Influence of the media on youth crime
First, the idea of a means of communication refers to those instruments that as a society use to carry or bring information in different ways. There are infinite media with which we work every day in society, some more influential than others, but still media;Among these are: newspapers, television, movies, internet, written ads, propagandas, radio, electronic games and more. The media can help us learn, and progress, but they can also influence us in non -positive ways, since these media have the possibility of modifying our way of living, customs and ideas. By observing others by these means, people acquire knowledge, rules, skills, strategies, beliefs and attitudes, positive or negative that depends on the individual’s decisions. “The mass media reflect reality, but they also configure it. They are certainly a means to know reality, but to know it in a certain way, from a certain approach.”(Children’s Inter -American Institute, Girl and Adolescents (IIN), 2004). Not everything we perceive in something so daily is the best, or it is taken in the best way.
Not all people respond the same before them, because this has a lot to do with the decision made by the individual about their models to follow. Television or those we see in the different media only have the power of ‘persuasion’, it is the subject who chooses the images he intends to follow. It is the individual who by his own will choose which actions and to what people idolize, and then reflect what they learned in their future actions. This is also known as social learning, which is the learning that an individual possesses over time through interaction with others, that is, what you learn from what you see in others. A clear example of how the teenager takes what he sees and is molded based on it is the murder of Clara G. only 16 years old, resident of Spain. The young woman was stabbed eighteen times by two other young people of 16 and 17 on December 28, 2000, young people who later found films of high violent content, highly descriptive books, and evidence that linked how they sought to look liketo José Rabadán Pardo who murdered his parents and sister with a katana. “To this taste for the truculent, the admiration for José Rabadán Pardo added. The agents found in the quarterfinals of the young press cuts and texts written by themselves about the young Murcia in which they expressed a deep admiration for their behavior … ”(Perez, 2000). Clearly the means of communication, being the press cuts, did not force them to commit the crime, but did influence and to take this young man as his "model to follow" the inclination to commit the crime increased. It was they who deliberately took said subject, who committed criminal acts, as to that person who wanted to resemble.
The vulnerability of children and adolescents is understandable, these are in development and in search of people to imitate or take as roles in their lives. Today the youth that television sees seek to imitate what in this sees. The best example is those people who after seeing a series end up talking about what they want to be like the protagonists and fantasize about having firearms and getting the resemblance that so long desire. That emotion shown by those who saw the violent content is the best proof of the influence of the media on youth violence. Even video games, those violent in which they spend hours playing, using a character that goes without answering for everything that does fictitiously, and creating themselves the idea that they can do what they want without consequences. "Violent video games that glorify characters that are characterized by being antisocial could increase in adolescents the risk of crime …" (El Observador, 2014) . Observing "models" not only guarantees learning or the ability to exhibit behaviors later, but factors such as expectations and self-efficacy of doing the proposal (being the crime), influence even more learning.
Young people are the most vulnerable to such learned violence, because they see it as usual to the point where it becomes an accepted behavior pattern. As an example of an accepted behavior pattern, we can talk about those children who live with a father who abuses the mother (or vice versa), the child looks so exposed to abuse that at some point he comes to believe that this is normal. If the child decides to take his abusive father as his model to follow, it is very likely that he will do the same with his future partner, and if he chooses his abused mother as his model to follow, he may be a submissive person in the future,And I excuse abuse as normal. The same goes for the exhibition of children and adolescents to violence through some communicative medium, whatever. "If on the television screen it is dramatized in excess violent facts, it causes curiosity to be awakened in some people to experience these behaviors, it also generates that every day the degree of tolerance to violent behavior increases every day, seeing it as normal …" (Arias, 2014). Violence becomes usual from childhood, and is even more strengthened when the young man at his young age continues to watch it on television among other places. In addition, with these media, as well as Facebook, WhatsApp, News, and more runs the risk of social imitation or contagion for those who see or use it. "Everything we consume of television or advertising is what we later usually develop in our day to day" (Rueda, 2015). We are exposed to so many criminal acts that the time will come when there will be no concern or surprise, because we will be accustomed to these actions. Also considering the criminal and violent acts future? Finally, imitation becomes a generalized response class, something like an impulse.
Simply yes, the media and how they work influence youth crime, but it should be clarified that it does not force them to commit the crime. Each one decides for their own will by their next step, and only perhaps the media are giving that push erroneously. Not everything that is seen in these is the right thing, and we as individuals should know how to deal with different situations.
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