Violence in the media

Question 1

Violence and the media

Answer 1

• the year after the Bulger case Newton (1994) asserted that violent videos can lead to violent actions. At the time this report was seen to conclusively establishing a link between video violence and real life violence. It was seen to be stronger than the link between smoking and lung cancer

Question 2

Anderson

Answer 2

• claimed that research showed indisputably that media violence increased the likelihood of aggressive and violent behaviour. both immediately and in the long term

Question 3

Cumberbatch (2004)

Answer 3

• video standards council found that there is little evidence to support that violence on Tv causes violence in real life
• States that there are only 200 studies that directly assess the effects of exposure and this evidence does not support the view that media violence causes aggression.

Question 4

Newburn and Hagell (1995)

Answer 4

• more than 1000 studies stated that the link was not proven and that children displaying tendencies towards violence may have always shown these tendencies

Question 5

Broadcasting Standards Commission (2003)

Answer 5

• found that children are sophisticated media users and are aware that television production is a process and that they are not watching reality. It concludes with ‘they are able to make judgements and are not blank pieces of paper upon whom messages can be imprinted’

Question 6

Effects of Violence in the media

Answer 6

• Copycatting or imitation, Bandura ‘bobo doll’
• Catharsis- media violence reduces violence as people live out violence tendencies through media rather than real life
• Desensitization, Newson- people can accept violence as normal and then this can become part of life
• Sensitization, exposure to media can make people more sensitive to the consequences of violence

Question 7

The Bobo doll experiment, methodological problems

Answer 7

Livingstone, link between media violence and violent behaviour doesn’t mean that the media causes the violence. There are three key questions to be answered

• Selective exposure, do more aggressive people choose to watch more aggressive programmes
• Media effects, do violent programmes make viewers aggressive
• Common third cause, do certain social circumstances both make people more aggressive and lead them to watch more violent TV

Media effect models have tried to resolve this by using an experimental method of research by using small samples to media violence in artificial la conditions to see the outcome

Question 8

Adverse childhood experiments - ACEs

Answer 8

10 ACEs

• physical abuse
• sexual abuse
• emotional abuse
• physical neglect
• emotional neglect
• mental illness
• divorce
• substance abuse
• violence against mothers
• having a relative who’s been to prison

Question 9

Problems of researching media violence

Answer 9

• there is a problem with how media violence is defined in the first place- there is violence all around us people ae able to distinguish
• The hypodermic syringe model of media effects, people react differently in tests
• It is impossible to avoid the Hawthorne effect, people react differently when being tested
• lab experiments last for only a short time, ignoring long term effects
• lab experiments are small scale, not a big sample
• difficult to separate out the effects of violent media from other causes of violent media
• impossible to find a group who are not exposed to violent media
• new media makes it almost impossible to test media effect