Tv and Media

Television is an important component of the American society today. Without it many people would not know how to live with themselves. I believe television is a great tool for our society when shown correctly, and what I mean by correctly is censored. Even though many might argue that censorship does not have a place in a society that emphases freedom of speech and the freedom to express oneself, I believe censorship is an essential much needed part of our growing society, especially the television industry. I believe that media shapes our society and the sex, violence, and explicate language that we find on television today shapes our society, especially children, in a bad way.

When it comes to sexual content on television my biggest question is, is it really necessary? One of my favorite television shows is Entourage. This show has somewhat of high volumes of sexual content on its original channel HBO, but it is also shown on networks like SPIKE and WGN with the sexual content being censored. Having viewed Entourage on both sets of channels, I find my experience watching with high sexual content and without it the same. I have also heard the same reviews with shows like Sex and the City and Curb Your Enthusiasm which have also been shown censored on basic cable. "The difference in adolescent sexual outcomes may be explained by media exposure since it is a way that children are socialized to sexuality" (Somers and Tynan 16). Sexual material should be censored because "exposure to sexually suggestive dialogue and explicit sexual content on television is related to adolescents' sexual outcomes" (Somers and Tynan 25).

Violence comes across many television shows. Scenes portrayed on television have become the standard for lessons for children, whether it's how to behave at the dinner table, or what to do in a potentially violent situation. Daily children see on the television that violence is fun and exciting and the hero's method of choice for solving their problems. "The more violent television children watch, the more likely they are to become violent" (Hough and Erwin 411). This is a scary when thinking about how much television children watch today. Without censorship who knows what kind of violence they would start to put on television. Sometimes there can be such a thing as too much violence like watching someone's head or arm get cut off. I know a lot of people who cannot stand excessive violence.

Television is much stricter in censoring profanity than even strong violence or sexual content. In class we learned about the seven dirty words that are not allowed to be said on television. Although some of the words on this list are a lot worse than others, I would agree that none of them should be mentioned on television. If by some chance children do not have the proper guidance in their life by their parents, then I believe they will use profanity.