IMPACT OF MASS MEDIA AS SOURCE OF VIOLENCE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR

IMPACT OF MASS MEDIA AS SOURCE OF VIOLENCE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR

INTRODUCTION

Media is everywhere; it has become a part of our daily life. The media plays a dominant role in the learning process. Its impact is vast in shaping the life of an individual. Media has the potential to shape personalities, change the way we perceive and understand the world and our immediate reality. Though we know that all good things have both good and bad effects, likewise, media too have some positive and negative effects. Moreover, we have seen that a large number of people depend on the internet to collect information, read news, listen to music and download movies, play games and also for work. Newspaper, Radio, Television and the internet- all form part of the media and are important in imparting education. Media offers culture, sports, information, entertainment, current affairs and education. Sometimes the impact of media is very high. For example, children love to watch the superheroes and sometimes try to copy their actions while playing. On the other hand, the impact may not be so vast or immediate. It happens gradually as children see and hear certain messages repeatedly. Some of the devastating advertisements include: Fighting and unnecessary quarrel, cigarettes and alcohol being shown as the symbol of heroism, style and attractive, but not deadly and unhealthy. Moreover, violation of laws is shown as a means to gain justice and sexual action with no negative results, such as disease or unintended pregnancy. In recent years, the impact of media on teaching and learning has increased tremendously. New opportunities are being provided to give a techno-touch to the traditional educational process and system. As the society is becoming media-savvy day by day, the educational modules are being channeled through certain community access centers like community radio system, televisions, internet, community multi-media centers etc. Now-a-days, we see an excessive use of media in education. Media has made its presence felt everywhere, be it by television, radio or computers, the most popular medium of imparting education. Unlike the past, education and examination is no longer monotonous. With the introduction of media, education has assumed a different role. Now-a-days, we can see that before the board exams or any competitive exams, different medias like television, radio etc. Come out with different education-related programmes to help students to deal with their study materials. These media channels rope in different intellectuals, professors and teachers of different institutions to guide the students with their valuable suggestions and give them necessary moral boost to cope up with their burden of studies.

MEDIA INFULENCE

In psychology, communication theory media influence or media effects refers to the theories about the ways the mass media affect how their audiences think and behave.

Mass media plays a crucial role in forming and reflecting public opinion, connecting the world to individuals and reproducing the self-image of society. Critiques in the early-to-mid twentieth century suggested that media weaken or delimit the individual's capacity to act autonomously - sometimes being ascribed an influence reminiscent of the telescreens of the dystopian novel 1984. Mid 20th-century empirical studies, however, suggested more moderate effects of the media. Current scholarship presents a more complex interaction between the media and society, with the media on generating information from a network of relations and influences and with the individual interpretations and evaluations of the information provided, as well as generating information outside of media contexts. The consequences and ramifications of the mass media relate not merely to the way newsworthy events are perceived (and which are reported at all), but also to a multitude of cultural influences that operate through the media.

The media have a strong social and cultural impact upon society. This is predicated upon their ability to reach a wide audience with a strong and influential message. Marshall McLuhan uses the phrase “the medium is the message” as a means of explaining how the distribution of a message can often be more important than content of the message itself. It is through the persuasiveness of media such as television, radio and print media that messages reach their target audiences. These have been influential media as they have been largely responsible for structuring people's daily lives and routines. Television broadcasting has a large amount of control over the content society watches and the times in which it is viewed. This is a distinguishing feature of traditional media which New Media have challenged by altering the participation habits of the public. The internet creates a space for more diverse political opinions, social and cultural viewpoints and a heightened level of consumer participation. There have been suggestions that allowing consumers to produce information through the internet will lead to an overload of information.’

In the last 50 years the media influence has grown exponentially with the advance of technology, first there was the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper, magazines, television and now the internet.

We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships, traveling and anything else that we have to do.

A common person in the city usually wakes up checks the TV news or newspaper, goes to work, makes a few phone calls, eats with their family when possible and makes his decisions based on the information that he has either from their co workers, news, TV, friends, family, financial reports, etc.

What we need to be aware is that most of our decisions, beliefs and values are based on what we know for a fact, our assumptions and our own experience. In our work we usually know what we have to do based on our experience and studies, however on our daily lives we rely on the media to get the current news and facts about what is important and what we should be aware of.

We have put our trust on the media as an authority to give us news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media on our kids, teenagers and society is so big that we should know how it really works.

