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<title> Does television violence breed street violence? </title>
The television violence is increasing year by year, so does the violence in the community: In the streets, at homes and schools. Most people would say that the connection between these two units is fairly close. We like to use the words: "Television violence breeds street violence". But what do we really mean when we say this? Is it just an easy way to avoid confronting the problem with increasing violence? And why do we show that much violence on the television at all?

At first I would like to try elucidate the word violence. In fact there is a big difference between different types of violence. You can find it in almost all genres. What most people probably refer to when they think about this burning issue is of course the action movies: explosions, guns, kidnapping dramas, persecution, terror and plenty of blood. In the children's programmes you find it as well, although more in the way of clumsiness than real cruelty. But on the other hand, here the characters always survive, no matter what happens to them. Just a hasty sight on the news is necessary, because there is, not less alarming, a lot of violence. The duty of the news programmes is to reflect what is happening in the society, and naturally violent occurrences will be included among other actual events.

Almost every person nowadays has a TV set within easy reach. A majority of the audience has even access to a large choice of extra channels via satellite, which means that they can watch movies for 24 hours a day, if they would like to. Many movies on these channels contain violence to a great extent. You will easily build an imagination that youths, who are out of work, sit up all night watching television. The days they spend together with friends, not unusual in big gangs, drinking beer or maybe worse, dealing with drugs. If the gang gets provoked in some way, the members defend themselves by force learned from pumped actors in the last action movie. Perhaps the movies in such cases are used as springboards for people who do not have the sense of difference between reality and fiction. To connect these thoughts with the article by Ginia Bellafante summarized above, I would say that unfortunately I do not think a V-chip would be very helpful here. Most gang members do not have enough support from their parents, especially not when it comes to television habits. It means the parents would not pay $5 to $30 just for the possibility to decide what is suitable television entertainment for their children. Even if some parents would afford the cost for that anti-violence protection, it is too easy to find another TV-set without a V-chip, in a friend's house or somewhere else. 

I think it is good that the politicians now realize that they have to do something to diminish the violence in the streets. More and more often we see connections between television violence and what is happening in real life. Tragically, in recent years we have been enlightened with the fact, that more and more crimes is committed by children. There are even six-year-old boys and girls shooting guns. It is obvious that these young people are not capable to differentiate between life and fiction. They do not have the ability yet to understand the consequences of their actions. Presumably they believe that the victim will stand up again soon after being shot, bombed or knifed, as they use to do in cartoons like Donald Duck. Remembering this, it would be to everybody's concern to find a method which is practically feasible. However, the V-chip is a good beginning, but it is in need of further elaboration.

Apparently, there is a market for violent films. The producers make a profit on action and violent scenarios, otherwise they would not make such movies. It means that a lot of people like to see it. Most of these films are indeed amusing. You do not have to take an active part in the watching. You can just sit there and maybe laugh when Stallone gets battered by Schwarzenegger on a wing of an aeroplane. Most of us see some comics in it, because we know it is not real and perhaps we already are a bit blunt, when it comes to action. At once we get more unpleasantly affected when it is from real life: On the news reports or in front of us in the streets. All persons have a different grade of tolerance against violence. Maybe it depends on what amount they have been exposed to it during their childhood. To decrease the evil of our days' society, it should be a help if there was a functional method to protect the children from it as long as possible. If the V-chip is the only so far discovered method, my opinion is that it actually is a parental responsibility. The big question is then: How will we inform people in the most poor and needy areas?
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