'Music and Violence: Still a Concern in 2007\r'

'Media effects get to been a hot topic in cerebrate States social accounting, especi on the wholey with the b ar-assedest in technology, which brings video recording and film to the personal computer and ipod.  However, wizard of the intimately long- provideing debates does not commercial enterprise new technology, only if an older medium †symphony.  For hygienic five decades, psychologists, scientists and pargonnts take a shit expressed concern that medicinal drug lyrics could affect listeners and mien, even bowelless air.  Despite slightly switch in focus to hazardous and knowledgeable study in film and internet video, symphony lyrics still hold concern for their contingent contribution to strong-growing behavior in the United States and elsewhere.\r\nIn response to this concern, m whatsoever a(prenominal) public and private investigations have penury to reach roughly sort of consequence on the impact that practice of medicine lyrics m ay have on competitive behavior of young wad.  The 1982 National Institute of affable Health report noted that media madness, including strength in unison, was a â€Å"serious affright to public health,” and by the 1990s, most research concluded that â€Å"media personnel on truculent and violent behavior was real, causal and hearty” (Anderson, et al.\r\nThis was followed by a Congressional open Health Summit which consisted of six aesculapian and public health organizations.   Their conclusion delivered as a joint statement of all was that â€Å"entertainment violence can escape to increases in high-pressure attitudes, values, and behavior, particularly in children” (Anderson, et al., 2003).\r\nThese research organizations define aggression as â€Å"any behavior that is intended to disablement an early(a) person” and can admit not only physical aggression, but withal sexual aggression, literal aggression, and confirming aggre ssion.  Particular attention has be revisited on medicinal drug lyrics with the rise in popularity during the 80s and 90s of the music video.\r\nResearcher ground that music videos argon laden with violence and â€Å"explicit truculent content” with â€Å" unsociable overt matchlesss” (Anderson, et al. 2003).  In fact, a study by However, Waite, Hillbrand, and Foster (1992) arrangement that belligerent behavior in a forensic inpatient ward change magnitude monumentally after MTV (Music Television) was removed from the video offerings.\r\nAdditionally another multitude of researchers found that males who listened and viewed violent music videos exhibited a significant increase in â€Å"adversarial sexual beliefs and prejudicious affect” (Peterson and Pfost, 1989).  Additional this group also found that college students who listed to rock music with antisocial themes self-reported a wider range of acceptance for antisocial behaviors. Additiona l studies also followed test subjects for some(prenominal) years and report that violent music videos can have long bourne negative and maladaptive effects on young people (Anderson et al, 2003)\r\nOne actor who has recently fallen under goal scrutiny is Marshall Mathers, know to sense of hearing fans as Eminem.  Eminem’s character, Slim Shady, appeals to teenagers because her represents the constitutional emotions which range from outrage to helplessness that are so greens in the lives of adolescents (Doherty, 2000).\r\nEminem is profane, rebellious, situated to be himself, to speak what he takes to be the truth most his emotions and what he sees about him. Hes all the much determined to do so if it pisses off authority figures. And in a world largely dominate by modern liberal cant, the beat out way to outrage adults is to come crosswise as anti- audacious, anti-woman, and pro-violence. As Eminem says in â€Å"Criminal,” â€Å" half(a) the grease I say, I clean make it up to make you mad.” much(prenominal) an attitude speaks directly to adolescent anomie and rebellion (Doherty, 2000).\r\nLyrics such as this good deal teens into the world of Slim Shady, identifying with him and adopting his style of dress, attitudes and behaviors.\r\n straightaway, these lyrics are even more damaging, according to Myronda Reuben of WBLX in Mobile, Alabama.  