First Entry

Columbine: Whose fault is it talked about Marilyn Manson asking the big, important question. How can you react to one thing in life but not another the same way. He talked about how for so many years before events started getting televised, that violence has been happening. It's nothing new and we as the people won't be able to overcome this ridiculous period in life until the younger generation gets taught that they need to take the blame for their actions. I feel Manson's on point with his opinion, he makes a lot of sense. I've never sat down to listen to his music to know exactly what he was talking about when he says he's trying to get people to view things differently. But I respect that he's going in a different direction other than other people who constantly stay in the media. These teens living recklessly are slowly starting to get what they deserve for being ignorant and acting like they're of the untouchables.

The Standoff Article told me that they have a lot of unanswered questions as to if violence in the media and entertainment is most definitely connected to violent acts happening in everyday life. A lot of psychologists would have open discussions about it and compared notes, but couldn't really come up with a definite answer. The only reason why more violence is being added to entertainment is because that's what the people want. The one's that want it, make ratings go up. But yet, a great percentage gets mad at the creators when at the end of the day business is business and the creators are doing their jobs. Just like when the people that is apart of the NRA wants to justify needing so many guns saying that there's a control on the crime going on in the states. I don't really agree with this article because people are only trying to justify their own lifestyles, while on the other hand trying to make it seem that just because they have certain laws, it's actually stopping or slowing down crime in America.

The affect of Violent Video Games on the youth of America had parents mostly concerned of how their children would act from playing certain games. This has been happening ever since the 80s or 90s. Everything started getting worse when people were complaining about how games needed ratings like movies that are for certain age groups. Creators took that as the parents will step in and stop their kids from playing certain violent games, which led to game makers adding more affects in their games. Overall this made a big uproar because people want to blame the other side and not themselves for what's happening in today's media with teenagers shooting up schools. I don't agree with the actions that were taking place to gain control over video game creators creativity because the kids that are aggressive is not what they were aiming to happen. And a lot of kids stay inside playing games all day instead of interacting with the real world and don't develop social skills. It's not the game creators fault that kids don't know how to act, I feel it's the parents for not saying 'no' and making their kids act normal with society.

Article 3

The article is written by Marilyn Manson. It begins with an example from the bible. It states that the first people on Earth needed no inspiration to do terrible things. The story of Cain and Abel is shown to depict this. The article then jumps right into the apparent blame that was laid on the writers’ lap. Supposedly the two boys that shot the people at Columbine did so under the influence of Marilyn Manson. This determination was discovered because they were wearing black and supposedly makeup. The writer denies that the kids even wore makeup and were even really fans of his. This is not the point of the article. The writer says when these bad situations happen you can throw a rock and find someone to blame. It states that crimes have not become more violent but there is just more media coverage. People have more access to the information. The writer makes a statement but asking what caused several other mass murderers to do what they did, even including the President waging war. The writer asks the reader “Isn’t killing, just killing…?” Marilyn points out that people love to place the guilt on someone rather than old the person responsible for their own actions. The writer continues to talk about the media coverage and how it makes everyone so connected. That feeling takes away the idea that you can start over because it feels like it is the same everywhere. The writer says sometimes music, movies, and books are all people have to let them know they are not alone and they are similar to others. The article is concluded with a haunting thought that we are all capable of devilish things and that the world is not going to up and end one day. The world has been ending for a long time, one day at a time.

                I felt like this article was powerful. I have never really listened to much of Marilyn Manson’s music but I agree with him in this article. As I read this, I actually thought of Eminem. I am really not a huge fan of him either but there is one line that has haunted me ever since I had my daughter. “When a dude’s getting bullied and shoots up his school. And they blame it on Marilyn…and the heroin. Where were the parents at?” I think of this line all the time. Not so much the beginning part but the part about where were the parents at? That is a huge question. Not to place the blame but wouldn't they have noticed tiny differences in behavior. Media cannot be the sole blame for everything. I got my daughter (and myself) an IPad. She learned how to trace letters and their sounds and I was so proud. Then when I was trying to get her to write or say the sounds she was totally lost. Person to person interaction is huge in development. Where were the parents at? Or their loved ones? This article reminded me of the mass hysteria in Salem during the witch trials. When the writer says “…you can throw a rock and find a person to blame.” It is much like “Oh, she is a witch.” People have to held responsible for their own actions.

Assignment 1

Article 1
        The parents who try to protect their children from violence do very little to keep their children from violent video games and violence in the media. The first violent video was named Pong and was released in 1972. Which made game creators think about what the market would be able to bear including violent content. Before a video game is released it has to be tested and researched before being released to the public. The people who test the video games try to figure out how the violence will effect the person who buys them and plays them.
        When reading this it makes me think of a show I watched and it was called Law and Order Special Victims Unit. In this show there was these kids playing a violent video game, while playing this game the kids deicide that they were going to play this game in real life. They ran over a lady with their car got out and stomped on her and then stole her money. Even though my brother plays violent video games, he is not violent person because of the way he was raised. I think it depends on how you are raised if you become violent while playing violent video games.


