By AMY LONG
The Provo Police Department will host another in its series of crime prevention lectures today. The lectures are in honor of October, Crime Prevention Month.
Barbara Smith, public relations contact for the Utah Council for Crime Prevention, will speak about the impact that media violence has on children.
Television, video games and music are just some of the varied types of media, Smith said. All of them can have an effect on children.
Violent media show children that violence is a viable way of resolving conflicts, said Karen Mayne, press contact for the Provo Police Department.
Smith plans to focus her lecture on the importance of preventing children from learning violent problem-solving skills from media.
Smith cited a study of media violence involving two groups of kindergarteners.
One group of children watched violent programs for an afternoon. The other played outside. Those who had seen violence were more pushy in conflicts than those who had not.
“It’s hard to make a clear case for kids imitating what they see,” said Professor Joseph Straubhaar, Director of the Graduate Program in Communications.
Research on media violence has been accumulating since the 1960’s, Straubhaar said. Not all of the case studies are consistent.
At the same time, media do tend to reinforce violent or abusive situations, Straubhaar said.
Smith agrees. Most people are not aware of how much violence infiltrates their homes, Smith said.
The UCCP and the Provo Police are mainly using this lecture to build awareness of the problem. Parents sometimes reject violent media on their own once they realize how prevalent it is, Smith said.
The category of violence includes more than high body-counts and kick-boxing.
Other types of violence include shoves, mean words, put-downs and manipulation, Smith said.
There are ways to prevent the violent patterns that media teach from appearing in children.
Parents should teach children to analyze the media they access, Smith said. Parents should also point out violent acts, and ask their children to think about why the violence was used and if there were any non-violent alternatives to the situation.
In 99 percent of instances, media use violence to solve a conflict, Smith said.
Most parents have felt better about their childrens’ ability to handle media without reacting violently when they dissected the violence with their children, Smith said.
Straubhaar agrees that the employ of critical thinking about media violence is essential. He hopes that parents do not depend on the newly-mandated v-chip to reduce violence in their homes.
The v-chip is a microchip that will help to block questionable television programming.
Even if the v-chip works correctly, parents remember to program it and the ratings are not manipulated by the industry, nothing can replace the active involvement of parents in teaching and talking with their children, Straubhaar said.
During the lecture, Smith plans to give participants a chance to tell what violence-stopping techniques have worked in their homes. She will also show a video on violent media narrated by Governor Leavitt.
In addition to her UCCP position, Smith presides over the Davis County School Board. She served with the state PTA for many years prior to her current position, and has been involved with the “turn off the violence” campaign for the last four years.
The lecture will be held at the City Council Chamber, located at 351 W. Center St. of the Provo City Building from noon to 1 p.m.
