MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS

Article Summary and Critical Evaluation

Article Summary and Critical Evaluation

Introduction

This essay is based on a summarization and critical evaluation of a research-based, quantitative article “Is Television Traumatic? Dreams, Stress, and Media Exposure in the Aftermath of September 11, 2001” by Ruth E. Propper, Robert Stickgold, Raeann Keeley, and Stephen D. Christman. This essay will go about in an orderly manner, where initially, we will summarize the contents of the quantitative study and critically evaluate it to gauge its effectiveness. We will reach certain conclusions and justifications as to how the study contributed towards the assessment of the traumatic aftermath of the attacks, and its effects on an ordinary individual's mind-set and cognitive powers.

Summary of Article

9/11 Terrorist attacks have been a major tragedy for people living throughout the world, especially for the citizens of the United States. It has significantly changed the face of the Earth, leading to new consequences and extremely adverse effects on the lives of American people. While the attacks directly influenced the lives of the people living in proximity to the city, even those who followed the new update from the media were in dangerous trauma post 9/11 attacks (Propper, Stickgold, Christman, 2007, pp. 334). These individuals dreamt of events related to attacks, as a consequence of their exposure to the media updates. The results, as well-presented through the quantitative study, revealed that after the individuals experienced the news happenings from the media, their dreams on the 12th of September were totally different from their dreams prior to listening or watching features of those 9/11 attacks. The study's within-subjects design provided an evidence for a direct association between the viewing concepts of television and the related levels of trauma and stress due to that viewership (Propper, Stickgold, Christman, 2007, pp. 334).

This article, reported in the April 2007 issue of the Journal of Psychological Science, finds out that every hour of television watched created subsequent increments in the levels of stress among the viewers with some students reporting a viewership for 13 hours. This level of stress, increased while exposing to the media, indicated by the contents of their dreams, which is a source to reveal the impact of the attacks on their dream. It shows in the results of the study that engagement with family and talking with the inmates helped the individuals to cope with their stresses that develop because of the event.

The author Propper distributed questionnaires to the students on the morning of 12th September to report their activities along with the reporting of the hours they spent in watching the media updates or documentaries (Kroth, Hallgren, LeGrue, Scalise, 2004, pp. 882). In addition, the questionnaire also provided for the reporting of their time on any form of media they used that day and the length of discussion they hold with family and friends. This could reveal the impact of the events in changing the way people interact and their interests following the ...