Protecting Children through Media Censorship Essay Sample

As the media industry keeps on showing violent scenes unabated children by the age of eighteen know how one can easily murder a fellow human being. Since by just being in the comfort of their parents’ sitting room millions of children are subjected to over 20,000 murder scenes every day. According to Perry (1996) a child who comes from a healthy home that doesn’t entertain violence scenes on the Television is bound to be affected if later exposed to violence scenes in the media and won’t be able to contain it.
On the other hand children that have been exposed to violent media have stored these images in their minds as behavioral scripts and won’t be surprised to see them. The only danger is that they view violence as a solution for conflicts. Stakeholders in the media industry assert  that in a perfect scenario it won’t be necessary to effect media censorship since the media won’t underestimate the capacity of violent scenes to enable them rake in more profits as has been in the case of second hand smoking in its relation with lung cancer. Unfortunately sincerity requires that all who admit to having seen or experienced the destructive effects of the media should take the bull by the horns and try to reduce this impact through censorship.
Censorship is about the society protecting its young people. The adult persons of a population have the moral responsibility to censor and select the entertainment programs for their children since their children don’t have the capacity to cognitively differentiate between fantasy and reality. Fischoff (1999) points out that lack of media censorship would result to this generation living with rogue teen elephants. This is because most parents are ever busy and may not have the time to control their children. Pundits argue that by censoring violence in the media their profit margins would be reduced. However this paper asserts that the money earned by media houses should be earned by integrity and not at the expense of other peoples’ lives.

References:
Fischoff, S. (1999) Psychology and Media Violence California State University, Los Angeles. Psychology Department. pp. 105-117 Retrieved on November 21, 2011 from http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/violence.html
Perry, B., MD., Ph.D. (1996) Neurodevelopment Adaptation to Violence. Cleveland State University: Published by Gund Foundation pp. 72-85 Retrieved from: www.yellodyno.com/pdf/Violence_in_the_media.pdf on 21st November 2011