Devoir de Philosophie

TELEVISION AND VIOLENCE

Publié le 07/02/2012

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A recent poll (1) disclosed that nearly one third of America's 80 million or so families are the most regu)ar T.V. addicts. Now a great deal of research goes on into the mental and moral etrects of T.V. on viewers of ali ages. Americans are so attuned to television that in most homes there are at least two sets: the average American child will witness more than 11,000 murders on television by the time he is 14. School-age children watch between 14 and 49 hours of T.V. a week. At the university of .Utah, psychologists have been examining the proposition that there is a physiologicallink between viewing T.V. violence and a general desensitisation to violence, accompanied by a Jack of concern for the victims of violence. Boys between the ages of 4 and 14 were divided into two groups: those ....

« who habitually watched less than four hours T.V.

a week and those who watched a minimum of 25 hours a week.

In the Utah laboratory, each chitd was invited to view three film extracts.

Two of these were relatively calm films, white the third was an eight-minute sequence from "The Champion", a Kirk Douglas film in which a brutal boxing-match is depicted.

Results showed that white the children were watching the calm films, there was no observable difference between the two groups.

When viewing the boxing scenes, however, those children who normally saw very little T.V.

reacted much more strongly to violence than did those who were accustomed to many hours of T.V.

The researchers conclude that the evidence shows that "heavy T.V.

watchers" may become relatively indifferent to violence, and may come to feel comparatively little concern for the victims of violence.

ROBERT SHIELDS, The Observer Review, March 17 th, 1974.

1.

Commentaire dirigé 1) What did this experiment tend to prove exactly? What do you think of the results? 2) Is violence a modern invention? 3) Can you see any other dangerous consequences of T.V.

viewing? 4) Do you look on T.V.

as a useless gadget or a means of education? 2.

Version Translate from the beginning down to: " ...

49 hours of T.V.

a week".

1) What did this experiment tend to prove exact/y? What do you think of the results? This experiment tended to prove the mental and moral effects. »

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