Article 2
          Weinstein is move producer is trying to stop ultraviolent movies. He feels like there is no reason for the movie industry to make overly violent movies. Weinstein has made extremely violent movies and he is now questioning himself because he is wondering if he was the one who made extreme violence hip. Weinstein broke the silence on the issue of extreme violence in movies.
           I think it was really cool of him to stand up for what he believes in even though that might stop his money coming in. Even though I like movies with fast cars, guns, and fighting. I do not like overly violent movies. When young people watch overly violent movies they feel like it is cool and something they could do. I know this because will I was little and watch movies like that, I thought it was cool and something I could do.


Article 3
          There were cavemen who killed each other and they didn't have violent movies or video games, and they still killed one another. By putting criminals in the newspaper and telling everyone what they did and how they did it. Shows everyone who has ever been bullied a new person to look up to because they took their problems in their own hands. if violence wasn't televised or in movies most people wouldn't even know it excised. parents can only protect the violence they can control they can not protect there kids from violence in the world that is always on the news. when something terrible happens in the world everyone turns on the TV to see what happened and how people are feeling about it.
         I fully agree with this article, because if there wasn't people always talking about violence some people wouldn't even know about it. Even though the cavemen killed each other, they lived in a different time because they had to use violence to get their food and to protect their self. But now a days we do not live in that time, we don't have to kill our own food or kill to protect ourselves.

Article Responses

Violence in video games: The topic for the first article was how violent video games effect today’s youth. The article talked a little about the history of video games and how they’ve changed over the years. I liked how the article was structured flowed from topic to topic. I thought it was interesting how the article said that parents guard and try to shelter their children from real world violence but when it comes to the media parents could really care less about what shows, movies, or video games their children were watching or playing. With my mom it was always the opposite, she’d tell me to look away at a violent part of a movie or show or make me leave the room, depending on how violent it actually was. Though, I wasn’t completely sheltered from all sorts of violence. My mom believed it was good to have me experience and know what kind of dangers the world brings so I could know how to handle future situations and in a way learn right from wrong, real form unreal. The rating system was another part of the essay that I enjoyed learning about and related too personally. I always remembered seeing commercials for video games growing up and how a game would look super cool and fun but rated for older kids so I was never allowed to own or play such violent games out of my age range. I believe that the rating system helped parents figure out what was appropriate for their child, especially if parents didn’t know much about today’s technologies.  I agreed with many points this essay had to offer but I still find myself disagreeing that children are more aggressive because of what they saw in a video game and will therefore act it out because its what they saw. It may not be true for every child, I’m sure there are probably a few cases where a child is ballsy and wants to try to reenact what they saw, but I think if a child preforms some act of violence or shows aggressive behavior the child’s living situation, who he or she is social with, and the way they’re raised should be brought into question.

Movie/media violence: The main idea in this article is that violence is wrong no matter what, and Harvey Weinstein is trying to prove that where anyone watches any kind of violent act, it will eventually cause the person or persons to commit some sort of a violent act themselves, whether or not its as severe as what they’ve witnessed. I agree with Weinstein, to a point though. I agree that violence can change the idea some people get, believing its okay to do certain things for certain reasons when seeing those acts preformed by others. But I don’t believe that the source to all violent problems come form the media, violence can be seen first hand everywhere; at home, schools, any public place for that matter, the media is just the “helpful hand” that broadcasts it and makes it known to viewers around the world while exaggerating the circumstances to make it more interesting and bigger than the actual problem really is.

Columbine: The third article was my favorite, it discussed how the way we broadcast news is what’s changing, not our actions. I agree with this article completely. Marilyn makes some great points throughout the article. What about the people behind the media, the ones broadcasting news to the world, the ones over exaggerating and blowing up these events and glorifying the people responsible plastering their face all over gods creation. The media doesn’t actually care about the deaths of these people or the wrong doings they’ve committed, they just want a story. I also agree with Marilyn when he says that killing shouldn’t be tolerated anywhere, no matter what the situation. Personally, I’m not a violent person; I hate confrontation and would do almost anything rather than getting violent. There are other ways to solve problems than always relying on violence to get your point across. “The media for violence is all over, and never hidden.”

Violence in the media

               I've had a lot of personal things come up this week that have distracted me from school, so I apologize for doing this at literally the last possible minute. I figure getting some points is better than getting no points.
              The three articles we were assigned to read all pretty much present the same question. Is there a connection between violence in the media (video games, movies, music etc.) and violent behavior? I tend to think that question is a little backwards. For the most part, I think violence in the media exists because of violence in the world, not the other way around. I realize that in this age where young people's lives revolve around media consumption, it is sometimes difficult for people to differentiate between fantasy and the real world. But I think a lot of the time blaming the media is just a scapegoat. Parents of violent children don't want to believe that their child's actions are in any way their fault, so they look to the media and censorship to do the parenting for them. Maybe kids would better understand the difference between fantasy violence and real violence, and better understand how to deal with feelings of aggression if someone more responsible than them, like a parent or a guardian, just sat down and had an honest conversation with them about it. Every day mental illness in young people goes untreated because they are in an environment where they don't feel like they can talk to their parents about mental tendencies that may not be normal. Or maybe they don't think anyone will understand the way they feel, because they don't even understand the way they feel. Some parents don't give the time of day to a troubled kid because it's uncomfortable for them, or they don't know how to handle a situation like that.
           In conclusion, basically what I think about these articles is as follows. Violence in the media, while it may be a problem, it is not the problem. Shitty parents and evil people are the problem.