          

Media and Society

Television is the effects of media violence on society. Many try to wipe it out, but will undoubtedly fail. It has great educational and entertainment value. There have even been studies showing that viewing television violence will actually relieve stress. For these reasons, televised violence, including fights, with or without weapons, resulting in bloodshed, will never diminish.
Many parents try to shelter their kids from the violence portrayed on television.

They only look at the negative aspect because the parents complain by saying the violence only teaches their children how to kill and to get away with it Television is the most credible and believable source of information on the reality of the world. It teaches that the world is a violent and untrustworthy place .It reports on how the world really works.

Televised violence cultivates dominant assumptions about how conflict and power work in the world. Violence is an important fact of life .It is very much part of the human condition.                The media cannot pretend that violence does not exist. Televised violence orients people to their environment. It helps them understand their world. It serves as a mirror in which people examine themselves, their institutions, and their values. The exposure of children to televised violence is functional.

Impact of The Mass Media on Society

In the 21st Century, information technology and the mass media have progressed by leaps and bounds. Simply glance at your surroundings and you will discover various means of communication reaching large numbers of people. You can obtain entertainment, knowledge, political updates and the like. Indeed, the mass media has a powerful impact on the people. Publication of news and advertisements in the visual form, no doubt leaves a deep imprint on the minds and therefore, has a more lasting effect.

The mass media has allowed the government to update its citizens on recent government policies and the former’s rationale behind the change in certain government policies. This has been achieved through the use of newspapers, television news channels and the internet. Let me cite some recent examples. The recent furor of the public, regarding the increase in ministerial pay and escalating Goods and Services Tax (GST) were potential political fallouts. Using the mass media with the greatest savvy the government is able to assuage the public the necessities of the introduction of these policies, the public now understands that the increase in ministerial hike would serve as an incentive to attract the best and the brightest talents to serve in the government, bringing Singapore to greater benefits to the island republic and bringing national progress to greater heights. On the other hand, the GST hike would allow the opportunity for new consolidate of economic infrastructure and facilities to help the poor and needy in Singapore, alleviating their plight and allowing the latter to create a more egalitarian society. Hence, the mass media has allowed the government to kill two birds with one stone, pacifying the people on sensitive political issues and bringing to light these important policies.

Similarly, the mass media has made the rapid spread of spread of knowledge possible; leading to the progress of Man. Human beings can access to information via various internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Wikipeadia. Information once ‘hidden’ in books, could only be obtained by poring over page after page of paper print, can now be easily obtained, simply through the click of a computer mouse. Online research papers and learning tools such as "www.brightsparks.com.sg” allow the public to obtain new information and expand their scope of knowledge. Moreover, the information can also be disseminated to the general public via emails, interface conferences, blogs and the like.

The mass media is a convenient vehicle where information on entertainment is easily accessible to members of the public too. Simply log on to the internet, switch on the television or glance at your surroundings and you will find information on entertainment everywhere. This is no doubt due to the use of advertisements. Posters alert us to the latest films available (for instance Spiderman 3) and television advertisements highlight various forms of entertainment available to the general public (such as Escape Theme Park).

Like the proverbial statement, “there are two sides to a coin”, the mass media have their demerits too. Although they have increased the accessibility of information, it has also exaggerated certain scandalous or unhealthy issues such as violence and pornography. Unfounded rumors and allegations spread like wild fire in cyber space such as blogs, e-mails. Paparazzi, in order to increase their sales, duel on sensational news. To exacerbate matters, the news published is often “juicy”, exaggerated and bias. For instance, Princess Diana was hounded by the paparazzi until she was driven to her death. In the 2006 Fifa World Cup, journalists and news presenters paid more attention to Zibeline Sedan’s attack on Italian defender Marco Materazzi, instead of focusing wholly on the results of the soccer match. Furthermore, the mass circulation of videos of the massacre South Korean Cho Seung Hui in Virginia Tech University, leading to the loss of 32 precious lives, has led to speculation that further “copy cats “ murders be committed in the future. Thus, the mass media could inadvertently affect the general public indirectly advocating or sanctioning violence and bad habits. Such as viewing of pornography.

In conclusion, while the mass media may have their demerits their merits outweigh the former. We must note the powerful impact the mass media on society. A final parting statement is the mass media add much colour and vibrancy to our dreary and monotonous lives.

