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The Degeneration of Television for Adolescents
Television plays a major role in the lives of people around the world. It aids in informing people and keeping the world connected by circulating ideas or news. While it may be a great help to society, it also has its negative attributes. Television helps to play a role in the way people act, think, and carry themselves. According to Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, author of the book “Media Perspectives for the 21st century”, whenever media changes society changes along with it, whether it is ways of communication, studies on media, etc. (Papathanassopoulos 3). The most influential viewers of television are adolescents. The reason for this is because adolescents have the most time to watch television and are still mentally developing. Dr. Brigitte Vittrup, a Professor at Texas Women’s University stated “A large study by Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that one quarter (26%) of American children aged 2 to 4 years have a television in their bedroom, and by the time they get to middle school, that proportion increases to 70%” (Vittrup 51). Since adolescents are getting this much interaction with television, it is no surprise that they are being influenced by what they see on TV. By the age of 12, a child has already been introduced to some form of violence through television. This in turn has affected the way adolescents think and has skewed their moral reasoning. (Lemal and Bulck 305). Since adolescents see this from such a young age, it is not hard to figure out why adolescent crimes, as well as school dropout rates, are so high. With children being so easily influenced, throwing violence into their regular programming could lead to negative outcomes. With the help of parents and television regulators, the quality of television available to adolescents must be increased to ensure they develop healthy viewing habits and grow to become positive contributors to society.
In the early 1950’s, the period in which television became available to the public, television had an extremely positive reputation. It was seen as an information source that was widely available to people worldwide, but as we have moved into the 21st century television has taken a more violent and salacious turn. While somewhat entertaining, shows like “Jersey Shore” and “Family Guy”, which are targeted toward a slightly older audience, but also accessible to youth, have contributed to this ongoing problem. An analyst with the Parents Television Council named Aubree Rankin reiterates this point by saying that many of these programs “air a shocking amount of nudity, profanity, and other inappropriate behavior”. She also goes on to say “shows that glamorize sexual promiscuity and reward selfish, scheming contestants teach children that these qualities and behaviors are desirable” (Carroll 32). Since most juveniles have immediate and frequently unsupervised access to a television, most children have a TV in their room by the age of 2 (Vittrup 51), it is not hard to see why so many adolescents have many issues. Some of the issues range from early criminal activity, problems with body image, and early sexual activity.
The adolescent stage is the most critical era for any individual’s childhood. Many juveniles are just learning how to perceive things and television pays a major role in that instruction. The female gender has proven to be highly influenced by any form of media, especially television. Many cartoons that are targeted towards female adolescents create characters that have highly unattainable idealized body features. The cartoon “Winx Club” is a perfect example of this. The cartoon series follows 6 young women with bottom length hair, skyscraper long legs, and paper thin bodies. The unrealistic design of the characters bodies contradicts the message of female empowerment, which the show tries to convey. Fiona Bawdon, a writer for New Statesman Magazine, says “a quarter of girls aged ten to 15 said the media made them feel that “being pretty and thin” was the “the most important thing” (Miller 57). How are female adolescents supposed to develop a healthy body image and perception of self if adolescent programming bombards juveniles with the idea that “beauty is most important”?
The degeneration of television for adolescents can also be accredited to the recent state of the economy. Since the late 2000’s, the economic condition of the United States, as well as other countries around the world, has completely fallen apart and resources have had to be cut. Some of these resources relate to television, which supplies a large majority of educational programming for children and adolescents. Jeanette Steemers, a professor at University of Westminster, says “the problem with children’s television is that, in most cases, it does not make much economic sense unless it can be marketed as an all-encompassing brand with ancillary revenues from a range of consumer products” (Steemers 215). Basically, television stations are now considering first whether any revenue will actually be incurred before running appropriate programming that will be beneficial to adolescents. Stations are choosing to run programming that will gain a heavy following over adolescent friendly programming. The problem with that strategy is that the shows that obtain plenty of viewers are not usually shows adolescents should watch.
