Essay (The content of digital media products makes people commit acts of violence) with review

"The content of digital media products makes people makes people commit acts of violence" Discuss the statement based on digital media products you have studied.

This is a statement that relies on the fact that most of the content we see in media nowadays has a lot of violence and inappropriate actions in them. However, while this is the case, I  personally do not believe it makes people more violent or makes them commit acts of violence. Instead, they become desensitised and less emotional towards killing a person in Call Of duty or stealing a car in Grand Theft Auto. Large majority of the audience that plays these games are passive audiences as they do not take any offence towards the violence they see on screen.

This brings us to my first point, the Cultivation Theory. Which describes that by repetitive viewing of violent images the audience may become immune to negative and violent representations. This links towards the idea of desensitisation as with the vast amount of content people watch,  over time people aren't going to be effected by violence as much as they would have been their first time watching that content. An article to support this would be the Frontiers article about long time exposure towards violent video games. In which they conducted an experiment which resulted in the observations proved no significant effects with watching violent content. Proving that this statement is false and incorrect.

This is also proved to be false through the encoding and decoding theory by Stuart Hall. Which explains that different audiences have different readings based on their background, religion or culture. This means that violent acts or thoughts aren't always caused due to video games or shows and instead are interpreted by how the person perceives them, because decoding is the process of obtaining, absorbing, understanding, and sometimes using the information that was given throughout a verbal or non-verbal message. Some "preferred meaning audience" may accept the dominant viewpoint, while other audiences would either disagree with certain aspects or the ideology of the product as a whole. This shows how the statement is false as you cannot blame the product for how some one perceives the ideas within it. 

Another theory that proves that this statement is incorrect is the Fandom theory by Henry Jenkins. Many violent video games such as the Call of Duty franchise and the GTA games have fandoms and groups that operate on websites such as twitter, reddit and, forechan. When looking at the post made on these websites many of them are just memes or funny interactions within the game. There have been no mentions of any fandom causing violence or copying what they saw in the game as most of the fandoms are peaceful and just share their experience within the game. Showing that violence in video games does not make you more violent as many people who play these violent games do not act out the actions they do in game in real life. 

However the hyper dermic string theory proves that this statement is correct as it explains that many people believe everything they see in media. This is because the media manipulate the audiences for profit a lot of the time. This is backed up by Vance Packard in his book about advertising (The hidden persuaders) as it reveals the techniques used and the morality within it. With this we know that someone can easily persuades audiences to commit violent acts as the media can just manipulate the vast majority of tv watchers. Proving that if the media want to make their audiences cause violent acts they can use violent shows and images to manipulate them into this.

The cultivation theory states that over periods of time we come to accept the violent images and shows we see and we are cultivated to get use to and accept these things. Like desensitisation, the cultivation theory shows how because we have gotten more used to these images we become more inclined to believe they aren't as bad as they are portrayed.  This is enhanced when we look at the medias effects on children, which is explained deeper in the article about the theory by "science direct". However the gist of it is that when seeing these things at a young age in shows like "family guy" the children's moral and social development can be damaged as they would grow up finding it difficult to distinguish the what is right and wrong. Plus, while shows such as family guy are made for adults, many parents do not see the problem with letting their child watch these. Hence they will grow up and be desensitised by this, proving that violence in media can make people violent. 

The destination theory proposes that with continual exposure to violence in media we become less emotionally connected to seeing violence or sex in media, inclining people to believe that it is ok and to act out what they see in media. The article by PubMed explains that in an experiment, it proved that by playing violent video games, it increased aggressive behaviour both short term and long term. Many people watch tv or play video games for hours a day their whole life, meaning that if it effects them long term they would slowly become more violent and inclined to do these violent acts in real life. 

In conclusion, I still believe that violence in media does not make people more violent because people rarely ever act out the things they see on television. They just become desensitised and less emotion to these things that they would see in media. Plus while Family guy or any other adult cartoon or movie can be easily accessed; It is up to parents to look after their children and make sure they are watching the correct shows.

Also I need to add the date of year that it was created.