Dear Friends, Parents & Adults
concerned by Children's Rights and Media Violence,
You have probably heard about the United Nations
Secretary General's Study on Violence Against Children. You can find more
about the Study at this address: <http://www.violencestudy.org/r25>
The S-G mandated Professor Paulo Sergio
Pinheiro as an Independent Expert to
prepare the Study. EDUPAX sent him a report titled
«Promising Practices By North American Civil
Society To Protect Children From Media Violence».
The Report was posted on the Child Rights
Information Network's website (CRIN) : http://www.crin.org/violence/search/closeup.asp?infoID=9187
We need your help in regard with this issue.
Why does media violence deserve attention and where does
it fit in the S-G Study on Violence Against Children ?
When compared to famine, corporal punishment,
abduction and traficking, pedophilia, landmines and slavery,
maltreatment of disabled & mentally ill, media
violence might look minor since it is happening in comfortable and
safe homes. In fact, when researchers study damages made to children
in industrialized countries, they conclude that television hurts
millions of children very deeply and that most damages will affect
them lifelong.
Attracting Children is a Lucrative Industry
Media violence is primarily used in entertainment to
attract human beings, particularly the less experienced, the youngests. It
is used to train them to watch television, movies, music videos,
videogames and adversing messages. Why does it work ? Because human beings can
hardly turn their head away when they witness their fellow human
beings suffering or when they see pain inflicted on them. Using
violence as a marketing ingredient is a very cruel form of child abuse because
1) children cannot make a difference between fiction
and reality,
2) it is made with the use of psychology, a
science to heal, not to abuse.
The process of making the difference between
fiction and reality starts at the age of 7 and is not over before the age of
13. Unfortunately, for many children, the process is completed much
later.
An Industry Targeting the Most Vulnerable
Despite children's vulnerability, despite
repeated calls to ethics by the scientific community and child rights
advocates, violence is commonly and increasingly used by both
the entertainment and the marketing industries for
commercial purposes. Increasing the audience means monetary profits
in the short term despite the enormous short, mid and long term
negative effects for children. Well over a thousand studies have linked
television with numerous marketing related diseases (MRD) such as obesity,
body image, self esteem, violent crime, physical and verbal abuse, eating
disorders, smoking, alcool, attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity,
compulsive consumerism, perilous car driving, and various forms of
addiction. Exposure to violent entertainment does not only show and teach how
to act violently. In the child's inexperienced brain, it also
links pain infliction with pleasure.
Media Violence Hurts Twice
No surprize when kids imitate the Ninja Turtles, the
Power Rangers and the Pokemon at school during recess or at home with brothers
and sisters. But when a child acts out, we, as adults, know that other
kids will experience pain and injuries because his friend
imitated these characters. Media violence must not be criticized only
for the kid exposed to it, but also for those who will suffer
from his behavior. Violence was not created by the media but the
media helped increasing the occurence, the damages and the pain for millions of
children around the world. The entertainment
industry often has asserted that the amount of violence in the media merely
mirrors the reality of violence in society (West, 1993). A well known film
critic compared media violence and real-life violence and concluded
that if the murder rate presented during an average evening of television was real, «in
just 50 days everyone in the United States would be killed». (Michael
Medved, 1995, quoted by Unicef-Canada, Regional Report on
Violence Against Children in North America, June 2006)
Damages Documented Scientifically
The effect of media violence is
bigger than the
effect of exposure to second hand smoke on lung cancer,
bigger than the
effect of exposure to lead on brain functions in children,
bigger
than the effect of calcium intake on bone mass,
bigger than the
effect of homework on academic achievement,
bigger than the
effect of asbestos exposure on cancer.
(Testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce
Committee hearing, by Professor Craig Anderson.)
These effects are short-term: aggression
increases immediately after viewing a violent TV show or movie. The long-term
effect is that children who watch a lot of violent shows become more
violent as adults than they would have become had they not been exposed to so
much TV and movie violence.
Mental Health
Playing videogames has shown to deprive parts of the
brain from electric stimulation and to be responsible for the atrophy of
the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is where humans control their
impulsions. The lack of stimulation at child age will affect human all
their life. «Videogames give children and teens the skill, the
will and the thrill to kill» (Lt Col Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano, co
author of «Stop Teachin Our Kids To Kill»).
School Bullying & Youth Crime
Research also revealed that time
exposure to media violence is actually linked with school bullying.
In the U.S., school
authorities have noticed that for the last 20 years, violence has hit lower
grades and that media violence was a major factor.
http://www.edupax.org/Assets/divers/documentation/17_violence/School_violence_hits_lower_grades.html
Media violence is also linked with later criminal
activity as shown by this 17-year study in which 700 young
people were tracked down into their adult lives. Hours of viewing were
correlated with acts of aggression.
Desensitization
The most alarming effect of exposure to violent
entertainment is DESENSITIZATION, i.e.
the reduction of empathy. Massive exposure to violent entertainment has shown
to reduce the capacity and the will to rescue victims or to report
about them. Massive exposure to media violence desensitizes to other forms
of violence and reduces the power of solidarity between human
beings. Media violence must be considered an obstacle
to reducing other cruel forms of violence against children such
as famin, corporal punishment, abduction and traficking, pedophilia,
landmines and slavery, maltreatment of disabled &
mentally ill.
Dear Friends,
Please find here (below) a letter to
Professor Pinheiro and a draft resolution asking him to
include «promising practices developed in Canada and the U.S. to
protect children from media violence». We ask you as an individual and your
organization to sign and forward both the letter and the resolution to the
Independant Expert. This will show that child protection from
media violence is important to you.
EDUPAX has received tremendous support from an
organization named Positive Entertainment for Children Everywhere,
(PEACE) active in the field of child protection from media violence.
Please send copies of both the letter and the
resolution to the addresses listed below. After receiving copy of
your letter, EDUPAX will keep your name posted with those
of other helping organizations and individuals. Please circulate this
invitation to your contacts.
Our aim is
double.
1) Media violence MUST BE INCLUDED in the S-G Study on
Violence Against Children,
2) Real PROMISING
PRACTICES must find their way into the S-G Study.
Let us hope that these
inclusions will be done despite any lobbying from those who deny any
responsibility for child-abusive entertainment violence.
Thank you for your attention,
Jacques Brodeur, Consultant in the Fields of Violence
Prevention, Peace Education and Media Education,
493 Ste-Julie, Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada, G9A
1X4, JBrodeur@edupax.org
www.EDUPAX.org
819-379-2132