Violence In The Media
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Violence in the Media Through the Ages
As guys increase in age, they are less open towards violence in all kinds of media. Giving out a two-page survey to middle school students, high school students, and even teachers, I eventually led up to the conclusion that younger boys are much more comfortable with violence in the media than older ones are. The age groups ranged from 12-14 years old to about 50 years old.
Violence on the news appears to be the most horrifying to all guys in general, as they all stated that they were somewhat uncomfortable with it, on a scale of 1 to 5. Furthermore, it is as they increase in age that they are less and less at ease. While middle school students gave a rating of 2 out of 5, 1 being the most comfortable, high school students and teachers both gave a rating of 3 or 4. The older boys are, the more they are inflicted by real-life violence.
Violence on video games and movies does not seem to have as much effect as that of the news does, for all males in general. All ages acknowledged the fact that none of the violence shown is actual and true, and that none of the violence they see in these media directly affects their environment. Both video games and movies were given a 1 or 2 rating out of 5 by every single person who took the survey, 1 being the most comfortable.
After presenting both abstract and concrete images to the survey takers, I was able to observe deeply of what different guys considered was horrifying or not about the different kinds of media. Though all the middle school students considered violence in the news not as horrifying, it could be seen that they reacted more towards the concrete than abstract images of real-life crisisÐÐŽÐЇ. It did not bother them when US soldiers were ÐÐŽÐoin actionÐЎб, since the students probably thought these actions looked ÐЎЮcoolÐÐŽÐЇ and ÐЎЮextremeÐÐŽÐЇ. However, they did rate 4 out of 5 when they saw images of fights on the streets with policemen. Compared to the middle school students, the high school students and teachers both reacted uncomfortably to both the abstract and concrete pictures of violence in the news; this showed that they knew that this was reality and what they were facing was a threat to their current environment, in both pictures.
All ages also reacted harshly towards the abstract portrayal of a video gameÐÐŽÐЇs violence: it showed a man with an axe about to chop up a helpless figure on the floor. Most of them rated this picture 4 out of 5, which was pretty surprising. Considering that younger guys are meant to be more open to violence, I would have thought they would have been comfortable with it. However, there still are limits to a person when it comes to violence.
At the very end of our survey, questions about the enjoyable content of video games were given to the takers as well. We were able to notice that younger generations found the providing of a