Facing TV Violence: Consequences and Media Violence

Level: Grades 1 to 4

Overview

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In this lesson, students explore the absence, or unrealistic portrayal, of consequences to violence in the media. The class begins with a "what would happen if?" discussion of consequences to violent acts that might occur in real life. Students then complete work sheets where they compare TV depictions of violent acts to what would actually happen in real life. Students also begin to question depicted consequences of media violence based on feelings, responsibilities, injuries and results of actions.

Learning Outcomes

Students demonstrate:

an awareness of the different types of violence that appear in children's television programs.
an understanding of the unrealistic portrayal of consequences to violent acts in the media.
an understanding of their own reactions to various types of violence.

Preparation and Materials

Tape a portion of a television show or cartoon that features physical violence, destruction of property or a car chase involving lots of crashes and 'near misses'. Superhero cartoons would be a good source of this type of activity for Primary grades.
Photocopy Happily Ever After? and Consequences worksheets.

The Lesson

Guided discussion

Ask your class:

Do you ever play video games where people fight?
What happens in these games? Do you get to use weapons? Have special powers?
How do you win? Does someone die?

Imagine that you are playing a video game. (Students might volunteer to perform this scenario as a skit.) In your game, you have chosen two characters to fight against each other. You play until one of your characters dies and the other character wins. Then, because you really like these two characters, you select them again, and play another game.

How is this video game fight different from real fighting? (You can hurt or even kill a character, but, with the press of a button, the person comes back to life and isn't even injured.)
What would happen to you, if someone started to hit you? (You might cry, you could be injured, you might have to go to the hospital, you could even die.)

In real life, when something happens, there are consequences. But when people are attacked in video games, they are always able to come back and play again because there are no consequences - no one has to go to the hospital; no one is upset; no one has to pay for everything that has been destroyed; and no one is put into jail.

TV programs don't usually show the real consequences, or effects, of violence, so it's easy for you to assume that punches don't hurt and bullets don't kill. (If punches don't appear to hurt, you may be more likely to punch too.) Instead of spending weeks in a coma followed by months of recovery, a TV victim is cured and back in time for next week's show. TV fights go on much longer than real fights would; in real life, one punch to someone's face could break the puncher's hand and knock the victim unconscious. (Source: The TV Book, The Kid's Guide to Talking Back, by Shelagh Wallace. Annick Press, 1996)

Where else can you find violence with no consequences? (Movies, comic books, MTV, videos.)

Activity

Hand out Happily Ever After? worksheet for students to complete.

Review their answers, and encourage students to brainstorm other scenarios.

Discussion

When you see violence on TV or in movies or video games, think about the consequences of what you see. Ask yourself:

How do the people involved in the conflict feel?
What are the responsibilities of the people who have acted violently?
What injuries have occurred?
What are the results of the violence on others?

Activity

Distribute Consequences worksheets to students. (For younger children, these points could be reviewed orally.)
View the taped excerpts. After each excerpt, ask your students to consider the questions on their Consequences sheets.
Review the students' findings and have the class decide how realistically the program has dealt with consequences.

Evaluation

Worksheets