Effects of Media Violence

Wong RenhaoGraham ChooHeng HaileeKenny Yeo

Roshni RawlaHans Yamin

It seems to be an inevitable human reaction to search for a cause for everything, to find something responsible (be it to be blamed on or to be used as an excuse) for any happenings.

Throughout the entire history of humanity, for as long as humans have roamed this earth, violence has been a part of our daily activities. It has been prevalent since the days media had not even existed, and yet today the mass media is being blamed for promoting violence.

As we walk into an era where humans have become (and are still becoming) more and more dependent on the mass media, it seems to have become a consensus among people that the mass media indeed carries an inalienable impact on violence in our society today.

In this paper, we would uncover more about the relationship between media and violence, and discover the real truth behind it.

The Copycat Phenomenon

• Imitation of exact behaviors depicted in the media– The Doomsday Flight (1966)

• Altitude bomb (5000 feet above sea level)

– The Burning Bed (1984)• An estranged housewife murdering her husband

while he slept

The Copycat Phenomenon

• MTV’s Jackass– The fire stunt

• The World Wrestling Federation– Children have died, imitating wrestling moves

on each other

• As many as 1/3 of convicted male felonies admit to copycatting crimes (Centerwall, 1992)

Lionel Tate

The Copycat Phenomenon

• Are the murder and mayhem on television really to blame for the increased violence in society?

Statistics

• The presence of violent content on television– ↑ in ownership of television sets from 1/10

homes having 1 (1950) to 1/10 homes NOT having 1 (1960)

– The average child spends >3 hrs each day in front of the tube (Minow, 1996)

– According to the APA, the typical child will view >8,000 murders and over 100,000 acts of TV violence in the course of a lifetime

Statistics

• BUT these studies have nothing to say about how the violence may be affecting people

• Content ≠ effect

• Humans react differently to media messages

Research Studies

• The causal link between viewing violence and behaving aggressively

Research Studies

• Albert Bandura’s social learning theory– Emphasized the importance of rewards and

punishments• 2 groups of children watched 2 different videos

– Video 1: The leading characters acted aggressively and received rewards for his actions

– Video 2: The leading characters acted aggressively and received punishment for his actions

– The children played in the room and their actions were monitored

• 2 findings:– Children who saw aggressive behavior rewarded were more

likely to imitate the aggression– The effects emerged most strongly for boys (predisposition to

behave more aggressively)

Research Studies

• BUT not every child who saw the aggression being rewarded behaved aggressively after the video

Research Studies

• Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmann’s long term studies– Studied over 800 children under the age of

10, during the 1960s• Tendency for children who watched higher levels

of TV violence to have higher scores on the ratings of aggressive behavior

Research Studies

• BUT there is no way to tell which came first – the TV viewing or the aggressive behavior?

Research Studies

• Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmann’s long term studies– Longitudinal investigation (2003) that followed

children into adulthood• Boys and girls in the upper 20% on TV viewing

were significantly higher on the measures of adult aggression

Research Studies

• BUT not every child who watched large amounts of TV violence ended up getting involved in crimes

• Was childhood viewing a causal factor in the later commission of crimes?

• Research potentially links media violence with real-life violence

Research Studies

• Brandon Centerwall’s research– ↑ in U.S. crime statistics from 3 homicides

per 100,000 people (1945 – Just before TV emerged) to 6 (1974)

– Claimed that TV was the major culprit in the rise of homicides

Research Studies

• Brandon Centerwall’s research– But the homicide rate in South Africa dropped

by 7% from 1945 – 1974• As a result of a ban on TV• When the ban was lifted in 1974, the murder rate i

↑ by 56% by 1983

– If we adopt a conservative estimate, the numbers still have to be taken seriously

Research Studies

• Seymour Feshbach’s Catharsis Hypothesis– Viewing TV violence could be therapeutic for

a person filled with anger– Catharsis – To cleanse or purge; to get rid of– Media violence was actually a +ve thing

Research Studies

• Seymour Feshbach’s Catharsis Hypothesis– The detention facility for boys experiment

• Nonviolent TV diet vs. violent TV diet for several weeks• The boys who had watched TV violence behaved less

aggressively• BUT we should be slow to arrive at definitive conclusions

from any single study• Only demonstrated that people will act more violently if they

can’t watch their favorite TV programs than if they can watch them

Research Studies

• Leonard Berkowitz and associates’ priming analysis– Angry people and media violence make for

volatile mix– Offered the explanation of the facilitating /

priming effect of media violence• Understood in terms of association• Process whereby one thing you think about

reminds you of other thins in your mind that you associate with the first thing

Research Studies

• Leonard Berkowitz and associates’ priming analysis

– 3 findings:1. Violence can prime thoughts that are related to hostility

2. Media violence might prime thoughts that lead one to believe that aggressive behavior might be warranted in certain situations and might bring about certain benefits

