GMAT Essays (AWA)

Children today have an unprecedented number of options when it comes to entertainment. Since no parent can be aware of all of these options, it falls to the entertainment media to ensure that their content is suitable for young consumers."
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your point of view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading

It is a known fact that there is a great proliferation of entertainment options. There are so many forms of entertainment targeted towards children for different purposes such as educational, informative, or pure entertainment purposes. For this reason, a lot of parents find it hard to censor what their wards view and are thus in a dilemma over making choices for program view. Despite this fact, parents should be responsible, and not necessarily the media, for ensuring that the children view appropriate content.

Firstly, parents are responsible for their children. The choices the children make are largely influenced by the parent's views. As such, parents are in a solid position to ensure that at each time their children make a choice, those choices would be approved by the parent. The parent can thus note which entertainment content would be suitable for the child and which would not, thus shielding against wrong influences.

Secondly, the media industry is known as a for-profit organization, and its focus will be more on maximizing share-holders' profits than on ensuring the suitability of programs being produced. For this reason, the media cannot be made fully responsible for ensuring standards as a lot of energy would be focused more on promoting the production than on ensuring the production is suitable for the target audience. An independent body, not burdened by the maximizing profit, would be more suitable for such a task. As an example, the bodies responsible for censoring viewing content came about because the guardians of consumers clamored for censorship. If the clamor had not occurred, a lot of unsuitable programs would have been aired with no qualms.

Finally, as parents have a strong influence on their children, the parents' opinion matters to a large extent. For instance, if a parent decides that his child will no longer be watching a program by a particular company, and is able to push other parents to do the same, as well as create enough legislative attention that would clamp on such programs, such a parent would be able to dictate what content of programming will be produced by the entertainment industry.

In sum, while the entertainment media is responsible for the kind of production it makes and promotes, parents are largely responsible to ensure that the content of programs viewed by their children is suitable for the children's age.