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<title> DOES CENSOR PROTECT YOUNG TELEVISION VIEWERS? </title>
I believe TV violence is very harmful, especially for young viewers. Is there a way of completely locking out violence shown on television, and is it good to delete all violence from TV? Should government support parents, who want to protect their children from dangerous TV violence? Or will government support be seen as an interference and control policy? On the other hand, is it only the parent's responsibility to keep their children away from TV violence? In my essay I'll reflect over this, the problems of censorship, with Sweden as reference. 
	Television offers many different programs, some of them more violent than others. What kind to programs families watch, also depends on which channels they have access to. In Sweden the number of people with satellite television tend to raise. This means that they also are exposed of more TV violence, because of a larger selection of programs. The more programs available, the harder it gets for parents to control what their children watch. 
	One way to support parents who want to keep their kids away from TV violence, is to offer them a so called V chip (for antiviolence chip). The V chip is a computer chip that can be installed, for a certain amount of money, in television sets. When the V chip is installed it can read encoded messages from broadcasters, which lead to that programs can be rated, because of a high level of violence. This scale of violence can be decided by parents, and if they like the can remove all programs which contains more violence than for example level No.2. 
	Is the V chip a good solution? Maybe it'll be like Lynn Mc Reynolds, vice president of media affairs for the National Association of Broadcasters, says: "The V chip won't be able to tell the difference between Terminator 2 and Schindler's List". That's why I wonder if it is a good idea to use a V chip. Watching true violence doesn't have to be a bad thing, sometimes that might even be a useful experience. I don't think that children should be kept away from real violence in the world. Maybe they shouldn't watch it alone, but with the V chip maybe they won't even get to see it at all. Is it better to lock out also real-life violence from TV, in case children might watch it alone? 
	Perhaps the V chip, with its censorship, creates less parental responsibility and lead to a less active parent role. It is easy for parents just to install the V chip, and then leave their kids in front of the TV, because they don't have to worry about what they might be watching. Another way of looking at parental responsibility, is to see the V chip as a support. Parents can decide how many levels of violence they will allow, and watch the more violent programs with their children. 
	We know that children spend many hours daily watching TV, without their parents. It's impossible to know what they're watching when their parents are absent. Children can watch what ever the television offers, even though it might be movies with fifthteen-year-old age limits. With the V-chip, and full censorship, this can be avoided. Despite of this, maybe this isn't such a good solution. If the V chip is used, parents don't have opportunity to watch what they might consider relaxing or useful for themselves, and their children. On the other hand they don't have to worry about that their children might watch anything that is harmful, at least not in their own home. If they, of course, have the V chip on each TV. 
	A question I ask myself when it comes to the V chip is; who is it that will decide what violence levels on the V chip that will be allowed. Who ever it is, he/she can choose what people should see or not. Those people really have power and control, but hopefully they also have the expertise and knowledge about what to censor or not. It's important that they censor right things, and what is right? 
	Even though it is someone else that decides the V chip's violence levels, it is parents who have got the final responsibility about what their children should watch or not. The V chip is a help, but it is no solution of the problem with TV violence. Children aren't stupid, if they want to watch something on TV, that is impossible in their own home, they will watch it elsewhere. Still, the V chip makes it more difficult for them to do so, and a lot of unnecessary violence can be avoided. One have to remember that real violence, or real and scarring happenings, maybe don't have to be bad experiences of violence. In the end, parental responsibility is most important, even though the V chip might be a support, in a jungle of programs containing violence.
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