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The Impact of American Action Movies on American Adolescents

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The Impact of American Action Movies on American Adolescents PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research AbouBekrBelkaid University of Tlemcen Faculty of Letters and Languages Department of English The Impact of American Action Movies on American Adolescents An extended essay submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for a Master‘s Degree in English Literature and Civilization Presented by Supervised by BOUNAIME Mohamed Mr.s SEBAOUI Khadija Board of Examiners Dr. MOURO Wassila President University of Tlemcen Mrs. SEBOUAI Khadidja Supervisor University of Tlemcen Dr. BERBAR Souad Examiner University of Tlemcen Academic Year: 2018-2019 Dedication I dedicate this work to my beloved family, which kept supporting me from the beginning till the end. To the teachers who were patient and sympathetic with me. I Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Mrs. Sebouai Khadidja, for her constructive comments and criticism, for the work as a whole. I am also immensely grateful to my beloved teacher Dr. Mouro Wassila, I have been extremely lucky to be your student. Thank you. Similar profound gratitude goes to Dr. Berbar Souad, for being always patient and ready to help me and answer my questions. II Abstract This research is an attempt to find and prove how being addicted to watching action movies and watching graphic violence in general, would affect the behavior of adolescents. Starting with the first intentions of creating moving pictures, and reaching the latest movie technologies used in Hollywood studios, besides the mention of the main and sub-film genres, then, exposing the studies conducted to confirm the impact of media in creating behavioral changes in the attitudes of adolescents. Also, this research demonstrates the psychologies that allow media violence to affects the lives of adolescents, and explain the main strategies that are used the parents, to reduce the negative impact of media on their children. III Table of Contents DEDICATION ...................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................... II ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................... III TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................. IV GENERAL INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE MOTION PICTURE ............................................................................................................. 4 1.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 5 1.2 THE RISE OF HOLLYWOOD ....................................................................... 6 1.3 GENRES OF MOVIES ................................................................................ 10 1.3.1 Main Film Genres ........................................................................... 11 1.3.2 Film Sub-Genres ............................................................................. 13 1.4 ACTION MOVIES ...................................................................................... 15 1.5 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER TWO: THE IMPACT OF ACTION MOVIES ON YOUTH IN THE UNITED STATES .................................................................................... 21 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 22 2.2 THE IMPACT OF THE ACTION MOVIES ON YOUTH ................................. 22 2.3 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AFFECTING BEHAVIOR BY MEDIA VIOLENCE .... 25 2.3.1 Desensitization ................................................................................ 25 2.3.2 Modeling and Imitative Learning .................................................. 26 2.3.3 Mirroring Society ............................................................................ 27 2.4 THE CAUSAL LINK BETWEEN MEDIA VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR ......................................................................................................... 28 IV 2.4.1 Experimental Studies ...................................................................... 29 2.4.2 Cross-sectional Studies ................................................................... 30 2.4.3 Longitudinal Studies ....................................................................... 31 2.5 PARENTAL GUIDANCE OF T.V VIEWING ................................................. 32 2.5.1 Active Mediation ............................................................................. 34 2.5.2 Restrictive Mediation...................................................................... 34 2.5.3 Co-operative Mediation .................................................................. 35 2.6 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................... 36 GENERAL CONCLUSION. ............................................................................. 38 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................. 40 V GENERAL INTRODUCTION Movies as part of the entertainment sources, they can be used as the most influencing type of media. Motion picture in general started through a continuous painstaking work from scientists and developers, to reach some new inventions that can give the world some better entertaining sources (William, 2011). The emergence of the motion picture, though started in Europe, it quickly moved to other parts of the world, the United States was not an exception, it embraced this new idea and let it be widespread and common in the American society, then it was the birth of cinema and movies, most of the time for entertainment purposes only, but it soon began to gather customers; so providing different types of movies was a necessity, Which made it a good start for businessmen to start building studios for producing movies. Later, movies of the United States dominated the arena of cinema, and it was known as Hollywood movies. Action movies genres began to be common in the year 1970, inspired by the increase of stunt performers, who were active from the 1910s to the 1970s, and the common use of special and visual effects, and then it started to have other characteristics like chasing scenes, extreme street fights, running against time, and the use of guns and rifles (filmsite.com). Yet, this genre became more popular after the film writers began to mix features of other genres like Horror, Sci-fi and Western movies in the Action movies, which made it more interesting and attractive for the viewers. As these movies are considered to be an essential part of the media, that influences mostly teenagers, the impact of action movies on adolescents have been the focus of different researchers, from different universities and laboratories around the world, to examine the psychology behind affecting teenagers‘ societal lives, by watching action movies and other different types of media programs, like the daily television news. Researchers had to examine the hypothesis stating that media usually have negative impact rather than positive, by conducting several studies and running different experiments on different 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION samples around the world, most of these studies have been done through surveys and questionnaires, designed by qualified researchers like L.R. Huesmann, besides the different types of studies (experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal studies), that were run on different samples in different periods of time. After the hypothesis‘ approval that media in general causes negative impact, in both thinking and behavioral psychologies in children and adolescents, parents felt the responsibility to keep their families safe from the bad influence of media. Parents used different strategies to control the quality of the media that would be consumed by their children at home, these strategies, according to the researchers, can be divided into three types, which are techniques followed to control the media viewing habits of their children. Some of these techniques are effective but not sufficiently useful for a long duration, whereas others are effective solutions at the short and long run, but they are sensitive techniques that require a professional handling by the parents. Setting media content to be suitable for all the different types of audiences is not a possible solution, but controlling the audience by setting guidelines to be respected and followed would be much better and helpful to prevent the unwanted impact of media on society. This research paper analyzes the development of motion pictures, from the first attempts of inventing filming tools, to the latest technologies used in making films. It also emphasizes on the action movies genre and its impact on adolescents, also, it tackles the violence in media sources, and how it affects the audiences, and it examines the different ways that let the media have impact on the social attitudes of the young audiences. At last, it exposes the role of the parents in limiting the negative effects of watching the media violence, and the strategies they follow to guarantee a safe impact from the media on their families. The problematic is forwarded into two main questions: 2 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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