Reflections, Reflections

Are we surprised?

(AgapePress) - The Parents Television Council (PTC) has released a report on its first study of children's television, which -- according to the media watchdog group's research -- features even more violence than adult-oriented television. But the head of that pro-family group says that is not all that should concern parents about what their kids may be viewing.

The 28-page report is titled "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: A Content Analysis of Children's Television" [PDF].

"One might quickly dismiss violence in children's programming as inconsequential," Bozell continues, "but what has changed is that the violence is ubiquitous, often sinister, and in many cases frighteningly realistic." Also, he notes, one of the more disturbing trends the study uncovered was "the amount of adult-oriented subtext that was laced throughout both the animated and live-action programs."

For the study, the organization's researchers focused on after-school and Saturday morning entertainment programming for school-aged children in the 5-10 age range on broadcast television and expanded basic cable. Eight networks offered programming that matched the criteria: these included ABC, Fox, NBC, WB, ABC Family, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon.

The analysis covered a three-week period during summer 2005 and examined 443.5 hours of children's TV, excluding kid's educational programming. During that period, researchers found 3,488 incidents of violence were depicted, for an average of 7.86 instances per hour. And even when instances of "cartoony" violence were discounted, the numbers remained as high as 2,794 instances of violence, for an average of 6.30 instances per hour.

The study also found 858 incidents of "verbal aggression" (averaging 1.93 per hour); 662 incidents of "disruptive, disrespectful or otherwise problematic attitudes and behaviors" (averaging 1.49 per hour); 275 incidents of sexual content (averaging 0.62 per hour); and 250 incidents of offensive language (averaging 0.56 per hour).

While the Cartoon Network had the highest total number of violent incidents altogether, the ABC Family Channel averaged the most violent incidents per episode (an average of 10.96 instances per episode). The WB topped a number of lists with the highest levels of offensive language, sexual content, verbal abuse, and offensive/excretory references.

Liberals controlling art and media schools, liberals controlling MSM programming, liberals controlling education. This is the result.