The Role of the Media in the Violation of Children’s Rights

Children have the right to reliable information from the media .. which.. should not promote materials that could ill-treat them. (UNICEF, 1991). There is rightful(prenominal) now any restriction placed on the dreadful things that the media has to offer and so children these days have halcyon access to all that they should not be seeing or hearing in the media. This simply style that the media be not playing their role where protect children is concerned.In todays society where the visual modality media convey all form of negativity whether on the television, internet, videogames or even the radio, members of society need to perplex aw be of what the younger generation are being influenced by so that values that are taught are not lost easily. The media violate the rights of a child by exposing them to crime and fury, giving them access to sexually explicit content and by creating a false sense of reality in which they believe roughly everything they see. The media expose children to crime and violence on a daily basis.This is so because everyday at least child watch the television, listen to the radio, play video games or surf the internet. Huesman (1986) as cited in Kundanis (2003) is of the feeling that children with poor academic skills are more aggressive and are the ones who watch more violence on the television. It is believed that violence in the media leads to aggressive behaviour. (Abel, 2005, Huesmann, 1986 as cited in Kundanis, 2003 & Johnson, 1998). All of these authors believe that if children are exposed to violence in the media it go forth have a negative impact on them in which they will pay off aggressive.Children who behave aggressively tend to carry this behaviour with them to adulthood and sometimes cause damage to those round them. According to Johnson (1998), children act out what they see in the television. or so of the things that children act out are the negativities. These take smoking, killing, fighting and killing j ust to name a few. According to Johnson (1998) many believe that the parents are the ones to be blamed for children being exposed to crime and violence in the media. However parents can do so much and no more to put a stop to that.This is because, not all the time will they be around to monitor their childrens watching habits, the type of music they listen or the websites they visit. It is concord that the can play a part in limiting it but not to the full extent. It is the medias responsibility to protect children from materials that could harm them (UNICEF, 1991), however they are not playing their part and so children are at risk. Children need to be protected against anything that will in any expressive style seize their ability to come up up with the necessary morals and values. Being exposed to pornography will in some way hinder that.Based on a research done by Ybarra and Mitchell (2005) 90% of the children between the ages of 12 and 18 have access to the internet. The more access a child has to the internet, the more exposed he or she is to the internet. Once the internet connection is there, sexually explicit contents are just a click away. just about times when children are surfing the net a pop-up screen window appears state them that they have won the lottery or sometimes it is in the form of something very attractive. This is to persuade them so that they will be curious about what is happening on their screen.While some will repel it, there are others who will venture further into it not knowing what they are getting themselves into. Most of these things lead to pornographic contents. Children are unintentionally being exposed to sexual contents in the media (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2005). Most children log on to the internet with no intention of viewing porn however ends up doing just that. The media continues to exploit childrens rights by exposing them to pornography on the internet, in films and televised programmes (Media Code of Conduct, 20 05).Even though the media break themselves to ensuring that they do not violate childrens rights they are failing in the process. Children believe what they see on the media, whether it be true or false. This is because the media produces many things that appear to be real. Children look to certain television characters as their role model, whether they star in a movie, a television show or something of the sort. However, what they fail to see to it is that most of the time what their role models are portraying is not necessarily a good thing.To children what is seen on the television is a representation of reality (Baran, McIntyre & Meyer, 1984). Therefore actions like smoking are acceptable and the aggregate they see on the television is normal because television is reality. According to Berger (2008) seeing is believing, so what a soul believe is tied to what they have seen. Therefore when a child sees something he or she is confident that it exists. eyesight enables them to ascertain with their own eyes that it is in fact the truth.Even though the Media Code of Conduct states that they rehearse themselves to ensuring that the media does not violate the rights of a child, very little is done to prevent that. This is so because children are calm being exposed to all the negativities that the media offers. Greater emphasis needs to be placed on protecting children from the dangers that are present in the media. This will enable every child to live a wakeless lifestyle which they truly deserve. It is in fact the medias role to fulfil their promise of protecting children from the harm and dangers that they offer.