Contemporary Media Analysis

From the presentations in class, a lot of the groups talked about how violence in media has gone to an extreme and society's desensitivity to violence. Violence in media has reached a peak and is seen by all viewers no matter what age. It is so easily viewed because violence is not only portrayed on the big screen, but also on television on regular cable. Like people are being shot, tortured and beaten in some of the shows on television. Television shows that were brought up in the presentations were Breaking Bad, Justified and The Wire. All these television shows exemplify a mature level of violence through the actions of the main characters. The thing that all of these main characters have in common is that their actions create a blurred line between good in evil because of their reasons for them. For example, Raylan Givens from Justified is a sheriff that uses violence and killing to clean up his town from injustice.

This is common in media nowadays because it makes the character more interesting and dynamic, in both movies and television. One of the best things that I think media portrays is sexuality because of how open homosexuality is becoming now in today's world. It is making people more open to it and portrays same sex relations in a progressive manner. The worst thing that media is portraying is gun violence. Although it exists among us, the media makes it seem to show gun violence as a solution to a lot of issues. It causes people to really be on the line about guns and the safety behind them.

Children are becoming less fearful to weapon violence in general because of the portrayal of weapon violence in media. I really agree with most of the ideas of media's portrayal that was presented by all of the groups. I think the progression of media is reaching a peak and will begin to change depending on the social issues of the day as time goes on.