Article 2

The article begins by telling the reader that Harvey Weinstein reportedly went on to CNN with host Piers Morgan, and promised to stay away from the violent films that he is known for being involved in. You learn later in the article that most of the violent films he is involved in are when he works with Quentin Tarantino. The writer suggests that the reason he says this is because Weinstein is beating people to the punch for calling him a hypocrite. Weinstein is involved in a movie that exemplifies his support for gun-control even though he has been involved in such gruesome films. The writer then dives right into gun-control issues and violence in movies’ association with crime. The article addresses the arguments for both sides for both arguments. First the article addresses the fact that even though the studies are out there, it is just an unclear perception that violence in media causes aggression. It states that even at the end of the meta-research project “Report of the Media Violence Commission”, the conclusion contradicts the research. The conclusion includes the line, “One conclusion appears clear—extreme conclusions are to be avoided”. The writer then continues on with gun-control and different statistics for states with higher regulations and lower regulations and their correlation with crime rate. It is added that the crime rate now is close to the same as that of the 60’s which we all think of as rainbows and butterflies. The writer concludes that if we can’t determine if guns are the cause of higher crime then we cannot determine that violence in the media is the cause for violence on the streets. The writer states that violent movies are much like whiskey and fried chicken, use moderation.

                Honestly, I really hate articles like this. I have a hard time keeping up with the writer. The writer tends to jump around and I feel like it is an excuse to show how intelligent the writer is. I had to look up a couple of different terms like “mea culpa”. I really don’t use latin phrases in my everyday life. But onto the subject matter. Although I do not like the dense sarcasm, I can agree with most of what the writer said. I do believe that we have to monitor the amount of time that we devote to violent movies, although I personally love them. I think the responsibility falls into the hands of the individual. There are all these debates, opinions, and research and no solid truth. There is no large scale links in my opinion. The people that do the shooting or set off explosives in the street or kill in a mass scale, are very sick in the head and if they had wanted to fix themselves there would have been people there to help. I can admit sometimes my mind goes to a pretty dark place. You have to snap out of it, you can dwell in there and allow the darkness to take over. I believe the better route is to remember your morals. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to become a masked vigilante and take over the justice system in my city. I cannot do that. Also, I believe that we all have a movie or book that has disturbed us, which shows some hidden part that we have locked away. I cannot really pinpoint the reasoning behind mine. For me the movie Black Swan, that movie just disturbed me. I have never watched it again. A couple years ago, there was a lot of hype over Human Centipede. I watched maybe twenty minutes of it and was appalled and just shut it off. Never even thought about trying it again. I think the responsibility is within the individual. We all can do great things, whether it be for good or for evil. If you ever are getting that involved into a show then you have lost touch with reality and only you can tell when you need help.

Articles

Article 1

In the first article I read, I do believe violence games does activate high levels of testosterone. There was an experiment that some children become aggressive towards other children while they were playing games. I seen people get aggravated with a video game. In my opinion, if anti-violence video gamers try to take away violence games; the game companies will lose a lot of customers and business. Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and etc are popular violence video games. This is how companies make their money. People play it because its very entertaining. It gives people excitement. When people see a preview of the newest game coming out, it gives people the thrill. Last semester, I worked at a video game store called GameStop. I seen a lot of young children who are among their parents trying to buy Mature rated games. It would be impossible to take away Mature rated games. On Black Friday, the store was filled with a lot of people. That day was crowded. There are many people out in the world who loves violent video games. Honestly, I don't think parents should shelter their children from violence games because it'll just make children want to play it more in my opinion. If the children wants to play violence games and it does affect them let them. Its their choice.

Article 2

Who is Harvey Weinstein? I never heard of him before til yesterday. Good for Harvey Weinstein, who is trying to change the world by not making violence movies. He is making a big change to stop producing bias movies. Change is good but trying to change the world's opinion would be impossible. I think many people would disagree with Harvey Weinstein.  I think it would be hard for Hollywood to not make any violence movies because America has been making violence for a very long time now. That's how Hollywood makes their big bucks. No matter how much people try to prevent violence; violence will find a loop hole. There is violence everywhere and there is always a war going on. I believe there will be no peace in this world. In some countries like Italy, they don't believe in showing violence movies on screen. The country believes watching violence movies is a disgrace.

Article 3

I enjoyed this article very much but this article made me frustrated. Marilyn Manson did an interview with CNN. He talked about how people thought his music was sending a bad message towards society. Manson corrected the fact that he was trying to send a good message to the people. In the land before time or the medieval era, that time didn't have any advanced technology or books but that didn't stop people from killing each other or commit murders. I don't understand why people are blaming their problems onto someone else or something. It doesn't make sense to me. History repeats itself and here is an example of one. When Hitler ruled, his scapegoat was the Jewish people. Look what happen, millions of Jews suffered and died from an awful cause. Jews weren't the problem but Hitler felt that they were a solution to his. I feel like history has this pattern with these type of situations. One minute the world is at peace; the next minute the world is at war. How do you explain that?

