1. Impact of the Media

2. TV
1. Why do you watch TV?
2. How much TV do you watch a day? A week? A year?
I watch approximately 10 hours per week > that’s 520 hours per year which is 11 days.
How does that compare to how much TV you watch?
3. What are viable alternatives to watching TV?
(i.e. instead of watching TV, you could…)

4. Media & Babies
4. What do you think is an appropriate age for children to begin watching TV?
5. At what age – if any – should children have their own TVs?
Two view points on infants/toddlers & TV:
No TV under age 2
“Mozart effect” stimulates brain development (music & the arts foster brain development)
With which viewpoint do you agree? Why?

5. TV & Children Discuss: What are popular TV shows for children?
Most year olds are addicted to TV
6. How does this addiction affect our lives overall?
In the last 12 years of teaching, technological “advances” in video, hand-held Gameboys, cable TV, & video/computer games have enveloped my students’ lives with such an intensity that I have no alternative but to incorporate media within the curriculum

7. Statistics Statistics
According to A.C. Nielsen Inc., children watch an average of hours of TV per week.
Avg. 5 year old will have spent 5,000 hours in front of the TV before kindergarten (more time than s/he will spend in conversation with her/his parents for the rest of their lives; longer than it takes to get a college degree)
Continued
65% of 3rd, 4th & 5th graders have TVs in their bedroom
½ of those have cable TV

8. Media Concerns Major concerns include: Violence Sexual explicitness
Equating happiness to hyper-consumerism devoid of any concern for ecological or social consequences
7. Which of these do you think is the biggest concern? Why?

9. Media & Violence
A. A person injured or killed by gun
B. A person injured or killed by knife
C. Persons engaged in hand-to-hand combat
D. An alien or imaginary creature killed
E. A plastic human figurine destroyed
8. Rate how comfortable you feel seeing the following content in news & entertainment on a scale of 1 – 5 (1 being it doesn’t bother you at all; 5 being you can’t watch or have to turn it off)

10. Questions continued
9. In your opinion, members of which gender likely feel more comfortable with violence in general?
What about “concrete” (actual or realistic) violence?
Are one or both genders likely to feel significantly more comfortable with “abstract” than “concrete” violence?

11. Questions continued
10. Are you more comfortable with one gender as the perpetrator, & as the victim of violence than the other? If so, which one?
Does it depend on the crime?
11. Are people more comfortable with violence in video games than in the news?

12. Discuss Think of various cartoons, sit-coms, sporting events (WWF)
How are problems solved on these programs?
Who does most of the talking (consider gender, age, race, etc.)?
What race, gender & age are the characters in shows & commercials?
How many of these programs use put-downs
How many of these programs use violence?
In general, what is the attitude toward the earth/environment?