Violence and the media
Violence in the United States
• The United States has one of the highest
levels of violence (perhaps the highest)
among all industrialized nations
• The level is far below that found in a
number of poor/developing nations
Violence in the United States
• The level of violent crime has risen and
fallen at different points over the last
century
– Some of the variance may be due to research
methods rather than changes in real violence
levels
Violence in the United States
• Violence is greatest among teens and young
adults
• Young men are especially likely to be
involved either as perpetrator or victim
• Use of weapons, especially firearms, is
common and increases the likelihood of
serious injury or death
Violence in the United States
• Violence against oneself, including suicide,
is also quite common
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?
The big picture
• 99% of homes have at least 1 TV
• American children spend 4 hours a day
watching TV
–
–
–
–
28 hours a week
2,400 hours a year
18,000 hours by high school graduation
Compared to 13,000 hours in school
The big picture
• 60% of TV programs contain violence
– 5 acts per hour in primetime
– Children’s Saturday morning shows include
about 23 violent acts per hour
• Cartoon violence
– Child will witness 200,000 violent acts on TV
by the time she is 18 years old
• (FCC factsheet)
Amount of violence in prime
time by channel type
Broadcast
network
(90 hrs)
Independent
broadcast
(31 hrs)
Public
broadcast
(17 hrs)
Basic cable
(232 hrs)
Premium
cable
(48 hrs)
Programs with
violence
67%
77%
23%
65%
88%
# of violent
interactions
434
235
4
1,296
1,123
Rate of violent
interactions/hour
5.16
12.05
0.14
5.32
12.40
Programs w/
saturated
violence
31%
43%
0
21%
73%
Amount of violence in prime
time by genre
Drama
(66 hrs)
Comedy
(49.5 hrs)
Children’s
(29.5 hrs)
Movies
(215.5 hrs)
Videos
(32 hrs)
Reality
(74 hrs)
Programs with
violence
82%
43%
80%
93%
50%
46%
# of violent
interactions
384
87
365
1,916
121
219
Rate of violent
interactions/hour
5.81
1.75
12.37
8.89
3.78
2.95
Programs w/
saturated
violence
34%
3%
16%
68%
0%
17%
Amount of violence across subgenres of
children’s programming
Slapstick
Superhero
Adventure/
mystery
Social
relationship
Magazine
% of programs
with violence
100
97
89
48
17
Number of
violent PATs
per hour
29.1
28.1
14.3
4.2
1.6
Number of
violent scenes
per hour
14.9
11.9
7.9
3.0
.9
% of time
devoted to
violence
28.7
24.4
12.9
3.1
1.2
Source: Wilson, Smith, Potter, Kunkel, Linz, Colvin & Donnerstein,
2002, Journal of Communication
The depictions vary across a
number of dimensions
• Nature of the act
• Perpetrator/victim characteristics
– Attractiveness
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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
Nonchildren's
Immediate reward
Bad perps never punished
No immediate punishment
Good perps never punished
Reinforcements for violence
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Child Perp
Teen Perp
Adult Perp
% with immediate rewards
% with no immediate remorse, criticism or penalty
% never punished in program
Motive for violence
100
80
60
40
20
0
Child Perp
% to protect life
Teen Perp
% for personal gain
Adult Perp
% justified
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
% blood & gore
% animated program
Adult Perp
% humor
% fantasy context
Character attributes of
perpetrators
100
80
60
40
20
0
Child Perp
Teen Perp
% male
% anthro
% good
% whose targets are teens
n=660
n=1,019
Adult Perp
% human
% heroes
% whose targets are children
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
Aggressive cues theory
• Leonard Berkowitz (1962)
• Looks at violent content as a stimulus to physiological
and emotional arousal, which tends to increase the
possibility of aggressive behavior.
• His classic design was to show subjects excerpts from the
movie "The Champion."
• Subjects in the experimental group were less likely to
provide reward and more likely to inflict aggression
(electric shock) on a fellow subject.