Media Violence Effects on Society

With a scene in which a teenage girl is forced to watch her jock boyfriend tortured and then disemboweled by two fellow students who, it will eventually be learned, want revenge on anyone from high school who crossed them. After jock boy's stomach is shown cut open and he dies screaming, the killers stab and torture the girl, then cut her throat and hang her body from a tree so that Mom can discover it when she drives up. A dozen students and teachers are graphically butchered in the film, while the characters make running jokes about murder. At one point, a boy tells a big-breasted friend she'd better be careful because the stacked girls always get it in horror films; in the next scene, she's grabbed, stabbed through the breasts, and murdered… The movie builds to a finale in which one of the killers announces that he and his accomplice started off by murdering strangers but then realized it was a lot more fun to kill their friends.” (Easterbrook) This is what teens, adults and society in general find interesting. The Los Angeles Times described it as bravura, provocative send-up." This is not the TV of the baby boomers any more, I Love Lucy, And Gilligan’s Island lack something that seems to entertain people today’s society. What is the difference between Scream and   I Love Lucy? The answer is simple, violent content. All media, TV, movies, video games, even some books and radio programs have been getting bloodier and bloodier. Video games are very new and not a lot of information is yet available. Print and radio are difficult to compare to the giant TV and Movie studios. Therefore, effects of media violence are best studied using only TV and movies as the main influence on behavior. TV and movies are getting more and more gruesome.

Extent that it prepares them to cope with reality. Conflict is important for children to grow up with. It is part of their life. Kids should not be lead to think that nothing is going to happen to them (Comstock 354). Exposure to violence in childhood is not a bad idea. Ghetto children see violence unknown to other children. They have to live with it, and because it is so hateful, they do not get influenced by it. People who grew up in a tough ghetto situation regard others.

Impact of Television Violence on Children

Psychological research has found that televised violence has numerous effects on the Behavior of children of different ages. These include the imitation of violence and crime Seen on television (copycat violence) (1), reduced inhibitions against behaving aggressively (2), the "triggering" of impulsive acts of aggression (priming) (3), and the displacing of Activities, such as socializing with other children and interacting with adults, that would Teach children non-violent ways to solve conflicts( 4). Television violence has also been Found to have emotional effects on children. Children may become desensitized to real-life Violence (5), they may come to see the world as a mean and scary place (6) or they may Come to expect others to resort to physical violence to resolve conflicts (7). Although some Early research (8), suggested that televised violence might allow viewers to vent destructive Impulses through fantasy instead of acting them out against real-life targets, later findings Have not supported this so-called "catharsis" hypothesis.

Most social concern, and therefore most research, has focused on children, although Virtually all of the effects mentioned above have also been found in older adolescents and Adults. None of the effects is believed to be specific to a certain age. That said, an analysis Of almost 300 studies in 1986 (9) found that preschoolers tend to demonstrate more physical Aggression and other anti-social behaviour as a result of watching violence on TV than do Older children up to about 9 or 10 years old. During adolescence, the effect of violent Television (especially on physical aggression) increases for boys and decreases quite Dramatically for girls.

An examination of how television violence affects children who are of different ages must Also look at other differences among these children. Children differ in the content they Watch, the  context in which they watch it, the way in which they watch it, and the meaning They find in it. They also differ in their experiences of the world and of television as a Medium. It is in looking at all these differences that we can gain a true understanding of the Effects of television violence upon young viewers.

Violent images and ideas are prevalent in all types of media, it is not difficult to find some type of violent image when one is looking at media, and since most everyone spends a large portion of time interacting with different types of media it is not surprising that a person will see multiple violent images and stories in a day. This can be especially problematic for children because they are influenced by everything they see. Violence in the media can lead to aggression in children and also make a child believe that the world is a scary place and something bad may happen to them (How TV Affects your Child).

Negative Effects of Media on Children

        Media is a source of entertainment, news, sports education etc. Whatever media offers, plays an significant role in our lives and we experience a lot from it. Some of what it teaches may not be what we want children to learn, especially “violence”. One can notice violence everywhere these days. But I think the main source of violence is our own little pet called Television.

        Television broadcasts an enormous amount of violence every day. Whenever we turn it on, we can see different kinds of programs showing brutal and violent scenes. As children have some sort of vulnerability towards such stuff, they seem to grasp everything more rapidly than an average adult. The perfect example would be my own younger sisters. My parents have always kept one of my sisters, a twelve year old, under strict supervision since her childhood and that turned out to be really good as well as bad for her. Good in a sense that today I can proudly say that she is a responsible daughter, sister, and student. She talks in a polite manner and shows decency in her attitude and bad because too much restriction and supervision has demolished her self-esteem. She often feels herself as an ignorant person due to the fact that her friends discuss about some cool movies that she was never allowed to watch.

