KEEPING CHILDREN AWAY FROM VIOLENCE
 Media is the most important element  that has effect on the public and  it  has an ability to influence people in many ways. It is possible for people to be effected in a good or bad way by media. TV, the major and most significant part of the media, also has very big effects on people, especially on children. The moral development of children are threatened by the violent and pornographic scenes which are broadcasting on TV. Therefore, TV is blamed for a lot of social ills which are directly relevant with children, and it is time to prevent children from the violent and pornographic scenes. In order to keep children away from the bad effects of TV engineers and members of USA senate developed some technological and governmental ways. There is a new technology, called V-chip and TV rating system, aimed for protecting  children from the bad effects of violence on TV by allowing  parents know the content of the programming, letting them blocking  unsuitable TV programs and  keeping the broadcasters  away from displaying the violent and sexual scenes on TV.
 Before talking about the V-Chip, it is better to mention some studies that are focused on the time that children spend watching TV and the amount of violent acts that are displayed on TV. A study done by A. Diament for Parents Magazine states that, children between the ages of 5-12 spend approximately 45-50 hours of the week by watching TV. Through that she notes that, "Children will have spent the 7 years of their life by watching TV when they reach the age of 18." (Diament, Media Violence,1994)  If the time children spend for watching TV is compared with the time that children are to spend at school, approximately 25-30 hours a week, the importance of the problem can be understood in a better way.
On the other hand, the studies that focus on the content of the TV programs do not mention good news. According to a study done by 4 universities at USA and financed by  the cable industry, 2000 TV  programs from  23 different for a 20 week period were investigated and %57 of these programs are found to have a violent and pornographic content.(Zoglin, Chips Ahoy , 58) .Another study done by the executives and mental health experts of National Television Violence Study focus on the kind of  violent acts on TV. According to that study, in the %47 of violent acts the victim did not get any observable harm. Also, in  %73 of violent acts the victimizer was unpunished. Zoglin thinks that, “All these can cause children to think that violence does not have any  no long term negative effect on the life of any  person.” (Zoglin, Chips Ahoy, 59) The Department of Health and Human Services mentions  that children will have watched 8000 murders and 100.000 violent acts when they are graduated from elementary school.(www.house.gov)
In addition to all these studies, the news of  children killing their friends at school by using guns, made people accept the reality of the bad effects of violence on TV on children. Therefore government and media industry started investigate for some precautions  to keep children away from the violence and pornography on TV. Then, finally, they found the solution with inventing the V-Chip.
By the year 1998, The congressmen of USA started to rule the TV set manufacturers and media industry with the V-Chip law. According to V-Chip law TV manufacturers are obligated to include the V-chip to all TV sets that are greater that 13 inches in size and  produced after 01.01.2000. In addition to that it is also the responsibility of the TV set manufacturers to locate  brochures that explain the usage of V-Chip to the package of the TV sets.(www.fcc.com) On the other hand there are some rules that the broadcasters have to obey. The first thing that the broadcasters are obligated to do is rating the TV programs in a voluntary way. This rating must  tell  the parents if the rated program is suitable for a child at any age with  the content of the rated program. Another major duty of the broadcasters is transmitting the rating of the program by electromagnetic signals so that the rating of the program will appear on screen and let  the parent knowing the content of the program. The appearance of the rating of the program on the screen will last for first 15 seconds of the program and in conjunction with V-chip it allows parent to block the program.  (www.tvrating .com)   
The V-Chip is an electronic device that is supposed to block the violent or sexual programs from the TV set automatically by receiving the signals that contain the content of the programming. In a basic description the electronic circuit of V-Chip has a capability to turn  the TV set off by taking the electromagnetic signals, that come with the air antenna or the cable system, as reference.(www.vhipeducation.org) The rating of the TV program is coded as signals that V-Chip can understand. The V-Chip is programmed to block the TV for some specific signals and these signals are transmitted through the V-Chip by the broadcasters. (www.tvrating .com)
Using  of V-Chip is quiet easy. The ratings of the program are displayed on screen by using some abbreviations and these abbreviations appear on screen for the first 15 seconds of the program. These signals identify the content of the program and let parents know if  that program is suitable for a child at a given age or not. With those signals  parents are warned to keep their children away form the violent or sexual scenes by blocking that program with V-Chip. Everything is left to the decision of the parents. It is possible for parents to block all shows that have violent or sexual content. In  the absence of the parent, the V-Chip becomes activated as the TV set is turned on. .(www.alternet.org)
 The most important function of V-Chip is that, in order to operate the V-Chip the user is obligated to enter  “a personal identification number” which can be called as a password). Unless the user enters that password correctly the V-Chip will not work. Therefore, parents must keep that password as a secret and never tell it to the children. If the user forgets the password, it is possible to get the password again by calling the customer services.  (www.commslaw.com)   
In order to apply the V-Chip technology, it is required to rate the all TV shows in all  channels. The rating system of  TV programs should be prepared in an organized way. Unless the rating are done in a regular and organized way, it is impossible to rate all TV shows and decide if a TV show  is suitable for a certain age or not. It is not possible for  all TV programs to be rated by  governmental organizations. As Diament mentions, there are more than 80,000 TV shows being broadcasted on 23 channels in America. In other words 600,000 hours per year is required to rate all these TV shows. (Diament, Media Violence,1994) Therefore, government rules the media industry to have self-control and rate their own TV programs. For media industry physiologists and mental experts has started to rate TV programs since 08.01.1999  (www.house.gov)  Physiologists and mental experts were chosen for that job because they were the best for deciding if the content of a TV program is harmful for the moral development and mental health of a child or not.   