Article Summary and Review

Article #1
The main idea of the article was to show scientific evidence on the effects of violent video games on the youth. Throughout the article different experimental studies were discussed and what each study showed about violent video games.
I feel like I didn't personally learned any new information. The articles was quite tedious and almost redundant. All of the information that was giving from the studies were never concluded so it would almost be hard to present these studies in a court room.

Article #2
The main ideas in this article was the statement made by Harvey Weisntein that there is too much violence in Hollywood and it is time to put an end to it. Also, that the amount of violence in America can’t really be blame on Hollywood or it can also be blamed on guns. But we can measure or make a clear statement of what causes violence or the more important question that the author presents is the want of violence. The author presents evidence of how Weinstein is involved in violence driving movies with Tarantino and the irony of his statement. The author also presents statistics of crime rates and gun ownership throughout the past few years.
I agree with the writer on the topic but I also feel that nothing will be done. Like it said in the article, that Hollywood has realized that they make money off of violence so even if Weisntein came out and said that it needs to stop, I doubt anyone is going to stop doing something if they make a profit from it.

Article #3
 The main idea of the article is that as a society we look for someone to blame. When chaos is set off, we look around to see who was responsible for it. Another main idea, was the bible. That violence has been around forever and that Cain did not need the help of media to create the violence that he committed against his brother Abraham but his own will was what drove him. The evidence that the author brings out to support his idea is that for the shooting in Colorado, people try to look at how the two boys who committed the crime where dressed and try to blame him for the shooting. Another piece of evidence, was the shooting of Dr. Gunn and how a “pro-life” member shot him.
Out of the three articles, I agree with this one the most. I think the point that writer is making is that we live in a society where we are constantly looking for somebody to blame if something does not go to our liking and that's why the media looks to see who they can blame. Also, the media takes this information to their advantage and often exaggerate facts or twist them.

Article 1

             The article over violent video games and its effects on youth, goes into great detail on exactly what the title says. The article begins by creating a timeline of video games and how they have progressively become more and more violent. The reason they have become more violent is because that is what sells. Nintendo released a cleaner version of the game Mortal Kombat than their competitor Sega. Sega in turn sold more games than Nintendo. When a later version was released and Nintendo kept the gore, they sold more copies. After this timeline is set up in the reading, the article then describes the studies held on the effects on children. There are three types of studies; experimental, correlational, and longitudinal. Experimental studies are when people are assigned to groups such as violent games and non-violent games. Once the groups are separated and people have had time to play the game, they are given tests and their aggression is calculated. In a correlational study, there is a basic two and two together sort of idea. In that I mean that if a child plays more video games they are more likely to be aggressive. This ranges from physical fights to arguing with the teacher. The kids that tend to play more violent games tend to show trait hostility. The third study is longitudinal, this is the study done at two points in time and the change shown. Each study is best done when there is a large sample size of over 200 people, the difficulty level in the non-violent games and the violent games are equal, and there is a clear and valid description of aggression. All the studies proved the more video games played, the more aggressive people were. The article continues to answer some of the other variables that come to mind while reading the article. It states that the amount of time playing video games affects the study. It later states that age does affect the study as well. The article continues to implicate ways to help the issue with public policy, parental responsibility, and a good ratings system. The article finishes with a couple of graphs showing male and female aggression when they play violent video games, and states that the debate is over. The conclusion sums up that the debate is over that the studies are conclusive and that there needs to be strict public policy implicated.

                As I read the article, I was very skeptical. I tried to maintain an open mind. As I grew up my family really did not sensor much of what I watched or what games I played. As I read about the studies I felt that it was sort of common sense. I wondered if there were studies that included the amount of time children played the video games. The article later addressed that this was a variable that could change outcomes. I also thought that people or children cannot devote their time to video games. Of course this will create an asocial personality. I can admit I played most of the games on the timeline, including Mortal Kombat (I own the newer version now) and Doom. I was terrified of Doom when I was a kid. I have played violent video games for years and I don’t believe that it made me any more aggressive. There are times that I do struggle with the thought distortion that every negative action presented by another person derives from hostile intent, but I believe or at least I tell myself that it is a victim complex to think that way. A person can spend hours playing video games but it is vital to maintain healthy person to person interaction. We cannot look at video games for how to live our lives. If anything I see my Call of Duty game as an outlet. I also believe in the experimental studies that it only makes sense that after someone plays an aggressive video game that they will be more competitive. I have had very heated games of Uno that left me feeling aggressive afterwards. My point is that a person cannot base their lives off violent videos games and that is where their parents come in and shut the game off and give them reality. Lastly, I do not believe children should play violent video games. When my daughter is a teenager and has gathered a strong idea of right and wrong, then I will let her explore those outlets. Until then, she will be stuck with Mario and Zelda just like I was. 

