Przemoc na ekranie

Abstract

Love and social solidarity, the bases of a political system of countries built on Christian and democratic traditions, demand trenchant criticism of any form of violence and aggression. Social psychology shows the following methods of violence reduction: • using rational argumentation, which shows dangerous character of aggression as well as misery and damages suffered by both victims and aggressors; • inflicting punishment – severe punishment is effective but shortlived; if used carelessly it has contrary results: parents who inflict severe punishment usually have aggressive children since punishment is connected with frustration – one of the main reasons of aggression; punishing aggressive models – a variation of punishment which consists in punishing someone else and thus showing the child an aggressive model that will come to a bad end; rewarding alternative upbringing patterns – ignoring the child when he or she behaves badly while rewarding non-aggressive behaviour; developing empathy towards others – it is difficult for the majority of people to purposefully hurt another person unless they find some way to dehumanise their victim. An analysis of the influence of televised message on aggressive behaviour of children and youth leads to the following conclusions: • parents should control and limit the time their children spend in front of a television set and teach them a critical, selective approach to television watching; pressure should be brought to bear on the producers so that programmes for children should be attractive and at the same time convey moral values; schools should teach broadly understood mass-media pedagogy; instruction in moving about in the world of mass-media is essential, especially with regard to ethical assessment of their subject matter and understanding the mechanisms which govern fiction.