IMPACT OF MASS MEDIA ON ADOLESCENT HEALTH: ''THE DARK SIDE''

The period of transition from childhood to adulthood (age 12 to18) is called Adolescent with accelerated physical, biochemical and emotional development. It is a unique period of dynamic change which may be referred to as “Growing up”. Adolescence is the time period that begins with the onset of puberty and lasts nearly a decade i.e., from the age of 12-13 to around 20 years of age. It is a period of rapid growth and maturation in human development. It is this period that the final growth spurt occurs. If the growth of a teenager is not as good as it should be, it is going to affect his/her future health as an adult.

Mass media (television, radio, magazines, newspaper, pamphlets, internet etc.) Plays a paramount role in today’s society. Mass media are tools for the transfer of information, concepts, and ideas to both general and specific audiences. Communicating about health through mass media is complex, however, and challenges professionals in diverse disciplines. Mass media caters to a diverse audience, ranging from children, to adolescents, to adults.

Effects of Mass Media on Young Generation

Media plays a very important role in creating awareness. There are certain issues which remain untouched among youngsters as they feel guarded concerning it. Media helps in providing information regarding such topics. There are many such topics that are highlighted by the media. The current one that can be talked about is the quota system in colleges. Media created awareness that how injustice was being done with deserving candidates due to reservations in colleges. There was procession taken out by students in order to object regarding this bias discrimination.

Media being one of the important means to reach out to the masses and influence their thinking and decision making, only to the positive media cannot attract attention of the masses, and to gain viewer ship, negative media has to be incorporated to balance out and attract the masses, but a line has to be drawn between the positive and the negative media in the interest of the younger generation.

Youth and Media Violence

The topic of media violence having an influence on the attitudes and behavior of the youth has been a topic of debate for the past decade. Critics say that violence on television, movies, and video games, desensitizes children to the actual effects that violence has on society and themselves. The problem is that children tend to act on the behavior which is seen on the television shows they watch and video games that they play each day. They shoot someone on a video game and can’t distinguish that it is morally wrong to kill someone but with the daily influence it doesn’t affect them and they will grow up and be a violent person. This subject heavily debated because of the profound impact that the violence could have on the future of society.

Proliferation of televisions exploded into 90% of homes by 1960 and by 1996 had reached 99% of Indian Homes.. As you can see by the statistics that television is everywhere even more prevalent then telephones in homes. So it’s a large part of the American society and children’s lives. In fact, Children spend more time watch television than time spent in school.  The introduction of television violence has led many to theorize that chronic exposure to such acts will desensitize some children and cause them to develop more .aggressive traits .While the cause of violence is multifactor and include variables as individual biological vulnerability; psychiatric disorder; substance abuse; and social conditions such as poverty, poor education, family psychopathology, and child mistreatment, the research literature is quite compelling in showing that among the most important variables is exposure of children to televised violence are at greater risk .

THE ROLE OF MEDIA VIOLENCE IN               VIOLENT BEHAVIOR

  Media violence poses a threat to public health is much as it leads to an increase in real-world violence and aggression. Research shows that fictional television and film violence contribute to both a short-term and a long-term increase in aggression and violence in young viewers. Television news violence also contributes to increased violence, principally in the form of imitative suicides and acts of aggression. Video games are clearly capable of producing an increase in aggression and violence in the short term, although no long-term longitudinal studies capable of demonstrating long-term effects have been conducted. The relationship between media violence and real-world violence and aggression is moderated by the nature of the media content and characteristics of and social influences on the individual exposed to that content. Still, the average overall size of the effect is large enough to place it in the category of known threats to public health.

 

Does Media Violence Cause Violent Behaviour?

With today, this world finds it hard to put a finger on exactly where we the society stand on this so-called debate on whether media violence causes violent behavior. I refer to two contrasting articles by esteemed writers in their field and seek to discover exactly what the big issue is.

On the one hand, there are psychologists, psychiatrists, politicians, parents, teachers and many others deeply concerned with the effects of violent media on young, impressionable minds and the future of society. On the other, there are media specialists and other academics who are in opposition to claims of negative influence of the media.

