Nowadays lots of variety shows, such as The Infinite Challenge and One Day Two Nights, create situations which participants must perform tasks and the loser receives penalties for fun. How does it make you feel to watch these programs? Do you think it is simply interesting and exciting? The reason why I ask you these questions is to find out how much you have been hardened to media violence.
What is media violence? It is an act that infringes on audiences through the media. There are two main types of media violence: direct violence and indirect violence. First, direct violence is to expose people to violent scenes without any censorship. You can see a lot of violent scenes, for example, in music videos that show murders, suicides, sexual abuse, gun fights among gangsters, and so on. We can also find a variety of violence whether it is harsh or not through various media, such as TV drama series, movies, even news reports. On the other side, indirect violence is a form that is easily overlooked by the audiences. For instance, it can be an indirect violence to show violent scenes repeatedly during the coverage of the violence in the games. The penalties on variety entertainments, quarrels among party politics or statesmen on news reports also can be examples as well.
Despite its negative impact on people, why do the media keep producing those programs? The success of a program depends upon viewing figures, so the producers make more suggestive and sensational programs to catch people’s eyes. The danger of those programs is that it makes people accustomed to violence, especially youngsters. According to a study about the influence of the media on children by Professor Barbara J. Wilson at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the more children are exposed to media violence, the more likely they are to display aggressive tendencies.
We have looked at the negative impact of media on people by looking at two types of media violence. The media has an enormous power and it can affect you subconsciously without your knowledge. We should be more careful, navigating everything the media shows to us indiscreetly. Unless you make a conscious effort to screen the violence of the media, you might become an aggressive person, like those that you are watching in the media now.
By Pyun Ja-seong, Tribune Reporter
[Special Report]
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