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Vaidah Mashangwa
VIOLENT behaviour among youths has been largely linked to their exposure to violent images on television, movies and video games.
When children watch television, they are sometimes fascinated by the media heroes who are admired and have special attributes which children imitate.
As a result they slowly learn that aggression is the only solution to solving conflicts.
This is the reason why there is a need for parental guidance when younger children watch television or movies.
It is believed that children under 11 years of age do not make the distinction between fiction and reality.
The whole scenario is related to children who grow up in a family where parents often fight.
They grow up to think that violence is the only way to solving conflicts with some becoming violent later in adulthood.
In many countries, studies have revealed that children who are exposed to visual depictions of violence become violent to other children.
This applies to both boys and girls of all social classes, races, ages and levels of intelligence.
In a recent study, results of a controlled experiment of children who had watched violent films revealed that these children were more likely to hit other children, scream at them, threaten them or intentionally destroy their toys.
Boys who spend their time viewing violent shows at the age of eight are more likely to have criminal convictions by the age of 30.
This shows that parents have to monitor and control some of the programmes children watch on television. In this regard, most television programmes always encourage parents to do so but some parents have little or no time to actually see what their children view on television.
Aggressors operate with multiple motives, for example, perpetrators of school shootings have the primary motive of revenge, suicide or fame.
Terrorists may have the intention of revenge, escalating tensions, genocide, political control, moral influence or publicity.
On the other hand, domestic violence can be motivated by control, self-enhancement and relief from tension.
Rape is one example of aggression. Men and women differ in their feelings about whether, when and how often they can mate. Because women are more selective about their mates and more interested in evaluating them and delaying intercourse, men in order to get sexual access must often break through female resistance and just rape; they simply cannot control their sexual drive.
Authors who had suggested that rape is a a result of a woman’s clothing and behaviour were highly criticised.
Women, just like men should be at liberty to wear what they want and rape cannot be downgraded to mean the crime is related to what women wear.
The Harare incident in which a woman was stripped naked because of what was deemed a “short dress” should be condemned.
Of course there are also brutally aggressive crimes committed by females such as the Chitungwiza woman who cut off her husband’s manhood.
Brutally aggressive crimes are often committed by over controlled individuals.
They repress their anger over a period of time and the pressure to be aggressive builds up.
At times, it is an objectively trivial incident that provokes the destructive outburst. Many couples have fought and killed each other over cellphone messages.
After committing the violent act, the aggressor returns to his previous passive state once again seeming incapable of violence.
Some people are long-suffering individuals who bury their resentment under control but lash out in one disastrous act.
Some women can control their anger and frustration in a marriage for years and suddenly stab and kill the husband in revenge.
According to experts, the extremes of brutal behaviour are confined to man and there is no parallel in nature to our savage treatment of each other.
Man is the cruellest and most ruthless species that has ever walked this earth.
That is why there is murder, rape, torture, war and destruction. Man destroys members of his own species unlike other vertebrates.
To a large extent, a link exists between media violence and aggressive behaviour.
Heavy exposure to media violence leads to subsequent aggressive behaviour though this varies among individuals.
A study of 40 adolescent murderers and 200 young sex offenders showed repeated viewing of violent and pornographic videos to be a significant factor.
Videos provided a potential source of immediate arousal for the subsequent act, including imitating violent images.
A cross-national survey in six countries namely Holland, Australia, USA, Israel, Poland and Finland concluded that viewing television violence at an early age is a predictor of later aggression.
It however, does not necessarily mean that everyone who watches violent video games turns out to be aggressive. There are other factors that can influence behaviour such as socialisation, cultural and contextual factors. By acknowledging other factors, we are recognising that media violence has only an indirect effect on the viewers’ behaviour.
Other variables such as family background, social environment and school performance were also found to be actually better predictors of aggressiveness.
Other major causes of aggression include poverty, racial conflict, drug abuse and poor parenting which must be addressed. Taking into consideration soccer hooliganism, violence and aggression ought to be explained at several levels.
Crowds can also release the primitive unsocialised tendencies in a society.
There might be individuals who find the ferment of a match an ideal context in which to indulge in overt aggression.
It might be wrong to assume that hooliganism is a result of television viewing.
Therefore, what is needed is an analysis that integrates many levels of aggression but not forgetting the need for parental guidance in whatever our children do.
Vaidah Mashangwa is the Provincial Development Officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development. She can be contacted on 0772 111 592. E-mail vmashangwa@ gmail.com.
Bongani Moyo
Online Reporter