Steve Smart Persuasive Writing

Media is often the scapegoat for any and all problems that happen within society. A current trend is blaming video games and music for anything related to violence, sex, or other “ills of society” The connection drawn is unfair because the true connection is the media replicating what society is, and what it likes. The truth is media holds no accountability or anyone’s actions, the accountability should always fall 100% on the party committing the action.

One of the first questions I tackled was: “Does any correlation with playing videogames and violence exist” I found an article apart of a running psychologist journal on aggressive behavior. A study was conducted with college students playing first person shooters. The observers then recorded feelings of hostility, frustration and aggression. The results showed that most had slight increases the longer they played the game. This in my opinion is a part of the experience, no different from feelings of shock or anxiety from a suspenseful movie. A change in emotion is reasonable but we are not slaves to our emotions and so media can get a reaction out of you but it can not produce or be held responsible for an action.

Music does not deserve the bad rep or blame it gets nowadays, more specifically Hip Hop. I searched to prove this and found two news articles with opposing ideas on the matter. The first included 2 deaths of individuals who imitated a rapper who decided to dance on top of their car while it moves slowly in the first gear. This example seems like the most obvious one that people hold no responsibility for themselves. Common sense no longer exists, coffee has to be marked as “hot may cause burns” because some people don’t understand the concept of hot coffee and it’s ridiculous. The article explains the new trend started by a few individuals in the bay area of California. A handful of idiots who make music should not be representation of Hip Hop. Eminem speaks about the blame falling onto music on several occasions. He questions why is everyone turning around looking for the cause of it and satisfied when they can point the finger at the media. A lyric in one song titled “who knew” expresses these sentiments “but don’t blame me when little eric jumps off the terrace, you should’ve been watching him apparently you aint parents” The point is the parents, and the people have to be more responsible, the musicians are not every child in America’s mom or dad and you shouldn’t expect them to act in that manner.

The second article defended Hip hop and was against blaming it for teen pregnancy, violence, etc. It discussed rock and roll music that originally also had a bad aura by the media for an unwholesome message. John Martin discussed how before the hip hop generation, education of African Americans, pregnancy rates, jobs employed etc were not as good as they are during the current hip hop generation.

The Wikipedia article was an easy experience considering I was putting up true information. It doesn’t however protect against bias. I found an article that opposed my opinion on my choice of the effect media has on people and supplied a source and the article is still up and it’s been 3 days. It also raises awareness that anybody can be writing this considering I’m not a prestige writer and I just tossed in a one liner for a topic that anyone can now view and may consider as a cold hard fact.

Media can be blamed for absolutely anything it seems and it’s perfectly safe and accepted. I think it’s sad a kid dances on a moving car and the first course of action is to point the finger of blame at the music. We no longer hold any responsibility for our actions, there’s always a reason that isn’t us. If people are searching for the true solution to help with today’s problems such as the normalcy of sex, violence, drugs, etc it starts with ending the use of the media as a scapegoat and making our society, and the individuals in it a lot more responsible.