A Question of Ethics

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses obscenity in the form of sexual explicitness and wanton violence in the media and questions whether the media can claim 'freedom of speech' as a reason for using sex and violence to sell their products and films. The paper examines the effect of violent and offensive media on children and society as a whole.

From the Paper:

"These acts of violence include not only murder, but also rape, other forms of sexual assault, assault and aggravated assault, and robbery. In 1996, juvenile offenders accounted for more than 40 % of all instances of serious violent crime (all the above except for simple assault), and some 30% of the perpetrators of all violent crimes were juveniles. (Snyder and Sickmund. Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report) That these inappropriate behaviors are influenced by the images seen on television, in video games, and in other media is not in doubt. The typical American child watches an average of twenty-eight hours of television a week. By the time this child has reached the age of eighteen, he will have witnessed some 16,000 television murders and 200,000 sundry acts of violence."

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