Violence

Violence in video games: This article spoke upon the rising violence in videos games and how it has affect the users of it. The article was put together by first going over a history of videos games, then going into how videos games have evolved in the years. Eventually making a rating system, the article then went into explaining the test and results that where conducted. After that it was followed by information graphs showing evidence of there work and experiments. Now in the article they stated that not all test where 100% accurate. But its was showed that violent videos game where directly related to peoples increased behavior in aggression and aggressive conjugations, studies also shown that E 'everyone' rated games had less of an effect on people than T 'teen' rated games. Which shown that T rated games gave people the most hostile and aggressive behaviors. All this was backed up with experimental dated which where tested on real people and graphs/charts. The graphs showing a wide range of people of different sex and ages with how violent videos game affected them.


movie/media violence: this articles talks about how directors/media use movie violence to make money and the correlation it can have to real life violence. In the article, people are saying the movie violence can contribute to real life violence and behaviors. I personally feel like it can sway people in the way, but its all about the money. What can really make the big bucks. Most violent scenes and stories from the media are over exaggerated and made more violent for more attention. I thinks it give people a sense of the world not a pretty place, so why advertise it is.

Columbine: This article talks about the killing of people not just in our country but all around the world. And the articles poses the question: Is it every right the kill? Now a days killers get full interviews, full coverages, and media all over them like they're celebrities. If its not someone killing our people, then its us killing them. It's like we find someone to kill to blame for our problem in the country, kind of like a scapegoat. I personally think that every life is precise and can be taken away as easy as it is to get born. Killing is not justified, but depending on the situation, i think killing cam be the ultimates capital punishment.



Reaction: The Media and everyone has always been out to promote terror. Once you know what the people fear, you can control them. But things in the news and etc are always blown out of proportion and is not as of big deal as they make it.  

3 Article Summaries

Paragraph 1: Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?

I think that the main idea of this article is that violence, especially killing, should not be acceptable anywhere or under any circumstance. Marilyn Manson is a firm believer that the media does not care about the deaths of young children, or the deaths of soldiers who are fighting for our country, they only care about the media part and catching every moment of what happened in each situation, just so they can put it in their news report. Manson used evidence such as examples of the school shooting in Colorado, the “civil” war, and the McDonald’s shooting. In this article, it made me realize how the media portrays death and killing as something much smaller than it truly is. I agree with Manson when he said that killing should not be tolerated anywhere. I also liked as he used the bible as a reference, and I agree with him about that. The line that Manson wrote that is closest to my own beliefs is when he said that if you give a child a car or a gun, why are they not responsible when something bad happens involving them with that car or gun? I think it is very important that everyone should be responsible for his or her own actions, no matter how old you are. My beliefs or understanding of this topic did not change, mainly because I agree with Manson and I agree with what his main point of this essay is; violence and killing shouldn’t be tolerated anywhere.

Paragraph 2: Weinstein, Tarantino, and the Standoff Over Movie Violence

The main idea of this article is very similar as the “Whose Fault Is It” article; in the way that both articles are stating that violence is wrong no matter what. To me, this article was a tad bit more difficult to follow. I understood the main argument, and I agree with it. The author of this article used evidence in the example of violence Weinstein’s movies, TV shows, and even video games. This article stresses that the comment Weinstein made to the media about violence is true. I liked how the author used Ferguson as a reference of being “overly friendly to entertainment.” The part of this article that I looked at as closest to my own belief is that there is a fine line between media violence and actual violence. I believe that the media way over exaggerates every situation to make it much bigger than what it needs to be. My understanding of this topic did briefly change from the beginning of this article to the end, because I began to understand it more and was able to connect it to the 1^st article that I read.

Paragraph 3: Violent Video Games, The Effects on Youth, and Public Policy Implications

The main point in this article is that many parents of young children are very oblivious of the fact that many of the video games and TV programs that their children are watching/playing are extremely violent.  Most parents stress that they do not want any violence to occur in the household, or that fighting at school in inappropriate, but they do not stop their children from playing violent video games and killing people on TV. The author used many evidence in examples of other books explaining that video games should be rated, and customers buying these video games should be able to understand what the rating scale is. The issue now is will these parents look at the ratings? And will it even affect their decision about weather or not they will let their child play the game? I believe that this essay was very convincing and well worded. It made me realize how much of an issue it is that younger kids are being exposed to gruesome fighting and killing. One thing that I learned from this essay is that video games are rated, just like movies are. I did not know that there was a scale rating each video game. In conclusion, I think that the best author was Marilyn Monson. I believe that all 3 of these articles had the same main focus, but I believe that he said his beliefs the best and his article was most interesting to read.  

Violent Video Games

    The main idea for this article was the impact that aggressive or violent video games have an impact on children since there was no rating for video games for the longest time. For this article they used many evidences different parts from other books and trials about how they should use a rating and  have stores put ratings lists in their store that way other customers can understand the rating scale. They structured the essay very well, with the evidence and clearly laying out the evidence making it a very thoroughly structured essay. Although there were many evidence and good parts, this wasn't my favorite article. I thought it was interesting with how the article mentioned that there had not been a scale so everyone was selling games that if they were movies kids could not even see without an adult present. Although this one did teach me that Pong was the game to help push video games to where they are today. I found this interesting because I love the game Pong.  Where as for which ones line up closest to my belief it is probably the second one, because I am all for family friendly entertainment, even though with the first article, I enjoyed that because it was a different aspect. This didnt really change my outlook on the entertainment, but I thought that it was interesting.