• 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.
Factors affecting the impact
of violent media
• Frustration at the time of exposure
• The nature of the violence
– Was the violence justified? (the viewer can learn these patterns of
justification to rationalize his own violent actions)
• 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.
Social learning theory
• Bandura and Walters (1963) based on the assumption that
aggressive behavior is learned through observation and
modeling. Exposure to violent media content is said to
increase the probability of aggression not only by
providing the audience with an opportunity to learn violent
behavior, but also by providing violent behavior models.
• 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.
Social learning theory
• “Huesmann and Eron (1986) identify three
psychological processes through which exposing a
child to excessive media violence can encourage
aggressive behavior:
– 1) observational learning
– 2) attitude change: the more TV a child watches, the
more accepting the child becomes of aggressive
behavior; and
– 3) scripts: social behavior is controlled to a great extent
by cognitive scripts and strategies that have been stored
in memory and are used as guides for behavior.
Factors affecting media impact
"The probability of audience members' exhibiting learned
violent behavior is enhanced by such factors as an
expectation of being rewarded by others for such
behavior, similarity between the situation presented in
the television portrayal and the social situation encountered
by viewers after exposure, and anticipation of social
support from a co-viewer who praises the violent action of
the television characters."
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
• Selective exposure to and interpretation of violent media
content.
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."
Overall evaluation of the
evidence
• There has been very little support for the main prediction
of the Catharsis theory. Subjects exposed to violent
programs have tended to perform acts of aggression in a
manner consistent with the Aggressive Cues theory and the
Observational Learning theory. In fact, "most of the data
tend to support both Observational Learning theory and the
Aggressive Cues theory.”
– DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach
Reinforcement theory
• Mixed evidence with regard to Reinforcement
theory—surveys 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 1960’s.
• 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
children’s 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.
Multiple major studies
• National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of
Violence (1969)
• The Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on
Television and Social Behavior (1972)
• The National Institute of Mental Health (“NIMH”)
Television and Behavior Project (1982)
• The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry Child and
Television Drama Review (1982)
• The American Psychological Association Task Force on
Television and Society (1992)
• 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.
Overall effect size
N
r
r2
Male viewers
All observations
595
.36
.13
Experimental designs
451
.41
.17
Surveys
144
.18
.03
192
.26
.07
72
.37
.14
120
.19
.03
Female viewers
All observations
Experimental designs
Surveys
Overall effect size by age
N
r
r2
1117
.46
.21
6-11
351
.31
.10
12-17
334
.22
.05
18-21
267
.37
.14
Adult
57
.18
.03
Preschool
Effect size by research method
N
r
r2
1,142
.31
.10
732
.37
.14
586
.40
.16
Field experiment
97
.30
.09
Time-series studies
49
.19
.04
410
.19
.03
All observations
Experimental designs
Laboratory experiment
Surveys
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
r
.52
.50
.43
.40
.32
.25
.19
r2
.28
.25
.18
.16
.11
.06
.04
Antisocial behavior rewarded
N
r
r2
Yes
146
.31
.09
No
30
.30
.09
Portrayal justifies antisocial behavior
N
r
r2
Yes
122
.35
.12
No
55
.28
.08
Types of aggressive behavior
N
r
r2
All simulated aggressive
behavior
Intensity of using aggressive
machines/self-report of intent
Plays with aggressive toys
587
.33
.11
515
.31
.10
7
.52
.28
Unclassified simulated
aggressive behavior
65
.40
.16
Minor aggressive behavior
N
r
r2
All observations
combined
Physical violence against
an object
Verbal aggression
406
.31
.10
104
.52
.27
86
.27
.07
Physical violence against
a person (not illegal)
271
.23
.05
Illegal activities
N
r
r2
All observations
combined
Burglary
94
.17
.03
13
.28
.08
Grand theft
23
.28
.08
Physical violence against
a person (homicide,
suicide, stabbing, etc.)
58
.10
.01