The ratings of the TV programs, which were evaluated by experts, are displayed with a certain format for parents. It is very important to display the rating of the TV program in an understandable way. Unless the parent  understand how the content of a program is by seeing the rating of that program, then applications those were done before will not worth for anything. Therefore, a simple and understandable way for displaying the rating of the program, which is called TV Guideline, is prepared by the voluntary rating system.
The National Association of Broadcasters, the National Cable Television Association and the Motion Picture Association of America established the rating system, also known as "TV Parental Guidelines," (www.ksee24.com.) These ratings are displayed on the television screen for the first 15 seconds of rated programming and, in conjunction with the V-Chip, permit parents to block programming with a certain rating from coming into their home. In addition to that, newspapers and TV guides are to express the rating of the programs on their timelines. The TV Guideline tells the parent  the content of the program While displaying the rating of a TV  show some icons are used. The rating are prepared in two parts (www.commslaw.com.)  They are, content ratings and age-based ratings.
The content ratings are labeled as L (coarse language), S (intense sexual situations), V (violent acts), FV(fantasy violence). As these ratings are displayed on TV screen, it becomes possible for the parent to know what kind of program is being broadcasted  on TV. (www.aclu.com)
Another rating category is age-based ratings. The age-based ratings shows out that if a TV program is suitable for any certain age group or not. For example if a TV program is rated as TV-Y, it means that  the content of that  program is appropriate for all children. In the TV-Y rated programs, there is not any act that would  be unsuitable for a children from ages 2-6. It is not expected for a child to be frightened after watching TV-Y rated TV program.                 (www.ksee24.com.) The other age-based rating labels are, TV-Y7 (directed to older children), TV-G (general audience), TV-PG (parental guidance suggested), TV-14 (Parents Strongly Cautioned),and TV-MA (Mature Audience Only).
The governmental rules, voluntary rating systems and responsible parents make V-chip technology work in a organized way. However, there are some  problems with V-chip. First of all it is very hard to rate all TV shows by keeping the TV companies under the control of the government. In addition to that, some cable TV companies oppose with the V-chip law and do not rate their shows because of some financial problems. On the other hand, some groups think that V-Chip opposes with human rights. According to those groups V-Chip is a kind of censorship and V-chip forces  the media industry to just broadcast what the government wants in a political way. (www.aclu.com)
In addition to these problems there are some technical problems with V-Chip. Fist of all there is not any V-Chip installed in the TV-sets which are manufactured before 01.01.2000. According to Bill Widsh, media specialist of University of Oregon," It will take more than 7 years to include V-Chip to all TV sets." Then children can watch the shows which are unsuitable for them on TV of the neighbor that does not have any V-Chip.(www.alternet.org)   
Even though there are some problems with V-chip in its application field, the necessarity of  V-Chip is accepted by the majority of the  people. The statistics show that, the bulk of parents do not know how to use V-chip Technology. An opinion survey that Kaiser Family Foundation did in recent months showed out that 75% of parents are worried about the effects of TV on their children and support the V-chip Law and TV Rating system. (www.alternet.org). However just including the V-Chip into the TV sets would not solve the problem. Unless parents behave in a responsible way, it is impossible to keep children from the impact of TV.
In conclusion, effects of violence and pornography on TV on children can be reduced by using the new technological device V-Chip. Rating the TV shows and giving parents opportunity to block the programs which have violent and pornographic content, will help the new generation to be mentally healthy. However, using  just the V-Chip is not enough, parental care is also required. It should not be forgotten that today's children will become parents in the future. Therefore, the physiological situations and the moral developmet of the children must be protected very well.