Violence in the Media

Article 1: 

This article talks about how video game violence effects kids these days. “In a 2004 survey of pediatricians, over 98% believe that the media affect childhood aggression”. This to me means, Parents need to watch there kids, what they are watching or playing. “The economic benefits of more explicit violence became apparent when Nintendo and Sega both created versions of Mortal Kombat for their competing systems. Nintendo had toned down the blood and gore in their version, and the Sega Genesis version outsold Nintendo’s version three to one.”, People that our buying video games want the more blood and gore, which to me for some children is too much.  My beliefs have not changed because I believe that violence in video games causes violence and aggression.

Article 2:

Harvey Weinstein vowed to back away from making ultraviolent movies. Media Violence can get to be too much for a lot of people. Gun sale have gone up, but gun crimes have gone down. The media violence is messing with the minds of children. My Beliefs are that movies are movies, NOT real life. But there are some people that do not get that, and there are some parents allowing their children to watch these movies. I own many firearms, and I have never wanted to go kill or injure another person, but that is who I am, not all people are the same as me. Also Reservoir Dogs is a great movie, you might need to watch it a few times to understand the movie though.

Article 3:

The very first people that committed murder did not have books, TV, movies, or games. They did it all by themselves no pressure or watching it from anywhere. “We applaud the creation of a bomb whose sole purpose is to destroy all of mankind, and we grow up watching our president's brains splattered all over Texas. Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised.” Why do we do this? Because its “News Worthy” or just the media controlling people, by only showing what they want people to see.

I believe that the media/news shows a skewed version of the news, they show what they want to let everyone know. The Media usually blows everything up, but really is not a huge deal. 

Articles

Article 1:
Summary: This article is about video games that have violence in them. The first commercial video game, Pong, was released in 1972. The type of evidence they provided was researchers on the effects of video games, the history of violence in video games, experimental studies, correlational studies, longitudinal studies, early research compared to recent research, amount of play versus content of play, media violence as a risk factor for aggression, and they used graphs. The way the structured their essay was put it into sections.
Reaction: I learned that males get into more fights than women do due to the violence of video games. My beliefs did not change because I always thought that violence in video games caused aggression.

Article 2:
Summary: This article is about movie violence. The media violence is messing with the minds of children. The article also says that gun manufacturing and gun sales have exploded in the United States in the last few years, but gun violence has reached its lowest level since 1981.
Reaction: My beliefs did not change because I always thought that violence in movies was messing with the minds of children. The violence in movies is causing children to fight in school because they are trying to act like the actors/actresses in the movies.

Article 3:
Summary: This article is about Marilyn Manson speaking out about violence. He is talking about the high schooling in Littleton, Colorado. The articles says that sometimes music, movies, and books are the only things that let us feel like someone else feels like we do.
Reaction: My beliefs did not change because I always thought that guns in the US were always bad when it came to people just using them for shootings. I understand going hunting for animals, but there is no reason that you should shoot people. That is just the craziest thing that you could ever do.

Articles

Violent Video Games: The Effects on Youth, and Public Policy Implications.

"Years of research documents how witnessing violence and aggression leads to a range of negative  out comes for children."  This article expresses how parents are so naïve when it comes to violence and their children.  "The same parents who take great pains to keep children from witnessing violence in the home an neighborhood often do little to keep them from viewing large quantities of violence on television, in movies, and in video games."  This article touches on the games that were released and what the games consisted of.  In  1972 the first commercial video game, Pong was released.   As time kept passing, the violent the games got.  Pong was a "Ping-Pong" game where all you had to do was hit the "ball" with "paddles,"  this game was not mainly about violence, but by "1992, a major step forward in realism was taken by the game Wolfenstein 3D."  This game was the "major first person shooter game.  In this kind of game, one sees the video game world though the eyes of the character one controls, rather than seeing it from afar."  However, this article talks about the correlation studies and it amuses me how people can be so naïve.  When children see violence its something that they find cool. It's very interesting how some parents let their children play violent games when they brains have not quite develop by the age of 9-12; most violent games are rated 18+ because children are not able to absorb that kind of "shock, action" when they are young.  This article should enhance part of the American population because if parents were not letting their children play Call of Duty by the age of 12, children would not know what a firearm looks like.  In America, we have had incidents were some children accidentally shoot their parents or other due to the knowledge of a firearm.  However, if parents were more careful with what they let their children observe on TV such as movies. reality shows or even video games, children would not be capable of having any sort of knowledge for these weapons.
(All quotations from article Violent video games: the effects on youth, and public policy implications.)

Weinstein, Tarantino and the standoff over movie violence.

Harvey Weinstein is trying to discontinue his propaganda for violent movies.  He is trying to prove a point to where every child who watches a movie that contains any sort of violent acts would drive that child to do something stupid in his/her life.   In this article it explains how there are two groups: "1) Of course media violence is corrupting the minds of youth, coarsening society and leading to horrific levels of uncontrolled brutality and gun violence. 2) Violent media has been with us forever!"  Although, violence has been with us forever does not mean that people do not make poor actions.  The more violent scenes the more it sticks into children's head and they find themselves more motivated towards it.  From babysitting children, I have noticed that they're two kind of parents.  Ones that are totally okay to letting their children watch any type of violent scene, to the ones who do not want their children to encounter themselves with any kind of violent act, nor scene.  Children are more capable to use their imagination and imagination goes a long way.  Violence is not going anywhere, but what people can do is be a bit more like Harvey Weinstein and try to keep the violent scenes a bit low.  If this were to happen we might see change in the world.  Maybe not a lot of people would get arrested for illegal gun possession and all that non-sense.
(All quotations from article Weinstein, Tarantino and the standoff over movie violence.)