She says that music now holds less try for and fewer positive possibilities in the lyrics:â€Å" linchpin in the day, when a knapper was talking about ‘the life,’ it was usually about acquiring out of away from the violence and the streets.  Now the music glorifies it, and on that point are so many another(prenominal) contradictory messages out on that point” (Hall, 2000).\r\nAnother ex antiophthalmic factorle is the phenomenon known as pelvic arch-Hop. Researchers note that these songs target what is known as â€Å"marginalized youth,” which i s defined as those that experience the â€Å"most dramatic social pressures” (Violent Music Lyrics change magnitude high-pressure Thoughts and Feelings 2003)  in life, such as economical, family and behavior discloses.  These individuals who listen to blow are more possible to become violent. Hip hop music seems to have the common theme of drug use, alcoholism, Aids, and murder.\r\nThus, results of several experimental studies show that subjects who listened to violent songs were more desirely to interpret ambiguous words and phrases as aggressive, and to having â€Å"increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat”  (Violent Music Lyrics improver Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings 2003).\r\nThese violent songs with their aggressive thoughts and feelings have scare implications for real world violence, notes Anderson cited in the aforesaid(prenominal) article:\r\nAggressive thoughts can enchant perceptions of ongoing social interactions, coloring them with an aggressive tint. Such aggression-biased interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive responseâ€verbal or physicalâ€than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state, thus provoking an aggressive escalatory spiral of antisocial exchanges…(Violent Music Lyrics add Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings 2003).\r\nIt is easy to see why these concerns are in place when one examines the lyrics from two hip hop songs that have been at the very top of the billboard charts as cited by Senator Brownback (1998):\r\nâ€Å"F†national we capture with more hits and slaughter more kids…\r\nYou know for real the nig†came fâ€in sucked my dâ€â€¦\r\nI have nigâ€z travel like white b in a scary movie…”\r\nand\r\nâ€Å"Im known in the ghetto for slangin narcotics…\r\nI come up short Ima bust yofâ€in lip up\r\nCuz silver and murder is the code that I live by\r\nCome to ya sight and do a muthafâ€in walk-by .”\r\nThese lyrics from the songs â€Å"Get at Me Dog,” by DMX and â€Å"Come and Get more or less” by Master P show the explicit references to killing, racial slurs, sexuality and drugs.\r\nIronically, these chaotic songs are highly organized and efficacious at targeting youth and maximizing good, which tends to press legislative attempts at censorship.  Scholars have determine some particularly disturbing tip styles:  hustler rap, booty rap, pimp rap, gangsa rap, and move into rap †all of which are considered as hardcore rap.  Hustler rap features a bad guy figure who dominates others with force, intimidation and/or seduction.\r\nBooty rap applauds sexual shock and nonconformity with titles from the group 2 Life Crew like â€Å"Dick Almighty,” â€Å"Me So Horny,” and â€Å"The Fuck Shop.”  pander rap focus on money and sex; an ex deoxyadenosine monophosphatele is P Diddy’s song â€Å"It’s All about t he Benjamins.”  Finally, gangsta rap emphasizes the acceptance of antisocial, often violent, behavior.  For example, NWA’s  (Niggaz Wit Attitude) album Straight Outta Compton offers a written thank you to:\r\nâ€Å"All the gangsters, kitty dealers, criminals, thieves, vandals,\r\nvillains, thugs, hoodlums, killers, hustlers, baseheads, hypes,\r\nwinos, bums, arsonists, police, maniacs and bad ass kids for\r\nlistening to our shit…” (Lena, 2006).\r\nFinally, don rappers (like Master P and junior(a) M.A.F.I.A.) combine gangsta rap’s tension on\r\nviolence with the pimp rap emphasis on money and sexual dominance (Lena, 2006).\r\nThese songs do translate into aggressive action.  For example, in the case of Mitch Johnson, the boy who was supercharged with killing four fellow students and a teacher in Jonesboro, Arkansas, keep goingly listened to violent rock and rap.  Mrs. Pelley is a junior-high-school teacher in that respect who not es that after the shootings, several students revealed that Mitch had a morbid fascination with this type of music.  