The Media Influence on Behavior

There has been a continuing dispute whether or not the media influences a child’s conduct. There is not a qualm that the media is so powerful. The media influence children by making them think that male characters symbolize power, performance, and talent, for women, it focuses on beauty, brainpower, and indecisive, and thirdly it makes them to act out by mimicking what the characters are doing. There is no hesitation that the media has an impact on a child. Animated shows intended for young people often have more violence than programs aired for wide-ranging viewers.

Male characters symbols

The media influence children by making them think that a male character symbolizes performance, and skill. In “Sesame Street”, All of the characters depicted in this program are male. Amongst the Muppet, most of them encompass male names or tone of voice. Even miss piggy, who is a feminine personality, is expressed by a male (Cobb, Stevens-Long, & Goldstein, 1982).

Women Stereotyping

Women also experience stereo typing. For instance, in one of Nickelodeon shows called “Wild Thornberry’s”. Marianne, a cartoon mom is depicted as fully composed and is able to resolve any dilemma that comes up. Her daughter Eliza has the inclination of emotionally exaggerating about certain issues whereas Debbie totally conforms to typecast as she is seen the childish teen girl with only boys on her thought. (Nickelodeon, 2007)

Mimicking of characters

Another media impact is when children act out by mimicking what the characters are doing. High amounts of violent behavior in Scooby-Doo can make children more destructive. (Voort. T. H. A. 2009). In “Frady Cat” most of the actions comprise of aggressive behaviors such as hitting, kicking and name calling which after a viewing by the children escalates in acts such as the same.

Summary

A research shows that 8-year olds were more probable, to commit grave offenses, and use aggression. Kids who viewed more than 1 hour of TV every day as adolescents were 60 percent more likely to be caught up in physical attacks and fight as grownups. (Hermes 2011)The media does in actuality have an effect on the way a child acts. It adds to a child’s imagination. It puts new-fangled thoughts into children’s minds making them generate a complete new set of thoughts.