On the other hand, while the decline in the quality of television can be blamed on the selfish decisions made by television stations and the horrible state of the economy, many can argue that the real blame should be centered on the parents of adolescents. The job of a parent is composed of many duties, but the most important of all is to protect. This protection can be enacted by parents trying to find appropriate programming, as well as providing more supervision when adolescents view programming, but studies show that parents are doing otherwise. A study by Brigitte Vittrup showed that over 60 percent of older children view adult entertainment, while their parents only viewed a little under 40 percent of adult entertainment. Adolescents are also watching a whopping 15 percent more reality television then their parents (Vittrup 59). This comes as no surprise since children have easy access to televisions and since many parents do not supervise their children while they watch TV; adolescents are basically left alone many times to watch anything they please .
While the decline of television for adolescence can be blamed on many things, the solution is very obvious. Parents and television stations must come together to provide a change to adolescent programming and the way adolescents watch TV. The first step is for parents to regulate how much TV juveniles watch, as well as what they watch. The next step is for television stations to realize the importance in supplying adolescent friendly programming, as well as making the rating system more defined and easier for parents to understand and follow. If money is an issue, maybe the government could supply some funding to TV stations, so that lack of revenue will not be a deterrent when trying to supply more adolescent friendly television. It may be a lot of work, but adolescents deserve it.
Works Cited
Source 1:
Carroll, Jamuna. Television: opposing viewpoints. Detroit, Mich: Greenhaven, 2005.
Source 2:
Lemal, Marijke, and Jan Van den Bulck. "Television and children's moral reasoning: Toward a closed-end measure of moral reasoning on interpersonal violence." Communications 34 (2009): 305-21.
Source 3:
Miller, Karen. Children and the entertainment industry. Detroit: Greenhaven P, 2010.
Source 4:
Papathanassopoulos, Stylianos. Media perspectives for the 21st century. London: Routledge, 2011.
Source 5:
Steemers, Jeanette. "The “Canary in the Coalmine”: The Recession and the Crisis in the Production of British Children's Television Programming." Popular Communication 8 (2010): 213-17.
Source 6:
Vittrup, Brigitte. "What Us Parents Don't Know About Their Children's Television Use." Journal of Children and Media 3 (2009): 51-67.
Television plays a major role in the lives of people around the world. It aids in informing people and keeping the world connected by circulating ideas or news. While it may be a great help to society, it also has its negative attributes. Television helps to play a role in the way people act, think, and carry themselves. According to Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, author of the book “Media Perspectives for the 21st century”, whenever media changes society changes along with it, whether it is ways of communication, studies on media, etc. (Papathanassopoulos 3). The most influential viewers of television are adolescents. The reason for this is because adolescents have the most time to watch television and are still mentally developing. Dr. Brigitte Vittrup, a Professor at Texas Women’s University stated “A large study by Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that one quarter (26%) of American children aged 2 to 4 years have a television in their bedroom, and by the time they get to middle school, that proportion increases to 70%” (Vittrup 51). Since adolescents are getting this much interaction with television, it is no surprise that they are being influenced by what they see on TV. By the age of 12, a child has already been introduced to some form of violence through television. This in turn has affected the way adolescents think and has skewed their moral reasoning. (Lemal and Bulck 305). Since adolescents see this from such a young age, it is not hard to figure out why adolescent crimes, as well as school dropout rates, are so high. With children being so easily influenced, throwing violence into their regular programming could lead to negative outcomes. With the help of parents and television regulators, the quality of television available to adolescents must be increased to ensure they develop healthy viewing habits and grow to become positive contributors to society.
In the early 1950’s, the period in which television became available to the public, television had an extremely positive reputation. It was seen as an information source that was widely available to people worldwide, but as we have moved into the 21st century television has taken a more violent and salacious turn. While somewhat entertaining, shows like “Jersey Shore” and “Family Guy”, which are targeted toward a slightly older audience, but also accessible to youth, have contributed to this ongoing problem. An analyst with the Parents Television Council named Aubree Rankin reiterates this point by saying that many of these programs “air a shocking amount of nudity, profanity, and other inappropriate behavior”. She also goes on to say “shows that glamorize sexual promiscuity and reward selfish, scheming contestants teach children that these qualities and behaviors are desirable” (Carroll 32). Since most juveniles have immediate and frequently unsupervised access to a television, most children have a TV in their room by the age of 2 (Vittrup 51), it is not hard to see why so many adolescents have many issues. Some of the issues range from early criminal activity, problems with body image, and early sexual activity.
