How Mass Media Affects Youth Culture

Educators ar ch on the wholeenged to a greater extent than hard than ever in front to get wind new-made quite a little to evaluate media to a greater extent critically and to explicate in apprehension and discrimi realm as they manipulation media in naturalize and at home. What is it like to grow up in to solar days human beings? How atomic number 18 children and preadolescent self-aggrandisings affected by the movies and tv programs they serve, the radio programs and recordings they nail, the intelligence informationpapers, magazines, and books they read? Modern engineering has made doable a riches of sh bed follow through undreamed of scour 50 historic period ago. This milieu reflects fully, though some sentences in a warp fashion, life itselfincluding good and evil, beauty and ugliness, bounty and soulfulnessnel. It is problematical or impossible to shell boylike concourse from experiences reflect ing the gravid world when converses sys tems inf iltrate our homes and get so much a dissolve of everyday living. The concerns of thoughtful adults as to the possible effects of media on recent and obsolete citi zens range from the more obvious ones to those more subtle. There be fears as to the subject field of media vehemence, law slightness, breakdown in moral values, and sporty and explicit sex, for example. There are opposite fears as to the general effect of a telly-dominated society in which lookers range to be passive and nonassertive, spring chicken people have little time for former(a) experiences, and parents utilize tele imaging as a safe baby-sitter.A proper assessment of the crop of majority media on unsalted people continues to be one of the significant challenges to educators and parents today. question in this field of operations invariably reveals the difficulties in arriving at sound conclusions due to the complexity of causal relationships. One critic has questioned the findings of all expe ri mental research in this area because of the impossibility of ever having a invulnerable control group. The ferment of mass media on adults is closely related to their influence on young peo ple, and just as difficult to clustery. The positive values in todays mass media are also significant.Young people today, without leave home, can hear the worlds best unison and witness superb musical performances, see outstanding drama and dance programs, hear educational LEADERSHIP political and g everyplacenmental leaders of the nation and the world meditate major copes of the day, and learn of scientific advances and problems. push-down stack media bring information, inspiration, andenrichment that potentially improve the bore of our living. Nicolas Johnson, formerly of the Federal Communications burster, has analyze the media environment for many an(prenominal) years.In 1971, he reason that picture is the single most strong intellectual, social, cultural, and political force in history. He also constitute that most Amer ican families use television as the major consultation of knowledge and values. Dorothy Broderick, a library educator, has indite that media do much more than exit information. She says, . . . they do have an im pact and influence upon behavior and attitudeformation, even though it is still impossible to isolate in research the precise nature of such(prenominal) influence. Access to goggle box Has Increased period all forms of communication affect eruditeness and living, the influence of television sees most challenging. picture most nearly represents real experience and is clearly a part of the environment of most young people in the United States. Access to television has change magnitude remark ably. Breslin and Marino insureed that while less than one pct of all American families owned television tougheneds in 1948, by 1976, 98 percent ofAmerican homes had at least one television set, and 25 percent had two or more.Th e facts just nearly usage of these sets encourage serious condition of televisions influence. The average child in this realm will have used 22,000 hours in exhibit television by the time he or she enters high school. Gerbner and vulgar re ported that nearly half of the 12-year-olds stud ied averaged six or more hours a day understanding television.Summarizing research on the collision of television, George Comstock wrote in 1975 that children typically view television for several years before entering first grade, that the time played outwith television increases during elementary school years, and that young black people, those from put down socioeconomic levels, and those lower in plot of land all forms of communication affect learning and living, the influence of television seems most challenging. Photo Michael D. Sullivan academic attainment and I. Q. go across more time viewing television than do other(a) young people. In 1971, it was reported in B road roll Yearb ook that the average TV set was on six hours a day in the United States. The number of viewing audience using each set during these hours was non determined.Wilbur Schramm reported in 1965 that by the one-sixth grade children spend 79 percent of their viewing time watching adult programs. Many adults are known to spend time viewing car in any casens and adventure programs intend for children. To determine the experience that children or young adults have through television, one must(prenominal) con sider the whole range of television programs, in cluding those intended chiefly for adults news shows, comedies, variety shows, cartoons, motion pictures, documentaries, serious drama, sports events, music, advertisements, and other types shown on commercial, public, and political programs.The menses concern or so effects of craze and crime as represent on television was highAPRIL 1978 527 reality and fantasy, use of effect to sell prod ucts, and censorship. Dr. Richard E. Palmer , a chair of the American Medical Association, has said that tele vision violence is a mental wellness problem and an environmental issue. He relishs that enlarged ex posure to cerise content may distort a childs perceptions of the real world and adversely affect his psychological fracturement. go through for Childrens idiot box (ACT) is a national citizens judicature to upgrade thequality of childrens T. V.In 1976, among their Bent Antennae swags were the get Away with Murder Award to broadcasters who use violence to attract child viewers and the Nero Fiddles While Rome Burns Award to broadcasters who talk about the need to fell TV violence while inveterate to air brutal and sadistic programs. While there is serious concern about the in fluence of television on young people, there is much controversy over what to do about it. One person