Many parents I have visited with over the years say they limit what and how much television and movies their children watch because they believe much of what is shown — violence and promiscuity — is not good for them.

Broadcasters and cinema pundits have long told us that television and movies don’t affect children negatively because they know it’s not real. Watching the bad guy get brutally killed, for example, is OK because children know in real life, the actor gets up, cleans himself or herself off and heads home for supper. It’s entertainment.

Yet, did you catch the stories last week where the characters on some of TV’s popular shows were pitching volunteerism?

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One story on Marketplace, a business-oriented radio program produced by American Public Media, told about television shows using volunteerism in their plots, as well as airing public service announcements encouraging people to volunteer.

The plan is for television show folks to join forces with the president’s pitch for Americans to get out and help. The cause is noble.

Jeff Bader, executive vice president for ABC Entertainment, told the Marketplace reporter in her Oct. 19 story: “Give a person a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Show a person fishing on TV, and you will have people fishing all over the country. I mean, that’s basically the idea.”

That sounds nice. So, what about the violent programming and sexually explicit material that airs? Oh, that’s right, it’s in the late time slots, like 8 p.m. and later — though most children are never in bed by 8 p.m. and some channels broadcast “mature” material all day. What about the racy promos for those shows that air any time of day? Do those impact children?

The Marketplace reporter asked whether such a pitch of using special themes in plots would work. She found someone who claimed to have proof it does.

Marty Kaplan, a film and pop culture expert from the University of Southern California, referred to an episode of the 1970s television show “Happy Days” in which The Fonz got a library card. The week after the show aired, Kaplan said, libraries reported the number of folks in the United States applying for library cards increased by 500 percent. He even said why the programming impacts people.

“When we are listening to a story, we’re kind of in a spell,” Kaplan said in the story. “We are more susceptible to ideas and emotions and content than when we are in our more rational times of the day.”

So, if all this is known, why do we as consumers allow programs with racy material or violent themes to continue?

 True enough anyone with the funding can produce just about anything and try to get it on the air. But when we blindly support the shows’ creators or support the products that sponsor these programs and continue to tune in, we condone that behavior and convey the message to children that it’s OK for them to mimic that behavior.

What we fail to keep in mind is that the public — which includes many parents — holds the purse strings to much of this country’s entertainment. As we’ve seen in the past, programs that don’t bring in the viewers, don’t continue. So, we have more influence than we give ourselves credit.

The hypocrisy from the entertainment industry is plain to see. The onus to teach children, however, is on the parents.

JEFF ZERINGUE is managing editor of The Daily Iberian. He can be reached at iberianedit@bellsouth.net.