The adolescent stage is the most critical era for any individual’s childhood. Many juveniles are just learning how to perceive things and television pays a major role in that instruction. The female gender has proven to be highly influenced by any form of media, especially television. Many cartoons that are targeted towards female adolescents create characters that have highly unattainable idealized body features. The cartoon “Winx Club” is a perfect example of this. The cartoon series follows 6 young women with bottom length hair, skyscraper long legs, and paper thin bodies. The unrealistic design of the characters bodies contradicts the message of female empowerment, which the show tries to convey. Fiona Bawdon, a writer for New Statesman Magazine, says “a quarter of girls aged ten to 15 said the media made them feel that “being pretty and thin” was the “the most important thing” (Miller 57). How are female adolescents supposed to develop a healthy body image and perception of self if adolescent programming bombards juveniles with the idea that “beauty is most important”?
The degeneration of television for adolescents can also be accredited to the recent state of the economy. Since the late 2000’s, the economic condition of the United States, as well as other countries around the world, has completely fallen apart and resources have had to be cut. Some of these resources relate to television, which supplies a large majority of educational programming for children and adolescents. Jeanette Steemers, a professor at University of Westminster, says “the problem with children’s television is that, in most cases, it does not make much economic sense unless it can be marketed as an all-encompassing brand with ancillary revenues from a range of consumer products” (Steemers 215). Basically, television stations are now considering first whether any revenue will actually be incurred before running appropriate programming that will be beneficial to adolescents. Stations are choosing to run programming that will gain a heavy following over adolescent friendly programming. The problem with that strategy is that the shows that obtain plenty of viewers are not usually shows adolescents should watch.
On the other hand, while the decline in the quality of television can be blamed on the selfish decisions made by television stations and the horrible state of the economy, many can argue that the real blame should be centered on the parents of adolescents. The job of a parent is composed of many duties, but the most important of all is to protect. This protection can be enacted by parents trying to find appropriate programming, as well as providing more supervision when adolescents view programming, but studies show that parents are doing otherwise. A study by Brigitte Vittrup showed that over 60 percent of older children view adult entertainment, while their parents only viewed a little under 40 percent of adult entertainment. Adolescents are also watching a whopping 15 percent more reality television then their parents (Vittrup 59). This comes as no surprise since children have easy access to televisions and since many parents do not supervise their children while they watch TV; adolescents are basically left alone many times to watch anything they please .
While the decline of television for adolescence can be blamed on many things, the solution is very obvious. Parents and television stations must come together to provide a change to adolescent programming and the way adolescents watch TV. The first step is for parents to regulate how much TV juveniles watch, as well as what they watch. The next step is for television stations to realize the importance in supplying adolescent friendly programming, as well as making the rating system more defined and easier for parents to understand and follow. If money is an issue, maybe the government could supply some funding to TV stations, so that lack of revenue will not be a deterrent when trying to supply more adolescent friendly television. It may be a lot of work, but adolescents deserve it.
Works Cited
Source 1:
Carroll, Jamuna. Television: opposing viewpoints. Detroit, Mich: Greenhaven, 2005.
Source 2:
Lemal, Marijke, and Jan Van den Bulck. "Television and children's moral reasoning: Toward a closed-end measure of moral reasoning on interpersonal violence." Communications 34 (2009): 305-21.
Source 3:
Miller, Karen. Children and the entertainment industry. Detroit: Greenhaven P, 2010.
Source 4:
Papathanassopoulos, Stylianos. Media perspectives for the 21st century. London: Routledge, 2011.
Source 5:
Steemers, Jeanette. "The “Canary in the Coalmine”: The Recession and the Crisis in the Production of British Children's Television Programming." Popular Communication 8 (2010): 213-17.
Source 6:
Vittrup, Brigitte. "What Us Parents Don't Know About Their Children's Television Use." Journal of Children and Media 3 (2009): 51-67.
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