1.The Media and School Violence
Patricia Williams
Courtney Waid
EDUC 246
Spring 2010

2. Agenda
Introduction
Media Violence is to Blame for School Violence
Media Violence is not to Blame for School Violence
Conclusion
Resources
3. Click this link to view an introductory video on school violence
4. Media Violence is to Blame for School Violence
5. 6. Felson (1996)
Watching violence is a popular form of entertainment.A crowd of onlookers enjoys a street fight just as the Romans enjoyed the gladiators.Wrestling is a popular spectator sport not only in the United States, but in many countries in the Middle East.People enjoy combat between animals, e.g., cock fights in Indonesia, bullfights in Spain and dog fights in rural areas of this country.Local news provide extensive coverage of violent crimes in order to increase their ratings.
7. 8. 9. Phillips (1983) found an increase in the number of homicides after highly publicized heavyweight championship fights.
10. What demographic is affected the most?
Bell and Jenkins (1993) suggest that violence is not evenly distributed across all neighborhoods and demographic groups.Evidence suggests that it occurs at a higher rate in low-income/on income neighborhoods, especially among the young, and in publicplaces.
11. Felson (1996)concludes that exposure to television violence probably does have a small effect on violent behavior for some viewers, possibly because the media directs viewers attention to novel forms of violent behavior that they would not otherwise consider.
Click on this link to view a short presentation
12. Media Violence is Not to Blame for School Violence
13. Trends in Media Violence
14. Trends in Youth Violence
15. Trends in School Violence
16. Inconclusive Research
Researchers have conducted a number of experiments in an attempt to prove a correlation between media violence and youth violence with inconclusive results
- laboratory research
- field experiments
17. Natural Experiments
Compared three Canadian towns in the 1970s
Television was introduced into one town during the experiment; the other two already had television
Results showed equal increase in violent behavior
To accept the findings, one must assume that the community without television at the beginning of the study had more aggressive children than the other communities for other reasons, but that this effect was counteracted in the first phase by the fact that they were not exposed to television.That assumption implies that there are other differences between the communities and thus casts doubts on the findings of the study (Felson, 1996, pp. 107-108)
18. Findings of the Safe School Initiative

Examined the perpetrators of 37 incidents of targeted school violence

19. Found no useful profile 20. Most common trait was a history of suicide attempts and suicidal behavior