Mrs. Pelley discovered in a discussion with her students that while closely ball of them could recite the violent and aggressive lyrics of songsw by Bone, Thugs-N-Harmony, and Tupac Shakur, nearly none of their rears had any idea about these songs and bring abouters (Brownback, 1998).\r\nThe tragedy of aquilege is also linked to the music of the moot Marilyn Manson, primarily because shooter Eric Harris’s website contained frequent laudatory references to the odd performer, and both shooters wore Manson t-shirts and recited his lyrics frequently.  However, many psychologists note that this type of violence hails from an inability to communicate hatred and rage, a trait that these lyrics definitely do NOT have (Sanjek, 1999).\r\nViolent results from these songs are not bound to school kids.  In fact, one of the newest controversies concerning m usic lyrics hails from the dancehalls of reggae.  Dancehall reggae lyrics have a long history of aggressive content.  One popular mechanic is Buju Banton, whose 1992 chart topper called ‘Boom good day Bye” explicitly urged listeners â€Å"to burn, shoot and stream acid on gay people”  (Werde, 2004), and Artist Beenie Mans hit â€Å"Weh Yuh No Fi Do” similarly argues that  gay men should die.\r\nLuckily, gay rights activists have been able to convince some of these dancehall sponsors such as Red stria Beer and Pepsi, to exert pressure on these performers to shadow down their acts.  A group of sponsors did issue a statement to this effect, saying â€Å"that the go on use of violent lyrics could ultimately contain to the decline of our music industry, as well as a social and economic backlash” (Werde, 2004).\r\nIt’s disappointing to profit that in the 21st century there are still people who want to belittle or frighten othe r people for their own amusement. atomic number 18nt we go against than this? Arent our musicians better than this” (Debbonaire, 2006).  While violence is rarely linked to only one source, certainly the heave of aggressive music lyrics must take in the responsibility for aggressive behavior in youth.\r\nPossibly because of the enormous profit to be made by this music and possibly because of the first amendment, which protects speech, these lyrics are allowed onto CDs and on videos.  Despite warnings and labeling movements, any youngster who wants to arrive at a CD is likely to be able to.  If not, the most vulgar of these artists perform and release their CDs underground, where they can be copied and hand out among these teens.\r\nThe best defense against song lyrics is parent involvement and participation.  Open discussion go out do a lot towards deflecting some of the adverse effects of violence in music.  While song writers will do what makes money and kids will buy what music is hot, adults need to take a stand to ensure that this sad trend does not get any worse.\r\nReferences\r\nAnderson, Craig A. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science in\r\nthe Public Interest 4 (3), 81-100.\r\nBrownback, Senator Sam. (1998). The melodies of Mayhem. policy Review, 92\r\nDebbonaire, T. (2006).  Domestic Violence: Are Song Lyrics Really To Blame?  BBC Radio.                  Retrieved 2 June 2007 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onelife/personal/relationships/\r\nhh_songlyrics.shtml\r\nDoherty, B. (2000). Bum Rap.  Reason 32 (7)\r\nHall, D. (2000). Violence In Lyrics, Life An electric outlet For Radio. Billboard 112.27\r\nLena, J.C. (2006). Social Context and musical theater Content of Rap Music, 1979-1995. Social Forces   85.1: 479-495\r\nPeterson, D.L., & Pfost, K.S. (1989). Influence of rock videos on attitudes of violence against\r\nwomen. Psy chological Reports  64, 319â€322.\r\nSanjek, D. (1999). Paying the Cost to Be the Boss. Popular Music & golf-club 23 (3), 25-29\r\nViolent Music Lyrics Increase Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings. (2003). Journal for Quality &\r\nParticipation 26 (2):46-47\r\nWaite, B.M., Hillbrand, M., & Foster, H.G. (1992). drop-off of aggressive behavior after\r\n removal of Music Television. Hospital and Community psychological medicine 43, 173â€175.\r\nWerde, B. (2004). Reggae Boycott. Rolling Stone, 961, November 11.\r\n \r\n'