Gender and Media

Throughout society, men and women have been expected to live by guidelines consisting of media generated ideas and ways of living out life. Both men and women's thinking process are being altered the negative effects of society's mass media. For both sexes, this repeating negative exposure causes a constant downfall in self-image and creates media influenced decisions that lead to unhealthy lifestyles. The media effects the thinking process of both men and women in negative ways therefore media needs to be heavily regulated.

Today's young men are increasingly being influenced by the harming mass media. Starting at a young age, these young boys are big active users of many types of media such as watching countless number of hours of television, movies, and sports programs, listening to radio programs and CDs, and playing violent video games. These boys are increasingly surfing the Internet at record numbers unsupervised. All of these forms of media are making huge influential decisions in their lives. Young males are least likely to read beneficial sources of media such as newspapers and magazines.

We live in a society that often sends many confusing and contradicting messages to males. These young people that are taking in large amounts of media experience a contradiction between their own reality and media's messages. These young men are bombarded with advertisements and media based ideas that can harm and alter the way young men operate. Our young men of our society are confused and are in great danger from the mass media. There has been a growing rise in boys falling behind in school, committing suicide, and becoming involved in horrific violent crimes. This media caused anger and frustration in boys has resulted in many acts of violence.

During every second of our lives, an unjustified act of violence is being portrayed on television. People live their lives believing that this portrayed violence is a standard living accommodation but in fact these cartoons and movies could be actually shaping young males into believing violence is needed in our society. There are many popular shows such as the Power Rangers and X-Men that are targeted toward our young adult males that are morphing their attitudes to a violent and more masculine level. Many people believe that males are naturally aggressive toward each other and that violence has always been a large part of the male's life. I believe that this is not true at all because there are many facts to support that the rise in violence among young males is relatively caused by the media and that we are just starting to see the effects with a whole new generation behind it.

Everyday, another act of violence is generated by a young adult male through the act of defiance. Highly publicized acts of violence by young males have opened the eyes of the country as people nationwide search for the possible problems that face these young boys today. The majority of these violent crimes are seen as acceptable to these young adults who feel that no consequences will result. Boy's favorite television programs and movies are comedies that recommend parental guidance. Children say they see violence most often in movies and video games. More that two thirds of children describe men and boys on television as angry. Mass media such as cartoons and video games provide fuel and shelter for these young adults who act out these crimes that feel it is all right. The vast

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