with a plan for fulfil is Richard E. Wiley, who, as Chairman of the Federal Communica tions Commission (FCC), round to the bailiwi ckAssociation of Secondary give lessons Principals in 1976.Wiley rejected the idea that a high level of TV violence can be justified because it presents a realistic view of the world. He said, Few, if any, of our citizens in the real world will be ex posed to the levels of violence alike(p) to those which appear on television to the highest degree every week. Wiley looks that specific governmental regu lations in this highly sensitive First Amendment Citizens endorse Concern Area would not be desirable. Instead, he sug that the FCC . . . can play a constructive While research goes on, many citizens have gestsand more appropriate graphic symbol at this point by focal point latterly demonstrated their concerns.The Na ing increase industry attention on the issue and tional P. T. A. s Television Commission has held a by encouraging the consideration of self-regula serial of eight regional hearings on Television tory reforms. and Violence that encouraged parents and teach as w ell as ers to consider sternly the content usage of television. Based on these hearings, in Family conceive political platform which 505 persons testified, the Commission has The Family Viewing Plan is an example of warned that relate citizens may propose economic boycott of TV products advertised on the type of self-regulation showed.The iii shows that feature violence. Other concerns were major networks and The Television Code Board stereotyping both by race and sex, inferior role of The depicted object Association of Broadcasters models for spring chicken, reduced discrimination among adopted the plan to set diversion the first three hours lighted recently in the trial in Miami, Florida, of 15-year-old Ronney Zamora, incriminate of robbing and killing his 82-year-old neighbor. The defense attorney presented the singular defense that theboy is innocent because his dependency to television violence has caused insanity.How may violence on television affect young people? What should be done about it in a coun try that believes in freedom of communication and the rights of its citizens to the free flow of information and ideas? Based on years of research, Albert Bandura has concluded that children can and do derive new response patterns through observance and imitation, without the need for external reinforce ment or even rehearsal or practice. The SurgeonGenerals consultative Committee on Television and genial Behavior supported the view that a steady stream of brutality on television can have a powerful adverse effect on our society and particularly on children.This report represents a significant effort to grasp the effect television has on children today. heedful researchers have raised such questions as these Are young people who are unusually attracted by the violence and aggres sion on television generally abnormally obstreperous personalities themselves? Is it only those young people who are disordered themselves who tend to imitate or act out the uncultivated acts depicted on television?Does the content of television seriously affect young people s perceptions of the world they live in, its challenges, satisfactions, problems, and values? 528 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP (6 to 9 p. m. ) of evening strand time for material suitable for the entire family to view together. Wiley feels that his recommendation of such a plan, as Chairman of FCC, does not constitute governmental censorship, since he was only rec ommending voluntary action and making sugges tions for program improvement.He feels the new policy encourages those involved in the industry to develop exciting and worthwhile programswithout the needless attachment of violent and sexual excess. Wileys speech was criticized by many in his audience, among them Joseph F. Lagana, Super intendent of Northgate inculcate District, Pitts burgh, Pennsylvania and George lannacone, Su perintendent of Vernon Township Public Schools, Vernon, newfangled Jersey. They wro te an opposing view that was published in NASSP Bulletin, January 1977. They felt that the position of the FCC and the Family Viewing Plan are not com patible with the social conditions of our new-fangled society, fragmented families and institutions, andthe post-industrial youth culture. They said that the Family Viewing Plan inaccurately assesses the status of parent-child relationships so that it will have little impact on our youth viewing popula tion. Lagana and lannacone suggest that most par ents are not aware that the Family Viewing Plan exists. They feel that it is erroneous to assume adults can or want to regulate or oversee tele vision viewing for their children and that parent and youth viewing patterns are often incompat ible because of varied interests and schedules and the accessibility of several television sets inand outside the home. More fundamentally, they challenge Wileys plan of the role of the FCC as socially irre sponsible because they feel the FCC is th e reg ulating arm of our government. It is their recom mendation that the FCC develop a television council composed of educators, legislators, and behavioral scientists to create programs that are compatible with healthy human evolution and de velopment. In monitoring television programs beyond the Family Viewing Plan, the FCC is seen as a facilitator and moderator and not as a con circulate agency. The National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting ranked programs according to content of violence. As might be expected the cops and robbers, hidden eye, and action-packed shows ranked very high.But, surprisingly, The Won derful knowledge domain of Disney ranked fairly high (more violent than The Blue Knight series) and Donny and Marie was around the lay of the scale, more violent than Happy Days, executive Suite, or Maude. A Gallup poll found that 71 percent of the public in the United States think television is too violent, yet many of the most violent programs continue to draw the largest number of viewers.The National Observer reported, A lot of peo ple seem to be having it both ways . . . deploring it to the pollsters and enjoying it at home. Most of them will have to treat off TVs gun-play be fore the networks will consider disarmament. Meanwhile, back to the schools. Clearly, they cannot control the fall environment of students. Educators are challenged more seriously than ever before to teach young people to evaluate media more critically and to grow in taste and discrimi nation as they use media in school and at home. The media specialists in the schools should be semiprecious partners in this endeavor. JTi.