A STUDY OF IMPACT OF EXPOSURE TO VIOLENT MEDIA ON WELL-BEING AND ANXIETY AMONG PARENTS

Mass media accounts for a major part of individual's everyday life. In the modern world, it is a form of
recreation and socialization. Especially in today's world where people have restriction on activities due to the
ongoing pandemic, media is an important source of entertainment for most of the people. News is an integral
part of the mass media. Crime has been the principle genre in news media and now even crime reality shows
have begun to captivate the audiences and continue to keep their attention. The audiences consume such
media to an extent that they start internalizing the criminal and scary content that they get exposed to. It
becomes difficult to balance between being informed and aware and to live in a continuum of consternation.
The traumatizing yet realistic media content related to violence and fear has influence on its audience's
perception and psyche in total as compared to fictional genre of programs. News and crime-based reality
programs fabricate tremendous fear, and in many cases can even induce anxiety among people. Especially in
today's world of insecurity arising out of the present pandemic scenario, people are worried about the present
and future of themselves and their families. The present paper is a study of the impact of such violence and
fear depicted in the news and crime-related media across the Indian television on the well-being and anxiety
among parents. A small survey is conducted with 40 parents watching such news on daily basis to understand
their own well- being and anxiety towards their children as a result of exposure to such media violence.
Results show that exposure to violent news in the media has negative impact on general well-being of
parents and also increases anxiety in them about the present and future of their children.