Mediated Violence

Video games, TV, movies, the news; everywhere we turn in the media, it seems as though violence is depicted at some point. Not only is mediated violence in adult programming, but children programming too. I used to watch cartoons as a kid and it never phased me how much violence was in the cartoon shows. One of my favorite as a kid was Power Puff Girls.

In studying the theories of media, I think I was probably desensitized as a young girl. While Violence on the TV, in horror movies, and on the news disgusts me, I feel like nothing really phases me. I actually like going to see horror movies to see if its bad enough to scare me.

I sat down today and re-watched an episode of power puff girls to observe how much violence actually took place. They even used missiles and machinery in addition to the their superhuman strength. Children shows such as Power Puff Girls and Pokemon are starting the desensitization of children. With violence in almost every scene, it appears to be normal the child. The Power Puff girls are sometimes even rewarded for being violent, so violence can come across as a positive reinforcement. Children may then engage in the violent behavior at school or with siblings thus taking part in the modeling theory. The difference is the characters in these shows are invincible, recovering only minutes or hours after experiencing a near death experience. 

These shows eventually lead people to believe that the world is a much more violent place than it actually is. Research shows that TV shows more than 80% more violence than there really is in the world. It can cultivate our beliefs so that everything seems dangerous and sensitize us to real life.


Violent Acts in Power Puff




Physical Violence
Verbal Violence
Intimidation
Girls knock air out the fish
Mayor yells at girls for destroying  the town
Ugly Fish Monster scares everyone out of park
Punches octopus

Professor make a machine power puff girl that contains missiles
On every surface of the machine
Kick Mojo


Fish balloon monster eats a baby and then throws the power puff girl to the ground


Old lady beats fish with walking stick and then the monster attacks her


Buildings blowing up everywhere / city is destroyed


Recently I also watched a show on WWE. It is called Smackdown. In the show two body building women, Kelly Kelly and Layla fight each other in the ring. There were several violent moves. They were yelling obscenities the whole time. Kids have soon to use the copy cat effect when it comes to wrestling and have ended up seriously hurting their friends and siblings. They don't understand that most of this staged and not real. 

Physical Violence
Emotional Violence
Intimidation
Wrestling : the whole thing involved physical violence
Constantly yelling at each other the whole time
Announcers
Many body slams and severe kicks to the abdomen


Dropped on head







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