Columbine: Whose fault is it?

"It is sad to think that the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games or music to inspire cold-blooded murder."  This articles expresses how Americans use criminals as heroes by putting their pictures "on the front of the new paper or the magazines."  This explains how we are so used to judging the book by its cover.  We think that people who listen to Heavy metal and different kind of music are weird or how "people tend to associate anyone who looks and behaves different with illegal or immoral activity."  Maybe how we try to find excuses for everyone.  How we blame others because the person who was in the wrong was not 18 yet, or how it was peer pressure.  We are so accustomed to finding excuses from each others actions that we do not realize that we blame people who are completely un guilty.  Maybe its time to stop judging other by what they look like, what they listen to, and who they act like and realize that we are all humans and we all make the same mistakes, some more than others but no one is perfect.  Instead of  blaming music, lyrics, artist, the news or any time of media, we should really think "Whose Fault is It?:
(All quotations from article Columbine: Whose fault is it?)

Articles on violence in the media

Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?

In this article whose fault is it the main idea of it was how people were murdering each other and no one cared about it, but would more care about something that irrelevant. The way they wrote this was story to story. He start with one big story and went to the next with the same plot. The type of evidences he gave us was think that we've done our self not something that happened and no one else knows about. One was when the president got shot in the head. We just got more violent because the media wouldn't show the right things to the people, but curved the truth. My thoughts when I was reading this had me thinking that people in this world aren't thinking twice before they accuses someone of communing murder or any type of violence. Like he said one the article “But what is more offensive is that when these tragedies happen, most people don't really care anymore than they Would about the season finale of Friends or The Real World.” This shows how we don’t can careless about the violence around us and focus on looking like looking like these celebrities. When outside our homes innocent people are being blame for the wrong things. This line kind of doubt my belief because I thought what the media was telling us was true and thing I been saw on TV was the things that was going on out in the world. After readying this I've double thoughts about to carefully choose what I will listen to now.

Weinstein, Tarantino and the standoff over movie violence

Weinstein articles talks about how he wants to retired from violence movies. That violence movie isn't helping this world but just making people creating more violence. This article had me thinking about how much violence movie I seen. How much violence they have in it. Like Django Unchained had the type of violence that we as human went through. I learned that most movies have violence that we see going on right now. The same things that’s happening in the world is what they’re putting out for us to see it. Most of it is to teach us how our world is being control.

Violent Video Games

This article talks about how violence video games effect kids now days. The way their behavior change as the play the game, and parents trying to keep their children from playing violence video games. In this article they gave us evidence by talking about how they did some research to see how much violence video games effect every single one of us. How high or low of a risk it put this world on. As I was reading this article it grab my attention a lot because I am a gamer. I love playing video games especially if it has more violence to it. I personally don’t agreed with result that they gave us because not everyone behavior changes. I been playing violence video game my whole life and I’m still the same person. What I learned from this is that sometime most theories are wrong. Not just because one person made a mistake miss everyone else will follow. I just know that stopping kids from playing violence video game will change this world to something us. Because the violence we do in violence have us thinking twice before we think about doing it in the real world.

Weinstein, Tarantino and the standoff over movie violence

    The main idea in this article was how there is violence in the media and how some directors have vowed to not partake in films, as much as possible, in films that have violence in them. The author used Weinstein  as an example in multiple different points in his essay, such as when he brought up how there was only a handful of movies that Weinstein made. What I learned from this essay was that Weinstein was wanting to help dispose of the violence in the media. Although I found this author more interesting I thought it was interesting that between this one and the Marilyn Manson one, both of the brought up different points of the bible to help pinpoint that violence has been around for forever. I also thought it was interesting how both of the authors had similar views of how there is real-life-violence and media-violence. I think it is interesting how both had them into two different topics, but Manson just clumped them into the same group because he felt violence was violence.  What I learned from the Weinstein article was that Weinstein wasn't wanting to film more violent films because he didn't want his children to see it. Which I think is pretty cool because of how violent the world can be, Weinstein wants to make ones that aren't violent. Although I did learn something new like how Weinstein decided to go against the norm,  I mainly thought the article was more interesting. This is because of the different facts that were in the article. My beliefs also didn't change because of the articles but I learned that there are some people out there who do want to make more happy entertainment instead of violent and angry entertainment, which is pretty cool.

Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?

