Why is there so much violence in the U.S.? In the U.S., over 11,000 people die per year due to murder by gunshot. Yet in other countries such as Japan, Canada, England, etc they have less than 500 deaths per year from this. In Canada the total number is only in the 30's. What is the root of this problem?
I'd say the news shown on television, on the radio, and in newspapers. In the past 10 years, violence has gone down 20%, yet the amount of violence shown on the news has gone up by 600%! Why are we shown so much violence? It scares us.
There is very little trust here in the States because everyone is watching their backs at every moment. Why is this? Just watch the news for 10 min. and you'll hear about many different violent incidents, making you think that you can easily get killed in today's society. We're all scared of everyone. Yet in Canada, people don't even lock their front doors.
In Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, he says that if you watch Canadian news you notice a huge difference. He shows some clips of Canadian news. One big storny was "New Speedbumps!" Then he shows clips of American news. It scares the public about everything from disease, terrorist attacks, escalator dangers, murder, rape, etc. How can we not be a non-trusting society when nothing on the news is ever positive.
So many people are active in community service, yet how often are those things on the news? Rarely. And it's sad.
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I always wondered why the News couldn't be more positive. Its purely a choice of the media as to what they cover. The cover what gets the best ratings. Since the viewing audience evidently wants to see all the violence - maybe its our own fault?
Because positive news doesn't sell. Travesty, tragedy, etc make an impact. It's like when you drive by a car accident on the highway...rubbernecking occurs because people can't help to look.
Not to mention, the biggest issues in the world today are usually violent; war, protests, scadel. You can't script reality. It's not like the news is making up violence like a movie does; this is the real world we live in, unfortunately, and you can't deny what goes on, or deny people the ability to be knowledgable and view it because it isn't "pleasant".