Stakeholder Base And Leadership In Violent Animation Essay Examples

Violent Animation and Cognitive Environment of Children

Introduction
One major debate that has proven newsworthy over the past years in America is the culture of introducing violence to children at a tender age through violent animation. Obviously, violent animation has an impact on the environment children grow within and this affects the cognitive reasoning and the variables that influences their character formation. Television is an undeniable aspect of the socialization of children and it plays various roles relating to their social cognition and behavior. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relevant factors that relates to violent animation and children’s cognitive environment and how stakeholders are likely to be affected by any policies that can improve the situation.

Violent Animation and the Cognitive Environment of Children

Most children in the world today have access to televisions even before their first birthday. In today’s society where most family sizes are smaller and children spend more time indoors, they are more likely to be prone to the television as the most active socialization agent in their lives. And it is almost natural for children between the ages of 2 and 7 to be interested in toys and animation on television. Therefore, it is apparent that animation is the most primary form of indoctrination and socialization that these children get.
Violent animation is a system through which aggression is packaged and presented to children and they get their first education on conflicts and how to deal with conflict situations. Due to this, children are more likely to view violence as a normal part of society and many children tend to behave in violent ways due to the fact that they get to internalize these things from violent animation.
US President Barack Obama recently stated in his quest to achieve gun-control that Hollywood and other producers of animation that finds its way to our television screens play a leading role in teaching violence to our children. And this is true on many levels because children get to accept violence and they are able to replicate it in their actions and habits. This puts them into a cycle of continuous violence that is vented out through their teenage years and their adult years as individuals.
Therefore the issue of violent animation is treated by many quarters as an entry point for people to build violent behaviors and violent lifestyles. In an empirical study to examine the best way of dealing with violent animation, it was identified that the activities of the main character of these movies plays a strong role in shaping up the children’s views and judgment of what is right and wrong and what is appropriate and what is not.
In a related study, the researcher identified that boys more likely to choose violent heroes as their role models than girls this is because they find it fashionable in their context as it shows more power and authority. This implies that there is a strong correlation between the exposure of young children at the preschool level to violent movies with the acceptance of violence as a sign of authority.
This further implies that violent animation provides the basis for the modification of the cognitive environment of children and this culminates in a kind of illusion. Most children might not have to deal with issues relating to violence in their real-life. And as such, the creation of violent animation tends to provide some kind of false view and false idea of the real world and its related situations and circumstances.

In order to get some kind of change, there is the need to identify the important stakeholders who ought to be brought on board to achieve an appropriate level of change. This includes various players like the companies that produce these animations that are targeting children in the first place. This particularly refers to the producers of content that are skewed for younger people and younger members of society. Such entities are the fundamental leaders of the environment and they will have to be called to order. However, they are all inspired by the profit motive and this in turn implies that any form of regulation and limitation is likely to lead to major problems and challenges since this will stand in the way of the profit agenda. And since America is built on the basis of Capitalist values, this will come with many challenges and issues.
The next important stakeholder in this situation is the government and regulatory authorities. These entities are major players as they can set limits and provide the impetus for the correction of movies meant for children. Hence, they ought to be brought on board and given the right and authority to work to achieve optimal results.
There are also television stations which play a leading role in presenting violent animation to children. Television stations have the obligation to ensure that they control the content that they present to children. And there is the need to get some kind of controls and measures to define the parameters for television stations and other entities.
Finally, parents are at the last line of this procedure. This is because they have the final say on what they allow their children to watch and what they do not allow them to watch. Thus, any attempt to limit violent animation will rest fully on parents who have the ultimate obligation of sorting out the content they will allow their children to see. This can be complemented with rating agencies and other television practices that will give parents afore knowledge of the content of animations that they will show.

Relevance to Writer’s Major and Policy Proposition

As a student studying for a career in media with an emphasis on animation, it is apparent that I need to learn and understand the constraints and forces that come together to influence the thoughts and personalities of children who view these violent animation. Thus, this study provides a basis to search for empirical evidence and understand the phenomenon.
This study therefore proposes that there should be a policy by the Federal government to limit violent animations that obviously very young children. There should be rating agencies that will rate the content of journals and define whether they can go on television or not. Moderately violent animation movies should be watched with parental guidance and there should be laws on how television stations must disclose this. This will ensure that information is available to parents and proper measures are taken by them. Contents of all production houses ought to be examined and re-examined before they are shown on television.

Conclusion

The study shows that the formation of character by children is influenced significantly by violent animation. This is because violent animation makes them accept that conflict must be resolved through violence and violent heroes and heroines are preferred over others who might prefer to use diplomatic means. This alters the environment within which these children develop their characters. For some change to occur, the main stakeholders in question include animation production companies, government and regulatory agencies, televisions and parents. Any change must occur through the identification of a regulatory framework to limit the profit motive of animation production companies and also allow televisions to sift through their content in relation to animation and reject violent versions. Parents must also be alerted by television stations and they must be told which animations ought to be watched with guidance.

Bibliography

Anderson, C. A., & Carnagey, N. L. (2014). The Role of Theory in the Study of Media Violence: The General Aggression Model. Journal of Media Violence, 42-59.
Kirsh, S. J. (2011). Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research. New York: SAGE Publications.
Tanner, S. L. (2014). Proposal for a Media Effects Study: What Preschoolers and Kindergartners Retain from Animated Children's Films with Intricate Storylines. Californian Media Review, 1-27.