In the 1950s & 60s, concerns grew over the increasing levels of violence on TV.

Research in this area has focused on two areas:

1) The effect of the media on violent behaviour
2) The development & expression of prosocial behaviour

 

Media Influences on Prosocial Behaviour

Studies have consistently found that children imitate prosocial behaviour: altruism, helping, delay of gratification & positive interaction with others.

Bryan & Bryan (1970) showed 6 - 9 yr olds a film showing a character winning gift certificates then either (i) giving some of these to charity or (ii) keeping them. Children who had seen the character being generous were likely to display generosity.

Lovelace & Huston (1983) reviewed the studies & concluded that programmes with a prosocial message were effective in producing prosocial behaviours in viewers. However, these behaviours tend not to be generalized into everyday behaviour. Broadcasts with a dramatic prosocial storyline are more likely to help children to generalize the behaviours to their own lives than short clips of instruction about prosocial behaviour.

Application - children who have serious difficulties making friends and getting on with others can watch fictional scenarios in which they see how to mix with others to learn social skills.

Rushton & Owen (1975) suggested that such effects tend to wear off in a week or two.

Research carried out in a laboratory setting using short clips showing only prosocial behaviour may produce artificiality, giving them poor ecological validity and making it difficult to generalize the findings to other situations.

Paulson (1974) carried out research on 'Sesame Street' over a 6 month period. Children who had seen programmes designed to teach cooperation scored higher on scores of cooperation than those who had not. However, they did not find an increase in the general level of prosocial behaviour in these children.

Friedrich & Stein (1973) found that when such broadcasts are used as part of a larger programme they can increase certain prosocial behaviours in children from low socio-economic backgrounds. Johnston & Ettema (1986) found that broadcasts designed to reduce sex-role stereotypes among children has been shown to be effective in changing children's beliefs.

Hearold (1986) reviewed research on media influence & concluded that the positive effects on prosocial behaviour were stronger & more consistent than the negative effects on antisocial behaviour.

Media Influences on Antisocial Behaviour

Moral Panics

Pearson (1984) - there has been a long history of moral panics about the harmful effects of popular culture such as comics and popular theatre in the 19th century, followed by the cinema, television, video & computer games.

National Television Violence Study (MediaScope Inc. February 1996)
Largest ever study of media content, focusing on:

1. The amount & context of violence on cable
2. The effectiveness of ratings systems for films (e.g. '18', 'PG')
3. The success of antiviolence messages

Key finding included:

· The context in which most violence is presented on TV poses risks for viewers
· Perpetrators go unpunished in 73% of all violent scenes
· The negative consequences of violence are not often portrayed in violent programmes
· 25% of violent interactions involves the use of handguns
· Only 4% of violent programmes emphasize an anti-violent theme
· Children's programmes are the least likely of all to show the long-term consequences of violence (only 5% did so)

 

Correlational Studies

· Robinson & Bachman (1972) - found a positive correlation between number of hours of TV watched & self-reports of involvement in aggressive/antisocial behaviour.

· Aitkin et al. (1979) - found that 45% of 9-13 year olds who watched a lot of TV violence gave aggressive responses to imaginary scenarios, whereas only 21% of those who watched little TV violence gave aggressive responses.

· Phillips (1983) - found that over a six year period, whenever a major soap opera character committed suicide on TV, within 3 days there was a significant increase in the number of female suicides across the USA.

Studies suggest a link, not necessarily a causal relationship.

Experimental Studies

The Bobo Experiment, Albert Bandura (1963) - Father of Social Learning Theory & Social Cognitive Theory

Four groups of preschool children put into play room with Bobo doll:

· One group watched no model
· Three groups watched model physically and verbally abusing Bobo doll

· First group showed no aggression towards the Bobo doll
· Three groups that saw model showed aggression towards the Bobo doll:

Displayed same violent acts as model
Hitting
Kicking

Conclusion: Exposure to televised violence can produce an increase in aggressive behaviour.

The validity of such experiments has been questioned because of the artificiality of the laboratory situation. Some field studies also support the idea that aggressive children may become more aggressive if they are exposed to aggressive films, and less aggressive if exposed to films showing prosocial behaviour (e.g. Stein & Friedrich, 1972; Parke et al, 1977). However, Hearold's (1986) meta-analysis found an effect for laboratory experiments, but no effect for field experiments.

Natural Experiments

Hennigan et al. (1982) compared American cities that had TV with those that did not - no differences between the cities were found in the violent crime rates. Furthermore, when TV was introduced to the cities without TV, there was no increase in violent crimes.

