Violence in Television

The topic of violence in television is often given for essay assignments. It is important to not treat it too lightly. Providing substance might prove more difficult than it might seem at first. There is too much propaganda circulating and not enough authentic research.

If you look at the history of television, there has always been violence. Just think of the early Tom Mix cowboy movies. Many students might automatically think of the modern propaganda of the harm violence in television does to children. Consider, though, the benefits of violence in television. It could open up completely new ideas for an essay.

Violence in television has the power to incite violence in the viewer or to act as a catharsis. The viewer might find a release of this tension through watching violent programs, thereby dissipating the anger that might have resulted in violence in the home. So, you could argue, that contrary to the modern day mantra on the harms of watching violent programs on television, that it acts as a buffer for some.

The real meat and potatoes of this kind of essay, though, are the demographic studies of those people influenced, for better or worse, by violence in television. But an even more interesting study would be to examine if a correlation exists between certain diets or certain kinds of occupations and reactions in personal life to having watched many violent programs.

Violence is sometimes, unfortunately necessary in life. The underlying assumption in liberal-minded educators is that violence is a bad aspect of human behavior. In fact, it sometimes is. However, we have taken neutral anger and thrown it in with the detrimental kind in order to tilt the scales toward anti-anger campaigns. So here is another angle you can take for an essay on violence in television.

Be sure to address more viewpoints than your own when writing this kind of paper. Also, present the opponent’s views fairly or you will lose points.