Mass media controls youth and the actions that they take.

Essay by Alie April 2003

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In our talk we are going to look at the mass media and it's effect on society and if the media influences society's attitude towards violent behavior. In order to fully understand this question we must first understand what violence is and what mass media is. Violence is the use of one's powers to inflict mental or physical injury upon another; examples of this would be rape or murder. And mass media can be defined as a medium, which conveys information to the public through television, movies, magazines, plays and novels.

There is probably no greater influence on society than the television. It has become arguably the greatest invention of the past century. With it, we have witnessed countless historical events: man's first steps on the moon, election of world leaders; even disasters as they happen. People watch TV in the morning to receive the daily news. They eat watching it.

They watch it before they go to bed. But as television has saturated our lives, has it always resulted toward our betterment or has it possibly led to the deprivation of society? In this talk we will give you both sides of the story, concerning media and society.

Although there are many benefits of television, society has most assuredly been adversely affected by it. Since the birth of television, crime has skyrocketed. In the United States, many years ago, problems in school were chewing gum and running in the halls. Now, students fear for their lives as schools have turned into war zones, with school shootings becoming a national problem. Many attribute this problem to the violence children watch on television. Children have become desensitized concerning the value of human life by the many murders and violence viewed on the screen. Television has led to the moral decline...