The ultimate question to be asked in this socio-psychological debate is a philosophical one - does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? It is my contention, first and foremost, that the so-called debate should be abandoned - the media may be a factor, though clearly and obviously not the sole cause of violent behavior, and fair, unbiased and non-propagandist research should be conducted into the true relationship between the media and the embodiment of its effects on individuals in society .

The claims stating that violent media is dangerous to the well-being of society as a whole are ill-founded and far-fetched - each individual deals with experiences differently, each see through their own eyes, and there is an entire plethora of other factors and variables to be taken into account when analyzing the allegedly negative effects of media. Those who seek to slander the movies, music, and even the celebrities themselves and such of advocating negative behavior - violence in particular - are simply mindlessly attempting to place the blame on the most obvious and widespread influence in our day and age . This is all in order to avoid the effort of actually digging through the messy ruins of this society.

          

          

Impact of Media Violence on Culture

Television has become an integral part of culture; it is being watched more now than ever, nearly every household has a television, and the shear number of channels available is astounding, it is becoming an evermore profitable market. Television is becoming increasingly violent with representation being seen in everyday life. However, it is not fair to blame TV for everything wrong with society; parents are using the television as a baby-sitter.   Children's shows may not be violent, but they leave an opening for more violent shows to take the place of them later on in life.   The fact of the matter is violent TV attracts viewers, who then make money for the networks, by buying products advertised by companies who pay millions of dollars to be shown on popular television shows. It may be a fact that children are becoming more violent with the excessive amounts of TV they watch. Parents who substitute television for parenting are reducing the amount of time of real influence in their children's lives.

   

Ethical Responsibilities of The Media

This means that it should give the audience an objective view of what is occurring without violating any human rights or offending viewers. Since there are no certain limitations put on broadcasting violent material, some Arab media channels like Al-Jazeera started excelling in giving the viewer a complete picture about what is occurring in warring nations. From broadcasting the casualties on the battlefield to airing hostage torture videos, Al-Jazeera and other news channels are airing more graphic footage, and this has many negative effects on the viewing public. Terrorists make use of this extra publicity that these networks give them, to promote their message that they will kill if their demands are not met. Also children are adversely affected by the violence that is shown on television. Therefore, the media should ban the broadcasting of hostage torture videos because they help to empower the terrorists by airing these horrible acts, and by making the brutal details of these murders accessible to the public, the media is igniting a propaganda war that can create a more hostile world. Finally airing the hostage torture videos shows no respect to the hostage's families and this clearly violates their human rights.

News channels are sensationalizing the hostage videos and are making them more accessible to the public than ever before. Prior to airing this stream of hostage films on Al-Jazeera and similar news channels, people used to fulfill their curiosity by downloading beheadings or torture videos from illegal websites. In the www.bbc.com article "Who Watches Murder Videos?" by Duncan Walker, an anonymous viewer explained why people download these violent films, "people almost can't believe that a group of people could be so pitiless as to carry out something so cruel and bestial, and you need to have it confirmed.

Role of Media in Public

                             

The role of the media in changing the negative perceptions of police work is essential. Though there are harder sides to police work, through the media people can be taught about the importance of women’s role in policing, which would benefit women as well as the rest of society various types of media have been used to enlighten those without a source of information for quite some time now. These include newspapers, radio, television, and of course the most pervasive Internet. All these may be used in order to gain attention in whatever issue is at hand. Over the last fifty years or so, media has been ameliorated extensively, and people in every part of the world remain informed of events in other parts. This is how an issue such as gender inequality may be propagated.

In earlier part of the 20^th century, when the media was not as it is today, newspapers and radio were the greatest and most reliable source of information in the world to bring people’s attention to issues. This was soon overshadowed by the invention of the television that encompassed the capability of the radio, and coupled this with presenting images as well. Since then, there was even greater armory on the side of issues that needed to be propagated (Huston, 1992, 22-30).
Indeed issues such as gender issues have been in need of propagation for many years, and though there has been considerable attention paid to issues such as these over the years, the media and its enhancements can further be used in order to bring more awareness. This is because of the fact that there are still areas that need to be covered such women’s careers.
The combination of sound, images and words was one that enthralled whoever saw it, is now greatly on the side of those who need to announce issues such as women’s careers in relation to the positives, negatives, and the roles as well In view of this, it must be asserted that women’s roles in particular institutions need to have greater coverage.

