Unit One Dialogue Summary

For my overall topic I chose to talk about violence on television/movies and its effects on children who are exposed to it at a young age.  I personally think that being exposed to violence on television frequently at a young age shouldn’t cause a person to grow up to commit violent actions and go on shooting rampages.  I have three older brothers and I saw plenty of violent TV shows and movies when I was younger and I didn’t grow up to be a violent person.  The article I chose was written by a Professor of Communications at The University of Arizona. He states that studies on violence in the media have been going on for as long as 40 years, and he agrees with the authors in the other articles that violence on television does pose a harmful risk to children.  Throughout the article the author mentions the multiple ways that violence on TV effects children such as “creating aggressive behavior, desensitization, and an increase in fear of becoming a victim to violence.” Violence on television is also compared in the article to other harmful risks in society such as second hand smoke, contracting HIV, and asbestos exposure.  I think that this article and the other two I chose, “Media Violence Versus Real Violence” and “Op-Ed Hollywood Hypocrisy on Media Violence”, all bring up interesting points about the effects that this problem may have on society.  I think my dialogue will start out with giving an introduction to the problem and maybe a real life scenario such as the Sandy Hook shooting because the shooter was reportedly overly exposed to violence on television as a child. I will then include each author and have them say how they feel about the problem and how exactly they think violence on TV affects children negatively.  Then I will wrap it up with asking each author about potential solutions they have to the problem and if there is anything the government can do to fix this issue.