3. Media violence might prime action tendencies that cause people to be more inclined to act violently

Desensitization

Desensitization

• making us numb to violence in real life so that we don’t react to it as we should if we had never seen it on the screen

Evidence

• Anecdotal

• Research

Anecdotal Evidence

• sequels have more violence than previous movie

• Increased violence to give viewers who have seen the previous movie heightened emotional charge

• There is no easy way to go backwards

• Ever-increasing level of violence

Evidence from Research

• Ronald Drabman and Margaret Thomas• Children watch violent/non-violent film• Asked children to watch TV monitor to observe children

interacting in another room while researcher went to adjacent room, to report if there was any trouble

• Monitor was actually playing video of children fighting• Children who watched violent video were far less likely

than other children to actually make an attempt to notify the experimenter about the fight that they observed on the monitor

Funny Violence

• From the concept of desensitization

• Viewers experience desensitization particularly when the violence is in a comical context

• Effects of funny violence > Effects of regular violence?

Funny Violence

Family Guy: A Case Study

Family Guy

• 9 clips from ‘Best of…’ compilation videos, 1 standalone clip

• Played in ascending order of level of (funny) violence

Trend of Increasing Violence

Best of Stewie• 4 violent clips•Average Level of Violence: 3

Best of Stewie #2•8 violent clips•Average Level of Violence: 3

Best of Stewie #3•9 violent clips•Average Level of Violence: 3.78

Games – Violent Games

Living with violent games…

Plenty of violent games in the market Guns, machine guns, bombs and all sorts

of weapons Realistic Technology improves, game graphics

improves as well Close to life-like.

Violence…

• Grand Theft Auto

• Counter-Strike

• Evil Dead

*all are rated Mature(M) – blood and gore

Banned…

• Because they are too violent

• In 2000, Singapore banned a PC game, Half-Life

• Parents supported the act because they see these sort of game as a bad influence. (Marcus Yam, 2000)

Columbine Massacre

• Littleton, Colorado, 1999

• Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

• Fans of Doom

• Playing violent games

= Aggressive behavior?

Professional Opinions…

• Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, 2000s

• Author of a book about killing

• The urge to kill is unnatural

• Convinced that violent gaming is the cause

• AVIDS (“acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome”)

Coincidently…

• 50 years ago, Dr. Frederic Wertham, a psychiatrist wrote a book on harmful effects of comics

• Very much like Grossman

• Perhaps in the 1950s, comics were the most popular entertainment

• Thus the only “bad influence”.

Researchers: Nicola Schutte and colleagues (1988)

• Targets: Children 5-7 years old

• Karateka (violent) vs. Jungle Hunt (non-violent)

• Result: Kids who played Karateka showed aggressive behavior towards other kids. Jungle Hunt kids were more gentle at play.

Researchers: Craig Anderson and Catherine Ford

• Targets: College students

• Zaxxon (high-aggression) vs. Centipede (mild-aggression).

• Result: Students were asked to check off words that describe their feelings. Zaxxon players felt hostile, Centipede players were less hostile. Control group least hostile.

Researchers: Karen Dill and Craig

Anderson • Targets: College students

• 1st study – Students’ habits of playing video games vs. aggressive delinquent. Measurement of trait of aggression.2nd study – Wolfenstein 3D (violent game) vs. Myst (non-violent game) Both games generate the same amount of physiological arousal. After that, all students play a reaction game which they did not know it is part of the study. Winners get to blast the losers.

• Result: 1st study – Violent games players have been involved in more aggressive delinquents and those who played are more aggressive according to the trait of aggressive.2nd study – Students who played the Wolf 3D tend to blast their opponents louder and louder.

Researcher: Ron Tamborini

• Some guys played violent games, observers were placed beside them.

• Result: Players were more hostile after the game, compared to the observers.

Researcher: John Sherry

• Meta-analysis

• Result: Significant effect of video game play on aggression, however, the effect found was smaller than violent TV on aggression.

• Meta-analysis is the combination of the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In short, meta-analysis is the studies with small sample sizes; analyzing the results from a group of studies can allow more accurate data analysis.

IRL (In Real Life)

2005’s Top 10 Most Violent Games

• Resident Evil 4• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas• God of War• NARC• Killer 7• The Warriors• 50 Cent: Bulletproof• Crime Life: Gang Wars• Condemned: Criminal Origins• True Crime: New York City

(Family Media Guide, 2005)

Grand Theft Auto

• Game-play revolves around gang warfare

• Heavily influenced by gangster films (Scarface, Miami Vice, Boyz N the Hood)

• Free-form ‘sandbox’ play– Steal– Rob– Kill– Mass destruction

Case 1• Shylo Kujawski caught stealing a car• History of convictions• Hardcore GTA fan (tattoo on the back)

• Is he really influenced by the game?

