Our children and media infringement, why we need media literacy

In our society, media has taken an active role in how we learn about politics, weather, global economy as well as other outlets. There are many other facets of the media that affect us without us even knowing it. Our children are being saturated with media messages everyday without our awareness. Messages, images, and opinions are being bombarded and “downloaded” all at once. It makes it hard for a young child to comprehend it all. This poses a major problem when dealing with our child’s education.

Many parents like to sit their child in front of the television to watch cartoons or Power Rangers. Let it be known that a simple show like Sesame Street offers many media messages to our children, but we just us it as a babysitter. The long-term effects of media saturation in a child has yet to be research in depth, but analysis’s are concerned that our youth are being transformed into media machines without the comprehension.

According to a Kaiser Foundation study, kids today spend an equivalent of a full-time workweek in front of media messages such as television and gaming systems. Who are teaching our children, the media or the parents? Parents need to take an active role in what our children are picking up from the media and regulate it if need be. We need to teach them how to “read” the media messages and how to interpret them.

There are some websites out there that can act as a guide to parents to help them make better decisions about what our youth are seeing. Adults are increasingly finding out that they need to teach media interpretation skills to their children.

The Connecting Youth to a Brighter Future website offers important resources that can aid in teaching our youth. Just as we teach our children to read and understand what they are reading, we should be doing the same for media. The visual world we live in now offers vast amounts of pictures that flash bay the screen without much thought. We must teach them to look closely at these images and interpret the meaning. There are some techniques to teach our children:

- Us a newspaper or a magazine and occasionally discuss the main topics and what they mean.
- Show a random photo and ask the child to write a caption for it.
- Show a clip of a television sitcom and ask them to write their impressions.

These techniques are proven by the CYBF to enhance a child’s skills in understanding our media and how to decipher through it all.

How well do you know the media and how it is affecting you? Test your knowledge; take the media literacy test to see how much you really know!

Violence and Our Media Set Point

Media outlets are often a great source of information, but are there many long-term effects that could arise from viewing too much television. I wanted to learn more about the effects of media messages so I turned to W. James Potter’s book, Media Literacy for some insight. I conducted one of his exercises in the book and he wanted the reader to analyze a media effect with its pattern of factors that would influence the probability of the effect actually occurring. (Potter, 260)

Potter states there are 13 factors that define the influence on a person through various viewpoints and how they will be affected by these messages. I conducted this exercise and chose to investigate how a violent film might influence my behavior. Let’s say I’m watching Terminator. My emotional ties might hinder my judgment on what is right and wrong. This is especially true to a young child; Developmental Maturities have not yet developed enough to distinguish what is right.

To a four year old, Terminator would have a deep impact on that child’s cognitive, emotional, and moral maturity. When you reach a higher level of maturity, viewing such a film, would have little effect on you. Your knowledge structure has allowed you to developing a knowledge frame-work, or the skill to block out bad messages. There are factors that will allow me to make the right decision instead of acting violently. Socialization factor states that a set point is hard to increase when a person has been exposed to anti-aggression norms for a long period of time.

In conclusion, Potter’s exercise has allowed me to further expand on me ability to determine if I am being affected by media messages. Potter states, “People who have active lifestyles where they interact with many people and institutions are generally less affected by the media.” Media messages are affecting our lifestyles whether you know it or not!

Two and a Half Men Vs. The Networks

Every week many T.V. networks, such as ABC, CBS, FOX, The CW, and NBC, utilize Nielson ratings reports to judge whether their show is catching the viewers they need for the show to survive. Without the targeted ratings the show is either pulled from the show list of not renewed for the next season. Placement of the show is crucial, whether it be shown at a week night or during the weekends makes or breaks the show. Networks spend a vast amount of time juggling shows to their right show time and spend large amounts of money promoting these episodes.

Two and a Half Men had one of the highest viewers rating than many other 9:00p.m. Monday T.V. shows. With 14,235,000 viewers, it was ranked 8th on Nielsen Ratings list. It beat out Deal or No Deal by 4 million viewers. Two and a Half Men has a rating of 8.6 and a share of 13.0. As rating Vs. a Share plays its role, this show has different viewer numbers. Ratings are a bit lower than shares due to the fact that a rating only records when the television is either turned on or off.

The time slot that Two and a Half Men currently occupies has very little competition it that kind of entertainment. If it were to move to a different time slot, it might have to face better competitors, like Dancing with the Stars. Now if it were to move to a different day, the network faces losing their viewers all together. If it were to move to Tuesday nights the ratings would defiantly decrease. It would have to share their viewers with American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, both having higher viewers than Two and a Half Men. The ratings would decline and the network would then have to make the decision to either keep the show or cancel it.

In the end, ratings and shares make all the difference when it comes to your favorite entertainment. Without Nielson’s rating system, advertisers would not know where to place their ads that pays for our shows. We would not be able to enjoy our late night comedy show like Two and a Half Men or How I Met your Mother. So when watching you television, keep in mind that many thought has gone into when and where you can view these showings!