Discuss Media Influences On Prosocial Behaviour Essay

Pro- hearty behaviours are actions which aim to help others. For example, helping, sharing and caring for others. It seems as though the media can have a commanding upshot on individuals. It can have an influence on pro-social behaviour, and there are diverse explanations which help us to insure how the media does it. Being loose to pro-social behaviour is integrity way in which the media can have a positive set on people. Essentially, this explanation argues that when people are exposed to pro-social behaviour on TV and other sources of the media, they because become influenced by it.For example, if a denotation in a TV programme does something helpful, this explanation would argue that the person, who is exposed to this pro-social behaviour, would be affected by what they are seeing and this would then cerebrate that they will copy that pro-social behaviour and also become helpful in real life. Greenberg carried forbidden an analysis of popular pip-squeakrens programmes in the US and found that there were an equivalent number of pro-social and antisocial acts.This shows us that the media does impart us with pro-social acts and it also shows us that we are exposed to these pro-social behaviours even though at times we whitethorn not be aware of it. Woodard carried out a research which showed that 77% of childrens programmes in the US contained pro-social messages. So, fit to this explanation, anyone, who watches these childrens programmes, would be exposed to the pro-social acts and then they would copy the pro social acts and display them in real life situations. However, having said that, this research is ethnocentric as it was carried out in the US.This means that we cannot generalise the results to the rest of the universe of discourse as it is culturally biased. For example, in other parts of the world, children may provided be exposed to antisocial behaviour in TV programmes and moreover they still behave in a pro-social way. This, the refore, raises the question as to whether or not the media can actually have a positive effect on individuals who are being exposed to pro-social behaviour-it might just be the persons personality that is causing them to show pro-social behaviours rather than the media influencing that person. integrity strength of this explanation is the fact it is realistic to an extent. For example, it seems realistic that if a child is exposed to pro-social acts on TV, they would then get influenced by what they are seeing, and this would then lead them into copying that pro social behaviour. There has been a mountain cases where children, who have watched programmes such as Bob the builder, have copied what they have seen in these programmes and then used what they have witnessed to help their friends and families to solve a problem. other strength of this explanation is the fact that it can have a positive effect on parenting as this explanation can help parents to understand that what their children are watching can influence the way in which they behave. For example, parents may become cautious about what their children are watching on TV- they may encourage their children to watch TV programmes which contain more pro-social acts and less antisocial behaviours and this could potentially mean that their children may display more pro-social behaviours later on life.