• Recidivism – mental or crime issue?

(Gamespot, 2006)

Case 2

• William and Joshua Buckner• Shot at cars with .22 caliber rifle• “They told the police who arrested them that they were bored,

and decided to mimic their favorite videogame, Grand Theft Auto”

• Blame Game (Other issues to consider)– Access to firearms– Massive sales around the world

• “Or perhaps the answer to the perennial problem of delinquent teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue the creators of Tetris.”

(The Register, 2003)

Case 3

• Devin Moore, 18• Killed 2 police-men and 1 dispatcher• Sentenced to death by lethal injection in 2005• “Life is a videogame. Everybody’s got to die sometime.”

• Again, an isolated case in the US• In the 50s, comic books were blamed for juvenile

delinquency (‘scapegoatism’) • Retailers selling games to minors.• David Walsh, child psychologist, believes that teenage

brains are wired differently.

(Fox News, 2005)

Media Violence- MOVIES

‘In a crowded marketplace, where everyone is trying to be heard and where there's an amazing number of choices, the loudest, coarsest, most shocking voice does tend to be the

one that at least grabs your attention for a moment.’(Seabrook, J.,2001)

Top 10 Most Violent Movies

1) Taxi Driver2) Blood Simple3) Natural Born Killers4) A Clockwork Orange5) Blood In Blood Out6) True Romance7) Fight Club8) Gang Related9) The Shield10) Hannibal

Did You Know?

‘When Hollywood Movies Producers make a sequel to a violent movie, they pack it up with more violence than they did the original film.’

Interesting Facts

RoboCop featured 32 bodies

RoboCop 2 featured 81!

Similarly, Die Hard 2= 264 deaths Rambo 3= 106 deaths Total Recall= 74 deaths!

Action Sells…Action Movies;

Don’t require complex plots or characters

Rely on fights, killings, special effects and explosions to hold their audiences

They’re simple and universally understood

”Short-on-dialogue, high-on-testosterone" makes their dubbing or translation relatively inexpensive

Desensitization to Movie Violence

The level of violence in popular media is both hard to miss and easy to ignore. Studies have shown excessive exposure can result in:

- Violence desensitization and lower levels of empathy toward others

- Increased levels of fear due to perceiving the world as violent

- Acceptance of violence as a way of settling conflict

- Higher tolerance and threshold of violence leading to a desire to experience more violence in both movies and real life.

Effects of Violence in Movies

Some violent movies may result in:

- Increased Aggression- Increased Crime - Influence and Effect

Cognition- Create Hostile Feelings

Movie Ratings• G- General Audiences

• PG- Parental Guidance

• R- Restricted

• A movie is strongly

violent if it has a rating

of 8 or above (Hannibal),

and mildly violent if it has

a rating of 5 to 7 (Spider-Man).

WARNINGS

VIOLENT KILLING SCENES IN THIS MOVIEMAY DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE TOTHE INSIDENCE OF VIOLENCE.

VIEWER DISRETION IS ADVISED.

VIDEO URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0SILzGs4g

Music

• Music is another form of media people like to point finger on, with regard to the effects of media violence

• Previously, the accusation mainly points mostly to underground extreme music, e.g. Hardcore, Punk, Metal

• However, researchers and scientists were not able to find any solid evidence on this. (Columbine incident, remember?)

• As of recently, we can also see Hip-hop (i.e. Gangsta Rap) becoming the new scapegoat

Music

• It seems that the blame on Music is no longer just on the audio itself, but rather, music videos

• A lot of researchers look into music videos and what kind of impacts it brings about on youths today, e.g. the relationship between sexually violent rock music videos and males’ acceptance of violence against women [JS Lawrence, DJ Joyner. 1991]

• However, instead of proving the effect of music, such studies actually adds on to the fact that music itself do not really carry any harmful effects towards listeners, and that visual-oriented media are the ones really affecting people as far as violent behaviors are concerned

Conclusion• We have looked into the possible impacts of violent contents in

different forms of media on people, be it TV, Music, Movies, Games, etc.

• Each affects people differently in different degrees, and different individuals react to it differently as well

• It seems that it may really affect people in certain ways, but cases discussed are still pretty much the minority, or idiosyncratic

• Is media really that big an influence where violence is concerned?• people tend to point fingers on media alone when something

happens, undermining the impact of long years of education we have had, as well as natural instinct and instilled integrity/morality that people may possess

• There has got to be a better way in explaining violent behaviors in people, perhaps it is time to look away from the media and re-assess the whole thing with a fresh point of view