MEDIA VIOLENCE AND AGRESSION

Effect of violence on behaviour depicted in films and TV

Effect of violence on behaviour depicted in films and TV

Introduction

Despite the compelling evidence of harmful effects, not all children are adversely affected and not all portrayals of violence pose a risk of harm. In this chapter, we seek to explicate this and other complexities of the research findings on media violence. More specifically, we will (1) review and summarize the evidence regarding the risk of harmful effects from children's viewing of televised violence; (2) examine the nature of violence depicted on television, linking our analysis directly to the known risk factors; and (3) consider the implications of the findings about media violence for public policy makers, reviewing previous efforts and analyzing future prospects for resolving the concerns (Abelson, 2005, 44).

The Evolution Of Research On Media Violence Effects

Although concern about television violence first surfaced in the 1950s and received some attention in the 1960s, it was not until the 1970s that researchers began to study the topic in depth. At that time, the U.S. Surgeon General was commissioned by Congress to examine the issue and to draw conclusions upon which policy makers could act.

The Surgeon General's final report on the topic (Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee, 1972) was complicated and filled with caveats, reflecting its status as both a political and scientific document. Indeed, the process by which the study was conducted afforded the television industry extraordinary influence and control, such that leading academic scholars who had published evidence of harmful effects were “blackballed” from participation on its advisory board, while researchers employed by the industry were allowed onto the committee. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) voiced a public complaint at this blatant politicization of science (Abelson, 2005, 89).

In the end, critics of the television industry found within the Surgeon General's report strong confirmation of the harmful effects of children's exposure to televised violence, while television industry officials argued that the conclusions were too equivocal to be definitive. Certainly the report triggered more controversy than it resolved, with subsequent debates pursued concurrently in the popular press and the policy arena as well as in the scientific community (Zelman, 1999, 45).

By the 1980s, much more empirical research and scientific analysis had been accomplished, and a strong consensus began to emerge in the academic community that exposure to television violence was harmful for children. The effects were not understood to be direct and powerful such that every child who watched would be adversely affected; rather, exposure to violent media was viewed as a risk factor in contributing to the likelihood that children would behave aggressively. This viewpoint is well summarized in an overview of the evidence published by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Some specialists of media who track violence in T.V. programming and movies, determine violence as the behaviour (or menace) of offending, bruising or assassinating someone, not reliant on the procedure of killing or injuring not the encompassing ...