     The main idea in this article talking about the hypocrisy that can lead to journalists and opportunists playing the blame game.  The essay was structured very well, in my opinion. I liked how it seemed he was talking to a whole group instead of just one or two people. Manson made it seem like he was talking to a big audience. Manson used evidence such as from the bible and how Cain killed Abel, all the way to how the civil war wasn't civil at all.  I think this essay was the one the one that I found most convincing because of how he would always go back to how we as humans have a hunger for violence that is insatiable. I learned that Manson thought that the controversialists would always try to find another version for situation or entertainment might be. I thought it was interesting how he said that many people wanted to interview him after he was blamed for the influencing of the Columbine Massacre, but he never did an interview or anything. Manson just kept living his life not wanting to feed into the glam of the media's blame game or things like that. Whereas my beliefs on the topic didn't really change, I thought that he made a very good point in saying that the media for violence is all over and never hidden. It was also nice to read from a different aspect on Columbine, and how he mentioned that the boys didn't like music but he was still blamed for impacting  their lives through music.

Facebook Articles

Article 1

Protecting your child from violence from media, video games, school or whatever it may be will only work so long. I have seen so many kids be so sheltered through school from their parents once they got out into the real world they were worthless. They had no idea the world was filled with so many influences because they were never exposed to them as a teen. When they are by themselves making there own decisions because mommy and daddy aren't there to make it for them they screw up. I have seen several kids I graduated with that never did shit in high school and now complete alcoholics in college. This all comes back to sheltereing kids at young ages. My parents had moderate supervision as I was growing up. I always did what I wanted within reason. They were always there to make sure i never took anything too far. I thank them all the time now because I am a lot more prepared for real life events than most 19 year olds who still act like children. I know this really doesnt have a lot  to do with the article but the point is still the same. Hovering over your children and monitoring everything they do could potentially have horrible risks.

Article 2

I agree with Harvey Weinstein up to a point. I do agree that violent movies can change the outlook on what is acceptable in reality. I say this because I was the little boy at one time. Going to the movies and seeing guns, shooting, and car crashes is enough to get any little kid excited. When they see these films they want to be like these characters and recreate what they did in the movies. In my opinion this is where good parenting would come into play. Teaching kids wrong from right, whats acceptable and whats not. Movies are low on the totum pole when it comes to creating violence in America. There are so many problems this world needs to figure out, and semi- violent movies are not the one of them as of now.

Article 3
First of all I really enjoyed this article. In my opinion people who are against this article either one needs wake up and get with reality or two need to pull the stick out of their ass and quit acting like they are better than everyone else. Marilyn makes several excellent points throughout his article. 

The one thing that really stuck to me is when he calls ourselves the devil. Most Christians are to ignorant to admit there are major flaws within their religion and I agree with him. Society today is so mixed up in a pile of shit its not even funny. The part that's not funny is how us as Americans do not have the decency to man up and own its mistakes so we involve ourselves in more shit in hopes the old will go away. Fact is problems just don't disappear until we finish what we started! I back this article completely and commend him for speaking the real truth.

Violence in the media

Article 1
The first article kind of caught me off guard. The part talking about how parents would guard their children from real life violence but could care less about violence they would see on the news or in video games kind of surprised me. I would have thought that if you didn't want your child to be exposed to violence, you wouldn't expose them to it in any fashion. I especially wouldn't like my child seeing anything like whats in the video game "Soldier of Fortune", where the opposing characters arm would get blown off leaving "exposed bone" and "blood rushing from the wound". Another thing that I found interesting in the article was the fact that the ratings system actually helped the video game industry out in a sense. I would have figured that it would help parents understand that this type of video game is not suitable for my child, instead of parents thinking oh I saw this in the news, I should get it. With all this being said, I agree with some of the articles points, but I would have to say that I disagree with the articles main point of children being more aggressive because they saw it in a video game. I think in some instances this might be the case, but despite the research done, I don't think there is a direct correlation between video game violence and how a child acts, I think there are other things that factor into this, like the child's background etc. 

Article 2
Let me start this out by saying I have no idea who  Harvey Weinstein is, and the only movie talked about in this article that I have seen is "Djengo Unchained". Anyways, I think it is a good thing that Weinstein is trying to stand up against violent films and get people talking and trying to get people to take action. I don't really agree with him because I don' think that the root of all violence is coming from violence that we absorb through the media, but, good for him. I do however like the analogy made by the writer of this article about whiskey and hamburgers. I totally agree with him, media violence won't bring about the end of the world if you witness it in moderate amounts, but I could see where watching it everyday, every hour could possibly make you more prone to going crazy and being a violent person. But also at the same time we are all basically exposed to the same amount of media violence in one way or another and only a very small amount of us turn out to be another statistic. Overall on the topic of media in the violence I would have to say that I am on the fence as to if violence is our fault and if it is really violence in the media making us act so irrationally at certain points.

Article 3
This article was probably my favorite out of the three. I love how it addressed the fact that its not our society's actions changing, its just how we televise and broadcast everything that is changing. This is also the one article that I would back 100%, it gets a little dark and grim sometimes when he vocalizes how he sees the world, but overall this article really dug in deep about whats wrong with our society. For instance as mentioned in the article, the fact that we blow up these horrible actions and make them bigger than life, we turn the culprit into a star, plaster his or her picture all over news papers, TV, magazines etc. and all the while we are looking for some to point the finger at, because his actions were justified, and it was so and so's fault for leading them in the wrong direction. Overall this article helped me determine and strengthen my view point on this subject, which is we need to stop turning these horrible things and people into idols, stop trying to point a finger at other individual people, when really it is us as a whole that each and everyone of us is contributing to.