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The U.S. government and a wide range of organizations have studied the causes of violence
The strongest influences seem to be peer group, home environment, social class, gender and other major demographic variables.
Media violence
The role of media depictions of violence in fostering a range of beliefs, attitudes and behaviors tied to social violence remains controversial
Few deny any role, but the significance and nature of media contribution remains open to wide interpretation
Media violence
How much violence is found in the media and how is it presented? What is the relationship between media violence and real-world violence? What are thought to be the mechanisms of that relationship? If the relationship is significant, what can be done about it?
Child will witness 200,000 violent acts on TV by the time she is 18 years old
(FCC factsheet)
23% 4 0.14 0
Programs with violence # of violent interactions Rate of violent interactions/hour Programs w/ saturated violence
82%
43%
80%
93%
50%
46%
384
5.81 34%
87
1.75 3%
365
12.37 16%
1,916
8.89 68%
121
3.78 0%
219
2.95 17%
% of programs with violence Number of violent PATs per hour Number of violent scenes per hour
97 28.1 11.9
89 14.3 7.9
48 4.2 3.0
17 1.6 .9
28.7
24.4
12.9
3.1
1.2
Source: Wilson, Smith, Potter, Kunkel, Linz, Colvin & Donnerstein, 2002, Journal of Communication
Justification or lack of it for the violence Realism of the depiction Reward or punishment of the perpetrator Brutality/graphicness of the depiction Use of weapons Victim pain/suffering or lack of it Humor
Rewards/punishments
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Children's Immediate reward Bad perps never punished Nonchildren's No immediate punishment Good perps never punished
Consequences
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Children's Victim shows no pain Unrealistically low levels of harm Nonchildren's Victim shows no harm Depicts long-term suffering
Graphicness
100 80 60 40 20 0 Child Perp Teen Perp Adult Perp % blood & gore % animated program % humor % fantasy context
n=660
n=1,019
n=12,959
Catharsis theory
The basic notion of catharsis theory is that the frustrations of everyday life build up within all individuals. Eventually these frustrations boil over and lead to aggression. However, in certain cases the aggression may be relieved by watching others release their aggression.
Sports Crime/action Horror
Seymour Feshbach is the name most often associated with the theory of catharsis. Thus the hypothesis for media studies becomes: "exposure to violent television content decreases the probability of violent behavior." Feshback and Singer (1971) have revised the catharsis approach by saying that it may play a greater role for lower-class viewers than those in the middle-class. They argue that socialization differences in middle-class families are an alternative maintenance mechanism for aggression.
The individual differences most central to catharsis theory are the level of accumulated frustration and hostility which individuals are experiencing prior to exposure to violent television programs. The cathartic effect of televised violence should be greatest for these individuals with the strongest catharsis need, namely, individuals who have built up considerable frustration and hostility." DeFleur & Ball-Rokeach
Violent depictions are said to arouse audience members and to provide cues as to how to release that aggressive energy. The effect is not expected to be uniform among audience members, but will vary with a number of factors.
The similarity of the context of the media violence to the context of the viewer's everyday life. Depicting the pain and anguish of victims
Inspires audience inhibitions via guilt and sympathy.
Violent media content teaches or socializes children to engage in violent behavior under certain conditions. The performance of learned behaviors is not seen as something which happens automatically. The appropriate context for the performance of a given violent behavior must also be present.
Reinforcement theory
Joseph Klapper (1960) "television portrayals of violence reinforce whatever established pattern of violent behavior that viewers bring with them to the television situation. Media violence, then, does not directly produce or inhibit aggressive behavior.
Violent content acts to reinforce predispositions based on cultural norms and values, social roles, personality characteristics, and family or peer influences
DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach
Individuals belonging to the same categories should share similar norms, attitudes, values, prior experiences, and many other social and personal characteristics. These . . . should operate to make them respond very similarly to violent television programs."
Reinforcement theory
Mixed evidence with regard to Reinforcement theorysurveys show differences in preference for violent content and aggressive behavior based on social categories, etc. However, aggression is generated among groups who should simply ignore content. Reinforcement theorists argue that most such findings are methodological artifacts.
Research methods
Experimental Studies
Bobo dolls
Correlational Analysis
Surveys
Event Studies
Natural experiment (Notel, etc.)
Experiments
A majority of experimental investigations undertaken in the laboratory report that exposure to violent programming leads children to act more aggressively. This is true for a wide variety of settings and outcomes.
Bandura Bobo Doll experiments
However:
Unrealistic situation Demand characteristics Not real violence
Correlational studies
One-shot surveys Belson (1978) investigated the behavior and viewing habits of over 1,500 adolescent males in London in the early 1970s. Found a moderate relationship between high exposure to television violence and violent behavior, . . . the more exposure to television violence, the greater the reported actual violent activity of the subjects while controlling for family background, cognitive ability, other likely influences
Longitudinal studies Lefkowitz, Huesmann, Eron, and their associates studied the television viewing habits and behavior of 875 third-grade children in an upstate New York county during the 1960s. Children with a preference for violent programs at age eight were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior at age 19 and to commit serious crimes when they were 30 years old.
Milavsky and associates (1982), followed several hundred children in two Midwestern cities for three years in the 1970's. Initial correlations between exposure to violent media at the beginning of the period and later aggressiveness turned small and statistically nonsignificant after controlling for social and familial factors, as well as past levels of aggressive behavior.
Event studies
Canadian study of introduction of television The researchers compared children before and after the introduction of television in one Canadian town (Notel) during the 1950s with their peers in two comparable towns where television was already well established: Unitel (receiving the government-owned channel, CBC) and Multitel (receiving both CBC and U.S. stations). They measured aggression based on observations of childrens interactions in the schoolyard during free play, by teacher ratings, and by peer ratings.
Longitudinal observations of 45 children first observed in grades one and two and reevaluated two years later indicated that both verbal and physical aggression increased over this two-year period for children in Notel after the introduction of television, but not for children in the two control communities where television was already available.
All five reviews note the existence of a significant empirical association between exposure to television violence and aggressive behavior among youthful viewers, though they vary in how they characterize of the relationship. The APA task force concluded: There is clear evidence that television violence can cause aggressive behavior and can cultivate values favoring the use of aggression to resolve conflicts.
However, the relationship is not thought to be strong: Huesmann et al. (1997) What is important for the investigation of the role of media violence is that no one should expect the learning of aggression from exposure to media violence to explain more than a small percentage of the individual variation in aggressive behavior.
Another important area of apparent agreement is that the media-aggression relationship is a complex one that involves a number of mediating influences.
Paik & Comstock looked at 217 empirical studies from 1957-1990. These studies yielded 1,142 hypothesis tests.
r
.46
r2
.21
6-11
12-17
351
334
.31
.22
.10
.05
18-21
Adult
267
57
.37
.18
.14
.03
r
.31 .37 .40 .30 .19 .19
r2
.10 .14 .16 .09 .04 .03
Program type
Cartoon/fantasy program Excerpts/behavioral demo Pornography/erotica Sport show Action/adventure/crime News/public affairs Western
N 41 159 70 43 157 95 34
Yes
146
.31
.09
No
30
.30
.09
Yes
122
.35
.12
No
55
.28
.08
r
.33 .31 .52 .40
r2
.11 .10 .28 .16
r
.31 .52 .27 .23
r2
.10 .27 .07 .05
Illegal activities
N
All observations combined Burglary Grand theft Physical violence against a person (homicide, suicide, stabbing, etc.) 94 13 23 58
r
.17 .28 .28 .10
r2
.03 .08 .08 .01