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.”