Madeline Levine

Madeline Levine is a psychologist and the author of Viewing Violence: How Media Violence Affects Your Child’s and Adolescent’s Development, from which the following viewpoint is taken. Levine argues that the violence depicted on television and in motion pictures has been proven to be damaging to children’s social and psychological development. She asserts that media violence contributes to the youth crime rate by providing encouragement and instruction in antisocial and violent behavior. Media company executives, she concludes, are failing to meet their social responsibility to provide America’s youth with a healthy culture.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What has forty years of research established about media violence, according to Levine?
2. According to Levine, how much television do American children watch?
3. What is the agenda of...