TV VIOLENCE
INTRODUCTION
i.
Attention grabber
Not only has the perpetuation of youth violence become an
alarming issue in America, but also the fact that kids are shooting other kids
with remarkable accuracy. Michael Carneal, who shot eight times into a prayer
group in Paducah, Kentucky in 1998, managed to get eight hits, although he'd
never before shot an actual handgun. Five of the victims were shot in the
head and three in the upper torso. Three died and one was paralyzed for
life.
ii.
Reveal topic
Today I would like to talk about tv violence.
iii.
Relevance statement
Watching just one hour of television a day can
make a person more violent towards others, according to a 25-year study. In
some circumstances, TV watching increases the risk of violence by five times.
iv.
Preview of main points
Standing here today, I will cover a brief of tv violence,
children and tv violence, adults and violence, tv violence and real thing
BODY
In the first place, I will go through a brief knowledge
of tv violence
Main point 1: Televised violence, both staged and real, has
become a part of everyday life.
·
By the time
they finish elementary school, the average child will have watched 8,000
televised murders and 100,000 televised acts of violence.
·
By
the time that child reaches the age of 18, those numbers will have doubled.
·
Why is the
American media showing more and more acts of staged and real-life violence? The
answer is simple. The name of the game in television is to build an audience,
and violence is an effective means to gain viewers
·
In an
effort to boost ratings and compete for greater audience share, network and
cable broadcast outlets have provided viewers with a steady and graphic dose of
televised violence
Strangely
enough,
Main
point 2: children and tv violence
·
American children watch an average of four hours
of television daily
·
Become “immune” or numb to the horror of
violence
·
Gradually accept violence as way to solve
problem
·
Imitate the violence they observed from tv
moving
on to the next point,
Main
point 3: Not only children, increasing violence in adults due to excessive tv
watching.
·
Johnson
found that 45 per cent of the men who had watched three hours or more at age 14
went on to commit an aggressive act against another person
·
just nine per cent of the men who had spent
less than an hour in front of the tube
·
For women
aged 30, the strongest TV predictor of violence was watching three hours of
more at age 22.
·
Of these
women, 17 per cent had committed an aggressive act, compared to none in the
group watching less than an hour a day.
Lastly,
Main
point 4: Does TV violence lead to the real thing?
·
the
psychologists Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman found a statistically
significant small-to-moderate-strength relationship between watching violent
media and acts of aggression or violence later in life.
·
Robert J.
Hancox showed that watching excessive amounts of TV as a child
or adolescent — in which most of the content contains violence — was causally
associated with antisocial behavior in early adulthood
·
The weight
of the studies supports the position that exposure to media violence leads to
aggression, desensitization toward violence and lack of sympathy for victims of
violence, particularly in children.
CONCLUSION
I.
Summary of main points
All in all my speech today was on
a)
a brief
knowledge of tv violence,
b)
children
and tv violence
c)
adults
and tv violence
d)
tv
violence and real thing
II.
Memorable concluding statement
Even if violent tv are conclusively found to
cause real-life violence, we as a society may still decide that we are not
willing to regulate violent content. That’s our right. But before we make that
decision, we should rely on evidence, not instinct.
