Many households across the world use television as a result of the increased level of civilization. There is a lot of content that is aired on these televisions, which has a negative impact on the society. Many young adults are always hooked to television during their leisure time. The violent television programs such as drama series programs are greatly causing adverse effects on the society. What is so amazing is that television programs are painting violence as a positive thing. The violent scenes shown have those who emerge as victors being crowned as winners and eulogized. When people see these media violence, they copy the same violent approach to life and make social violence increase. Media violence significantly causes social violence in the community as proved by the research on the impact of Breaking Bad on the society.
The violent social behavior of people is strongly linked to media violence. There have been a lot of studies on this topic, which have proved that the cause of increased social violence is media violence. According to research, violent acts normally take place on the American televisions at a very high rate. People who watch television have a tendency of acting as their favorite star character in a given television show (Tedeschi and Quigley, 2000). A lot of people are influenced in life by the media and ape what they watch on television. If they watch people fighting, they become eager to learn the same skills and attempt them at home. Therefore, anything that goes on television is highly taken by the viewers.
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Breaking Bad TV drama series
A television drama series like Breaking Bad can greatly cause social violence in the community. A lot of the things that take place in Breaking Bad are criminal activities. When the young adults watch such a show, they are tempted to ape the same and apply it in real life situations. Breaking Bad is a violent television series with three seasons (Gilligan, 2008). This drama series show is about love, superiority, and murder. Walt engages in drug dealing activities and is later diagnosed with cancer of the lungs. The display of such behavior on television encourages drug trafficking in the community. As the young adults watch Walt make money through drug dealing, they become tempted to do the same to earn cash. Moreover, the behavior portrayed by Walt easily fosters drug abuse among the youths in the society (Gilligan, 2008). The wrong thing is that media does not portray such a behavior shown by Walt as negative and condemn it, but it makes it appear a positive thing to do.
In the first season, Walt who is angry and immoral becomes a liar, manipulator, and murderer. Breaking Bad portrays lying, manipulating and killing people as the shortest and easiest way of overcoming the life challenges. People who watch this series are made to think crime is moral and positive. The series legitimizes criminal life and justifies a violent approach to the hardships in life through the interplay of emotions, pride, and violent scenes. Murder is justified in Breaking Bad. It is not only Walt who is shown killing to overcome life problems, but there is also a woman who kills her children with an objective of gaining the freedom to start another fresh relationship with a man who demanded no aid from him for the innocent children. There are also scenes where abortions are performed by Doctor Gosnell (Gilligan, 2008). According to him, he is helping people with these abortions yet in the real sense he is after money, but not any good motive.
There is proof that media violence such as the one watched in the dramatic scenes of Breaking Bad has a significant impact on social violence among the young adults. In the year 1999, two teenagers went to Columbine High School and killed teachers as well as students using fire-arms. According to reliable reports from leading media outlets, the two boys, known as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were aping the movies Reservoir Dogs, From Dusk Till Dawn, Pulp Fiction, and Natural Born Killers. These movies were reported to be their favorites. Reportedly, the two boys quoted these movies in their letters to family members saying that killing their classmates as fun as playing Doom and Quake. Doom and Quake are video games that are full of violence. After mass media coverage of this incident making it to be heard and watched all over the world, similar attacks emerged in other parts of the world. This proves that media violence can exacerbate the levels of violence in the society.
Theoretical view
The learning theory of criminology provides that being subjected to media violence normally influences the development of violent behaviors among children and young adults (Santrock, 2010). The learning theory of criminology suggests that increased watching of violent media content stimulates an aggressive behavior in person (Savage, 2004). The theory further states that viewers normally adopt this behavior by way of modeling, reinforcement and practice. It is important to, therefore, state that aggressive, violent and anti-social behaviors are learned characters. Based on this theory, researchers normally strongly link television violence to the aggressive and violent conduct of people.
The young people normally adopt the behaviors, values, norms and customs of their societies as they grow up to become full members of the particular community. Children get the values and behaviors of the society in which they live through the socialization process. Socialization has, thus, been referred to as the second birth of a human being. This transfer of culture and social norms from old members of the society to the youths is done through a learning process (Santrock, 2010). With the advent of television and other forms of mass media, the role of the society in nurturing better citizens through the socialization process has diminished. Today, children and youths are left to learn new behaviors and values through the television. Most of them are misled ending up aping immoral behaviors. They then display these behaviors in the society. Television has now been christened the third parent of modern children.
Opponents' viewpoints
As the debate about the link between media and social violence rages on, not all people support this suggestion. There are those who hold the view that media violence cannot cause social immorality and bad behaviors among the youths. The argument presented by the opponents to this suggestion is that there is little evidence of direct link between media and social violence. There is no case where somebody has committed murder immediately after watching a violent scene on television. Opponents, therefore, note that the proponents of this suggestion only base on the indirect link between media and social violence, which may not be proved through tangible evidence.
It has been argued that violent scenes on television and other media outlets are in fact positive and reduce cases of violence in the community. When people watch violent activities done by criminal actors on television, they get to understand the manner in which they operate hence strategize ways of countering crime in real life situation based on the application of the knowledge gained from the movie. They argue that the police are the best beneficiaries of such instances of media violence. They get an opportunity to understand the approaches used by criminals when stealing, lying, trafficking drugs and making murder attacks. This knowledge is also useful for general public safety because then people get to know how to react when they are caught in the way of a criminal (Sherry, 2001). Opponents, therefore, encourage the use of violent and criminal scenes on television and other media outlets so that security can be enhanced in the society.
However, this stance taken by the opponents on this debate is wrong. It is wrong because of the reasons they use to support their argument. The demerits of media violence to the society are quite bigger than the merits. Therefore, the opportunity cost of stopping to have media violence is quite affordable. Children must start to spend time with their parents and teachers, but not just television and other media technologies. It is important to start asking for the lessons that children and youths get from watching television. While asking this question, the answer must be put in the context of the existing knowledge about the social skills that are required for non-violence and good morals to thrive. It is important always to know that children normally learn their social skills through imitation. They imitate what they see and hear, whether bad or good.
Media violence significantly causes social violence in the community as proved by the research of the impact of Breaking Bad on the society. When the young people and children watch the violent scenes in this series, they copy the same bad behavior and start applying it in real life. There are those who ape the violent and immoral lifestyle of Walt and apply it in the society causing an increase in social violence.
References
Gilligan, V. (2008). Breaking Bad. Season 1-4.
Santrock, J. (2010). Life-span development . New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Savage, J. (2004). Does viewing violent media really cause criminal violence? A methodological review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 10, 99–128.
Sherry, J. L. (2001). The effects of violent video games on aggression: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research 27, 409−431.
Tedeschi, J., & Quigley, J. B. (2000). A further comment on the construct validity of laboratory aggression paradigms: A response to Giancola and Chermack. Aggression and Violent Behavior 5, 127−136.
