Violence As Entertainment, Crime Prevention Resource, Fort Worth, TX.

• In homes where no physical or emotional violence is present, children are still bathed in violent images; the average child spends more than three hours a day watching television. Television, videogames, music and film have become increasingly violent (Donnerstein et al., 1995). Huston and colleagues have estimated that the average 18 year old will have viewed 200,000 acts of violence on television (Huston, et al., 1992). Even with solid emotional, behavioral, cognitive and social anchors provided by a healthy home and community, this pervasive media violence increases aggression and antisocial behavior (Lewis et al., 1989; Myers et al., 1995; Mones, 1991; Hickey, 1991; Loeber et al., 1993; O'Keefe, 1995), contributes to a sense that the world is more dangerous than it is (Gerbner, 1992) and desensitizes children to future violence (Comstock and Paik, 1991). In children exposed to violence in the home, these media images of power and violence are major sources of ‘cultural’ values, reinforcing what they have seen modeled at home.
-The Vortex of Violence-How Children Adapt and Survive in a Violent World, Interdisciplinary Education Series, Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.