Williams (1986) compared 3 Canadian cities:

· No TV
· 1 TV channel
· 4 TV channels

In conclusion, it is difficult to make any definite conclusions from these natural experiments as to whether there is a relationship between the introduction of TV and increases in aggression, due to differences in the comparison groups & confounding variables.

Longitudinal Studies

Lefkowitz et al. (1972)

· Preference for TV violence at age 8 was significantly related to aggression (measured by peer-ratings) at age 8.
· Preference for TV violence at age 18 was not significantly related to aggression at age 18.
· However, there was a significant relationship for boys between preference for TV violence at age 8 and aggression at age 18.

 

Long range Effects of Television Violence Study

William Belson (1978)

· 1,565 teenage (13-17 yr olds) boys divided into two groups
· One group watched excessive amounts of television during childhood
· One group watched below average quantities of television

Findings

· Group that watched excessive television committed crimes, such as rape and assault 49% more often than other group
· Group that watched below average amount television less likely to commit crimes

Conclusions

· Children who witness violent behaviour on television are very likely to:
· Imitate it
· See it as normal
· Commit various violent crimes
· Television violence undoubtedly causes aggressive behaviour in children

Although media violence may be demonstrated to have an effect in some people, this may be more a result of other factors related to the viewers themselves. These include an individual's perception of and preference for violence, level of the viewer's moral development, and their family background.

Possible explanations of media effects

Cognitive Priming

Aggressive ideas in violent films can activate other aggressive thoughts through association in memory pathways (Berkowitz, 1984).
Huesmann (1982) suggests that children learn problem-solving scripts in part from their observations of others' behaviour. These scripts are cognitive expectations about a sequence of behaviours that may be performed in particular situations. Frequent exposure to scenes of violence may lead children to store scripts for aggressive behaviour in their memories, and these may be recalled in a later situation if any aspect of the original situation is similar.

Television viewing as a routine activity

Crimes should be less frequent when the routine activities of potential offenders and victims reduce their opportunities for contact. Since people watch television at home, the opportunities for violence, at least with people outside the family, are probably reduced. Messner (1986) found that cities with high levels of TV viewing have lower rates of both violent and nonviolent crime.

Theoretical explanations involving socialization

Bandura (1986) claimed that people are more violent because they learn to be violent from their parents, peers, and the media.

·Learning novel forms of behaviour - teaching new violent behaviours, copycat behaviours (e.g. mimicing martial arts moves, re-enacting torture scenes, etc.)
· Vicarious reinforcement & justification - violence which goes unpunished, or is successful in gaining the desired objective, or is portrayed as justifiable gives out the message that violence/crime does pay and is justifiable, and reinforces such behaviours so that they are more likely to be imitated by the viewers.
· Creating unrealistic fear - heavy TV viewers are more likely to overestimate their chances of being criminally victimized (Gunter, 1994). This may lead them to perceive threats where they do not exist and to respond aggressively.
· Densensitization - frequent viewing of TV violence may cause viewers to be become desensitised to violence so that they perceive it as 'normal'/acceptable, and so be more likely to engage in violent behaviour.

 

Desensitization to Violence Study - Drabman and Thomas, 1974

Two groups consisting of forty-four boys and girls

· One group saw violent western movie
· One group saw no movie

Findings:

· Group that had seen violent movie waited to go get an adult
· Group that had not seen violent movie went to get adult immediately

Conclusion:

· Children who witness violence on TV are more likely to view aggressive behaviour as normal/acceptable.

Problems with the Effects Model of Media Violence

1. The assumption that the media, not violent people, should be the starting point for research:

· It has been suggested that rather than concentrating on the media to explain the behaviour of offenders, researchers should concentrate of the offenders themselves.
· Hagel and Newburn (1994) - found young offenders watched less TV & video than non-offenders.
· According to Gauntlett (1998) researchers have portrayed children as 'the inept victims of products, which… can trick children in to all kinds of ill advised behaviour'. But research suggests that children do understand the media, and are able to talk intelligently (and cynically ) about it.

2. The problems with the validity of scientific research:

· Many investigations into media effects are characterized by artificiality which reduces their ecological validity - participants are shown specially selected or recorded clips, which lack the narrative meaning present in everyday TV productions.
· Finding from research are not consistent, and sometimes are contradictory.
· Some studies which only show a correlation with media violence are treated as if the relationship is causal.

3. Screen fiction is of concern whilst news pictures are not:

· The kinds of media violence which are typically condemned by the effects model are limited to fictional programmes. The acts of violence that appear on our TV screens on news programmes are somehow exempt from this condemnation. This is even more puzzling when we consider the fact that in fictional drama, the majority of antisocial acts have negative consequences for the perpetrator, but in documentary clips of violent acts, there are few apparent negative consequences for the perpetrators.

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