Media Violence and Its Effects on Young Children
This paper examines the long-standing debate over whether exposure to violence in television, film, video games, and other mass media negatively affects young children. Drawing on studies by prominent researchers including Leonard Eron, Leonard Berkowitz, and D.G. Singer, the paper surveys evidence that repeated exposure to media violence increases aggression, desensitizes children to real-world violence, and undermines healthy conflict resolution. It also presents counterarguments from scholars such as Michael Males, who contend that broader societal violence is the root cause of youth aggression and that the media is frequently used as a scapegoat. The paper concludes that while media violence does contribute meaningfully to children's aggressive behavior, it reflects deeper problems embedded in American society.
- Introduction: The Debate Over Media Violence and Children: Overview of competing views on media violence and children
- Arguments For and Against Media Violence as a Cause of Aggression: Eron versus Males on root causes of youth aggression
- Frequency and Severity of Violent Media Exposure: How often and how intensely children encounter violent content
- Conflict Resolution and the Consequences of Violent Programming: How violent media shapes children's conflict resolution strategies
- Review of Key Sources and Research Findings: Synthesis of major scholarly sources consulted
- Conclusion: Media violence contributes to aggression but reflects broader social problems
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What makes this paper effective
- Presents a genuine two-sided debate, giving space to dissenting scholars like Michael Males alongside the dominant research consensus, which adds intellectual balance and credibility.
- Uses direct quotations from named academic authorities and peer-reviewed journals, grounding claims in verifiable sources rather than generalizations.
- Organizes the argument logically, moving from the broad debate to specific consequences, then to a source review, and finally to a nuanced conclusion that avoids oversimplification.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper skillfully employs synthesis — rather than summarizing each source in isolation, it weaves multiple scholarly voices together around a central question. For instance, Eron's findings on early-developing aggression are reinforced by the 1992 study and then extended by Singer's statistical estimates, creating a cumulative argument rather than a list of separate points.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with the central controversy and positions two camps of researchers against each other. It then narrows to specific observable consequences of violent media exposure, examines frequency and severity as contributing variables, reviews individual sources and their contributions, and closes with a balanced conclusion that acknowledges both media responsibility and broader societal causes. This funnel structure — broad debate to specific evidence to measured judgment — is a reliable model for argumentative academic essays.
Introduction: The Debate Over Media Violence and Children
For more than thirty years, an intense debate has raged in American society regarding the negative effects of violence on children through such mediums as television, film, literature, and other mass media sources. Many researchers — in fact a good percentage of them — state without hesitation that violence in the media negatively affects the development of young children, especially in the way that they interact with their peers and with society as a whole. Others continue to argue that media violence does not negatively affect young children, at least not to the point of creating and manifesting violence in their personal lives. Overall, research conducted within the last ten years has come to the conclusion that repeated exposure to high levels of media violence "induces children and adolescents to settle their interpersonal problems with violence" and that, while under the influence of the media, "children at younger and younger ages are using violence as a first, rather than a last, resort to solve conflicts in their lives" (Singer, 805).
Arguments For and Against Media Violence as a Cause of Aggression
Leonard D. Eron, one of the most prominent American authorities on the media and its effect on children, sums up the problem as follows:
"There can no longer be any doubt that heavy exposure to televised violence is one of the causes of aggressive behavior, crime and violence in society. Television violence, along with violent video games and films, affects youngsters of all ages and at all socio-economic levels. The effect is not limited to children who are already disposed to being aggressive and is not restricted to the United States" (Cline, Croft and Courrier, 362).
Despite Eron's research claims that media violence negatively affects young children and adolescents, other research conveys the exact opposite. According to Michael Males, the vast amount of complaints against media violence "are misdirected" and that research into the effects of media violence "is unreliable and proves only a minimal relationship between media violence and real-life aggression." Males supports his argument largely by pointing out that youth violence has much more to do with the general violent tendencies of American society. According to the American Humane Association, "One million American children are violently injured, sexually abused or neglected every year by adults…one million children are raped every year" — facts which Males argues "have been roundly ignored by the same media outlets that never seem to be short of space to berate violent rap lyrics."
In addition, columnist Carl T. Rowe writes that he is "appalled that [politicians] are spreading the nonsensical notion that Americans will… stop beating, raping and injuring their children and others if we simply censor what is shown on television and other media," suggesting that those who express concerns over media violence are using the media as a scapegoat for the overall problem of violence in America (Berkowitz, 101).
Frequency and Severity of Violent Media Exposure
The amount of violent activity that a child watches on television or in a movie has certainly increased since the 1970s, due to the overwhelming number of programs that rely on violence to tell a story — such as shows based on law enforcement and criminal activity. The amount of violent content that a child absorbs through television, movies, video games, and magazines leads to four measurable consequences. First, children who watch violence on television or in movies for long periods of time — four or five hours a day — are more likely to use violence to solve their personal problems, having come to believe that violence is an acceptable and reasonable method of conflict resolution. Second, when a child watches violent programming, he or she becomes desensitized to violence; in other words, the child does not react normally when confronted with violent actions, such as on the playground or in school. Third, watching excessive amounts of violence may lead a child to believe that the world around them is naturally inclined toward violence, so that certain programs may cause the child to regard violent behavior as normal. Fourth, watching too much violent programming has been shown to encourage real-life violence, especially in children under the age of ten who have also experienced violence at home (Berkowitz and Rawlings, 350).
The frequency of violence in the mass media is closely related to how much or how often a child watches violent programming on television, on DVD, or through video games. On television, for example, the frequency of violent programs is quite high: between 8 PM and 11 PM on weekdays, whether through standard network stations or cable, at least 50% of available programs contain some form of violent activity. The severity of this violent programming — as it relates to a young child sitting for hours in front of the television — is also considerable. As Judith Lightner observes, television and other media "have changed the very nature of childhood and have eradicated many of the traditional barriers that protected children from the harsh facts of adult life." The severity of the problem is closely linked to the fact that children in America, perhaps since the late 1950s, "have been exposed to a world of violence, sex, commercialism and betrayal far beyond their emotional capabilities" (256).
Conclusion
It is abundantly clear that violence in the media, whether on television or in the movies, negatively affects young children. However, given the pervasiveness of violence within America's broader social fabric, it does not seem logical to assign all of the blame to the mass media when examining children's responses to violence. As Berkowitz relates, "blaming the media for the violence and aggression that occurs in children is shortsighted and irresponsible. As researchers and parents, we need to look deeper into the fabric of American society in order to understand the true causes of violence. After all, violence in the media is a reflection of real life; it is a mirror that we hold up to ourselves and the image we see is quite often very disturbing" (106).
Bibliography
Berkowitz, Leonard. "Situational Influences of Reactions to Observed Violence." Journal of Social Issues. (1992). 42, 3: 93–106.
Berkowitz, Leonard, and Edward Rawlings. "Effects of Film Violence on Inhibitions Against Subsequent Aggression." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. (1995). 45: 345–52.
Cline, V.B., R.G. Croft, and S. Courrier. "Desensitization of Children to Television Violence." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (1991). 28: 360–65.
Lightner, Judith. "Television and the Collapse of Childhood Innocence." Journal of Childhood Sociology. (1998). 34: 250–61.
Singer, D.G. "Does Violent Television Produce Aggressive Children?" Pediatric Annals. (1995). 14: 804–10.
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