NCJ Number
160261
Date Published
1995
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Parents have many options for countering media violence, including boycotting advertisers, protesting, and educating children about media violence.
Abstract
There are a number of alternatives the public has to act on the belief that media's portrayal of violence promotes aggressiveness in their children. First of all, the public can protest to the stations, the producers, and the advertisers; and also praise them for the shows that are pleasing. This can include urging TV executives to adopt a rating system that will alert parents to particularly lethal shows. Parents can do a better job to monitor the programs that their children watch and also help children to put simulated violence into a larger moral context. Children should be made aware of the difference between the illusions of media dramatized violence and the impact of real violence. This can be done by finding programming that shows the techniques used by movie makers to make their dramatizations appear real. Parents must encourage and develop techniques and forums for teaching children about the true effects of violence and alternative ways of dealing with conflict. The challenge for parents and various community educational institutions and organizations is to provide powerful antidotes to the violent images promoted by TV and movies. Efforts to change violent programming through means short of censorship and through the education of our children to counter the toxic effects of violent programming must be undertaken for the sake of our children.