Televison Causes Violence

E.B. White foresaw problem s associated with television when it first arrived. Television has become standard in many homes. In 1949, only two percent of homes had televisions. Today, only two percent of homes do not have televisions (Murray, 1993, p.1).

Violence on television has steadily increases in the last 25 years. William Goodwin said “A five year study by the American Psychological Association found that the average child witnesses 8,000 murders, and 100,000 other acts of violence on television by the seventh grade”(Goodwin, 1998, p.45). John Murray agrees with this statement and adds that five violent acts per hour occur during prime time and 20-25 violent acts happen during Saturday Morning children’s programming (Murray,1993, p.5). Concluding that children could be watching 95-125 acts of violence on television each week! War cartoons, like GI Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, would bring up the total higher. Elaine Landau adds “a typ

The first theory is the “arousal” theory. P.H. Tannerbaum is the leading exponent of this theory. The theory says that exposure to television violence increases aggression because violence increases excitation. Tannerbaum says “Increased aggression follows when it is appropriate as a response which is almost always the case in television- and – aggression experiments.” The theory is supported by studies showing that violent and other classes of content hypothesized to be arousing increase physiological measures of excitation in college- age subjects; that exposure to humorous, and other classes of arousing visual portrayals lead to aggression (Comstock and Lindsey, 1975, p.260).

The last theory is the “disinhibition” theory. Berkowitz is the leading investigator of the theory. The theory says that television violence in certain circumstances will result increased interpersonal aggression because it weakens inhibitions against such behavior (Berkowitz, 1962).

The second theory is the “social learning” theory. Bandura’s theory says ways of behaving are learned by observing others, and that is a major way that children learn unfamiliar behavior (Bandura, 1973). Bandura says, “One of the many testable hypotheses derived from this theory is the proposition that children will learn from observing portrayals on t

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