In the United States children watch an average of three to fours hours of television daily (Cantor & Wilson, 1984, p. 28). Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. Studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may become insensitive to violence. Consequently, they tend to gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems by imitating the violence they observe on television; and they identify with certain characters, good or bad. Therefore, extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness (Rosenthal, 1986).

Typically, children begin watching television at a very early age, sometimes as early as six months, and are seasoned viewers by the time that they are two or three years old (Murray, 1997). The amount of time that American children spend watching TV is remarkable, an average of four hours a day, 28 hours a week, 2,400 hours a year, nearly 18,000 hours by the time they graduate from high school (Chen, 1994, p.23). In comparison, they spend a mere 13,000 hou

Not all television is bad. There are several excellent programs dedicated to young children. Some programs incorporate entertainment and education to help children learn and identify characters, shapes and colors. Programs such as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street also help promote good behavior and cooperation. Dr. Ernest Boyer, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and former US Commissioner of Education, stated: "Television sparks curiosity and opens up distant worlds to children. Through its magic, youngsters can travel to the moon or the bottom of the sea. They can visit castles, take river trips, or explore imaginary lands. . .With selective viewing, television can richly contribute to school readiness." (Chen, p. 122) Unfortunately, most children's programming does not teach children what most parents and teachers want them to learn.

In the book, Social Learning Theory, author Albert Bandura presents his major thesis. He believes in the importance of observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others especially in films and television. Bandura believes that learning through modeling is very important and says that "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling that is, from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasion s this coded information serves as a guide for action." (Bandura, 1977, p.22). Social learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, an environmental influences. The component processes underlying observational learning are: Attention, Retention, Motor Reproduction, and Reinforcements. In Attention, individuals cannot learn much by observation unless they retain and then act out significant features of the modeled behavior. For example, children must attend to what the aggressor is doing and saying in order to reproduce the model’s behavior. The next component is Retention. In order to reproduce the modeled behavior, the individuals must code the information into long-term memory. Therefore, the information will be retrieved. For example, a simple verbal description of what the model performed would be a known as retention. Motor reproduction is another process in observational learning. The observer must be able to reproduce the model’s behavior. The observer must learn and posses the physical capabilities of the modeled be

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