Forrest Hill

Dr. Jordan
ENGL 1101 LCR
9/30/13
Key skills assignment #3
Arguably the biggest change in twenty first century daily life as compared to the previous
century is the emergence and saturation of mass media. With this growing environment television is
gaining a central role in our daily lives. Being submerged in the lonely environment of mass media has
had great influence on the psyches of some individuals so much so that when a shooting happens by a
youth one of the first questions raised is what where his media influences? Notice I said his thats
because in the last 20 years 62 mass murders have happened and only one has been perpetrated by a
female. So why, in an age where killing a human being is as easy as squeezing a trigger, are the gender
ratio of mass murders so skewed? Because, like an archaic warrior society, from birth males are being
told violence is ok and natural while females are being shielded from it. The violent nature of
commercials targeting young males is helping promote this ideal which suggests that violence is
condonable in the psyches of harmless children who then mature into dangerous adults. Now in no way
am I saying that these commercials are the sole reason for the aurora theater shooting or sandy hill
shooting, but they where a common influence in the young lives of these future pseudocommandos.