On July 20, 2012 one of the worst shootings in American history occurred were approximately seventy-two casualties and twelve people died. This horrific incident was attributed to video games and violence in the media. The shooting occurred in a theater at the Aurora shopping mall during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises”. The police explained that the shooter entered the theater and sat in the front row. Twenty minutes into the film he exited the building through an emergency exit.
Ten minutes later James Eagan Holmes returned dressed in protective gear and wielding several guns. However instead of fleeing at the sight of the gunman the audience simply assumed it was a publicity stunt set up by theatre management. Holmes released two canisters of tear gas and then proceeded to repeatedly fire into the audience using a shotgun, a semi-automatic rifle, and a Glock. When the police apprehended him, Holmes claimed to be “The Joker” from the movie “The Dark Knight Rises”.
Many of the most prominent psychologists of today explain that the combination of a late onset of schizophrenia and his obsession with the Joker romanticism led to the Holmes’s violent rampage. Such tragic incidents could happen again and again since we have no cure for schizophrenia, the only solution is to reduce. No! Eliminate the other factor in particular, the violence in the media that induced this ferocious mindset into Holmes. Violence in the media and video games desensitizes people of all ages, reducing their empathy for fellow man.
The Essay on Does Media Violence Cause Societal Violence
Does Media Violence Cause Societal Violence? Media violence has been a subject of heated debates. Violence on TV has been widely studied and the vast majority of researchers agree that viewing media violence poses significant risk to society. However, similar to any other issue, there society has divided into two camps, those who claim that media violence is harmful and, therefore, poses a threat ...
Additionally, introducing censorship will help people in upholding their virtues. Moreover the constant bombardment of violence, death, and gore changes the particularly impressionable minds of children and teens. Instead of feeling pity for an injured fellow and attempting to help them in some way a desensitized person may just laugh at how these persons injured themselves. Viewing violence causes people to engage in violence; monkey see monkey do. Sometimes teens reach a point where violence is not just a feasible solution to solve a conflict, but rather the only solution. Some deluded people have protested.
They claimed that censorship of violence interferes with their right to view what they want to view, and say what they want to say. They claim that if the government begins to censor violence out of the media then eventually the government will censor, edit and control the media. They fear what has happened to North Korea will happen to us. But this is much ado about nothing. If the United Nations handled this matter and a condition of being in the United Nations is to agree to the censorship of violence then governments would not consider controlling the flow of information.
Others claim that a child being exposed to violence isn’t a bad thing and they should be exposed to it to make them tough and prepared to deal with the world. Children are compassionate, loving, caring, innocent, and trusting creatures. Exposure to violence steals their childhood and they could grow up to be callous and bitter. In this case, they would deal with situations in a comparatively violent manner than if they were kept innocent. The negative experiences resulting from their violent behavior would teach them to be pessimistic and quick to hate.
Both of these qualities are not desirable for young children as they make kids much less carefree and happy. School shootings and gang related gunfights are causal effects of repeatedly blatant and glorified violence. We are at the top of a very slippery slope here; one wrong step and civilization itself may be in danger. Empathy and selflessness is the one thing that stops people from savagery and murder and that is the very thing that violence in the media is taking from us. Desensitized and apathetic we fall, empathetic and compassionate we endure.
The Term Paper on Censorship Media Messages
Censorship of Violence By: Miranda Troyer Why does anyone care if our society is aggressive? Does the kid who decides to fire a gun into his school do so because he watched Natural Born Killers? Is violence in our communities really causing anyone any abnormal amount of heartache? To the victims, and the families and friends of the victims, surely it does. Perhaps there are still some individuals ...