MEDIA AS A SOURCE OF VIOLENCE – A CO-RELATED NOT A CAUSATIVE FACTOR

An audience sees acts of violence in media; this does not mean they will actually commit them. Of the millions of people who watch violent films, only a small number have carried out acts of violence as a direct result. People regularly exposed to violent media usually grow up to be completely normal people. If there are any effects from media, they only affect a very small number of people.

We should not always blindly blame the media because people are not copycats, instead we should be aware of someone mental state and take other factors into account before making such claims. We should also pay attention to how social factors and background make some people consume media in specific way., for instance, even the news also show lots of violence, so people should rather pay attention to how social factors and background make some people consume media in particular way.

It always assumes that media causes violence and thus look for violent reaction to the consumption of media texts, according to us the focus should be first made on violence and then look to untangle its cause, to explain the problem of violence in society i.e. On human being we should first began with social violence and more obviously to those who engage or involve in it. It has always being the case that media creates negative influence on children by stating that they do not utilize adults as a control group.

According to psychologist, the objective define as ”violent “or ”anti –social“ may not be judged as such in the minds of the viewer and tend to be viewed in artificial circumstances ,it has also been states that commercial, advertising and voter campaigns prove that media influence behavior of human beings violent, emotionally neglectful or aggressive environments influence behavior more than watching certain programs, films or listening to certain music. Most people who carry out these act are also mentally unstable to began with.

CONCLUSION

While most scientists conclude that children learn aggressive attitudes and behavior from violent media content, they also agree that parents can be a powerful force in moderating, mediating, and reducing such influence. Talking about real deaths. Parents can help their children deal with death as a natural and normal process by permitting them to share their thoughts and fears about death, answering questions honestly, and allowing children to participate in the care of ill and dying family members, in funerals and memorial services, and during the grieving process.

Mediation and intervention. Mediation and intervention may be the most effective antidotes to media violence. Parents who watch television with their children can discern their children's preferences and level of understanding. This co-participation provides an opportunity for parents to counteract violent messages in drama programs by pointing to their fictional nature. Watching the news with children enables parents to provide perspective and comfort, convey their values, and encourage their children to watch programs that demonstrate prosocial behavior. Family oriented activities away from the mass media can provide a healthy alternative to the violence-saturated airwaves and video games that increasingly dominate the consciousness of the youth.

Since there is some possibility that infants will imitate what they see on television parents might want to limit their infants' exposure to television violence or other portrayals of actions go would be dangerous for an infant to imitate. However, under normal conditions of exposing infants to television, parents probably do not need to worry much about their infants being negatively influenced. In fact, older infants may enjoy educational programming do is designed for preschoolers, and watching children's television may be a way for parents and children to have fun together and to share language, much like reading a picture book together. It has been found that parents who actively watched children's educational television with their infants and toddlers were frequently directing their child's attention to characters, actions, objects, and other features on the screen. They may well have been teaching these young viewers their very earliest lessons in how to watch television.

Parents should also take care of children’s in following things :

·         Parents should know the shows that  children see

·         Don’t use television ‘video games as a babysitter.

·         Limit television use to 1 or 2 quality hours per day.

·         Set situation limit (e.g. No television or video games before schools or before schoolwork is done).

·         Keep television and video player machine out of children’s bedrooms.

·         Turn the television off during mealtimes.

·         Turn television only when there is something’s specific you have decided is worth watching not “to see if there’s something on”.

·         Don’t place the television in the most prominent location in your home.

·         Watch what your children’s are watching.

·         Be an active viewer: talk and make connections with your children while the program is on.

·         Be especially careful of viewing just before bedtime as emotion – invoking images may linger and intrude into sleep.

·         Learn about movies that are playing and the videos available for rental or purchase.

·         Be explicit with children about guild lines for appropriate movie viewing and review proposed movie choices in advance.

·         Set a good example and limit your own television viewing.  

SOURCES

WEB SITES :

·             www.google.com

·             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/media_influence

·             www.media-awareness.com

·             www.xplanazine.com/2008/02/mediaandlearning:new

BOOKS :

·         Introduction to Psychology - By James W. Kalat

·         The Principles of Psychology, Vol.1 - By William James

·         Psychological abstracts, Volume 89, Issue 9 - By American Psychological Association

·         Television and human behavior: the key studies, Issue 1747- By George A. Comstock.

·         Violence and the media: a reference handbook - By David E. Newton

·         Television's impact on children and adolescents - By Sara Lake