Maggie Sharpe
Trusting the Media 2-20-2009
Critical Thinking
The media is a part of everyday lives in America. Children are surrounded by technology, entertainment, and other media that is full of violence. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the internet are full of unneeded violence. Today's media has a negative influence on children. Although the media may influence them, does it really influence people to act out even though they know it's wrong? The media is very powerful and can influence one's mind, as well as their behavior. So often, violence in movies is portrayed showing the real consequences for these actions. Children will imitate characters that use violence in the media without realizing the true consequences of their actions. For children who grow up with poor adult examples or an unclear idea of what is right and wrong, media violence can have an even greater effect because the children not only want role models, but need them as well.
As most of us recall on April 20, 1999, two teenagers armed with semiautomatic weapons and explosives killed thirteen people at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.(http://history1900s.about.com) The teenagers, both students at Columbine, then took their own lives. The high school massacre in Littleton came in the wake of other school shootings. In 1997 in Pearl, Mississippi, a sixteen-year-old killed two students while in 1998 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, two middle school students killed four students and a teacher and wounded fifteen others. These terrible tragedies did not end with the Littleton shooting. There has been 57 school shootings alone in the United States since 1997. And just a month after Columbine, a fifteen-year-old wounded six students at a high school in Georgia; in May 2000, a seventh-grader shot a teacher at a Florida middle school; and in March 2001, a fifteen-year-old boy opened fire at a high school in Santee, California, killing two students and injuring thirteen...