COMM 102 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Payne Fund Studies, Juvenile Delinquency, Real Sex
18 Jun 2018
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Lecture 19- Media Violence
● Payne Fund Studies
○ Violent film tend to increase violence
○ Series of tests done on adults and children that watched movies
○ The studies found that the violent and sexual content of movies did not match
conventional social mores
○ Particularly “vulnerable” children who were prone to juvenile delinquency were
influenced by violent and criminal behavior they watched on the screen
● Violence on Television
○ First phase: rising rate of juvenile delinquency
○ Social behavior and well-being of society at a whole
○ Proactive attempt to reduce televised violence through legislative restrictions.
● National Television Violence Study
○ Four universities
■
○ the proportion of violent prime-time network and cable shows increased since
1994
○ the violence was portrayed on these programs actually encouraged children to
imitate the behavior they saw.
○ age-based ratings did not indicate the amount of violent content in a program
○ Broadens out more than using just force
○ Outcomes and consequences of violent act
○ Took very large sample of Tv
○ Each school focused on different genre
○ Advisory- what kind of warning was given to parents
○ Most violence on tv is sanitized
■ No physical harm or pain to victim
■ No long-term consequences
○ Found a very high percentage of programs contained violent acts
■ 6 violent incidents per hour
○ Any overt depiction of a credible threat of physical force
■ Or the actual use of force
■ intended to physically harm an animate being or group of beings
● Violence on tv is trivialized
○ Humorous
● Media violence:
○ Certain depictions of physically harmful consequences against an animate being
or group that occur as a result of unseen violent means.
○ 26% with gun
○ 54% lethal
○ 42% with humor
● High Risk Contexts
○ A perpetrator who is an attractive role model
○ Violence that seems justified
■ Get something good out of it
■ NTVS Year 3: Nearly 40% the violent acts were perpetrated by "good"
characters.
○ Minimal consequences to the victims
■ Sanitized or trivialized
○ Violence that seems realistic to the viewer
■ Seems like realistic option and solution
○ Violence that goes unpunished
■ NTVS Year 3: Even when the perpetrators of violence were "bad"
characters, over 40% went unpunished.
● Myths about violent media
○ 1) The level of violence in the mass media simply mirrors the level of violence in
the real world.
■ Media isn’t influencing people any more than the real world is
■ ABC just “represents”
○ 2) Violent media decrease aggression.
■ Helps you get rid of anger and calm down
■ Catharsis theory- calming down/releasing
● Theorizes that acting aggressively or even viewing aggression
purges angry feelings and aggressive tendencies or drives
● By watching violent media, people could be relieved of their
negative feelings vicariously through observing other people
acting out their anger.
● TV violence could be actually therapeutic for a person filled with
anger or frustration
○ Thus, TV violence is actually a positive thing.
■ No evidence to support this
● Most studies show that violence viewing and aggression are
positively related, which contradicts catharsis theory.
○ Social learning theory
● Research shows that fantasizing about aggression increases
aggression.
○ Priming theory- Activating violence-related thoughts
■ If you let anger build up it will explode out of you- Pressure Cooker
Theory
● Releasing it through media/music will help
■ Reward or punishment was more significant to outcome than violence
● No proof for catharsis
■ Not being exposed to but fantasizing activates aggressive thoughts
○ 3) Violent media has a trivial effect on aggression
■ Not important
■ When put into context with other relationships, looks more significant
■ Got correlation strength through meta-analysis
■ Types of media effects:
● imitation/modeling
○ Social cognitive theory/social learning theory
● Disinhibition
○ When you watch lots of media, becomes less abound to
violence
■ Less it sticks
○ As viewers become more accustomed to seeing violence
on television, they become less inhibited by social
restrictions against committing violent acts.
○ Viewing violence
■ Viewers become more aggressive
■ Removes some of inhibition
● Arousal
○ When we’re frustrated or angry
○ Anger and frustration lead to higher effect
○ One circumstance can travel to next situation
○ Excitation transfer theory
■ Physiological arousal dissipates slowly
○ If two arousing events are separated by a short amount of
time then some of the arousal caused by the first event
may
■ Transfer to the second event
■ Or be misattributed to the second event
○ Watching a violent scene
■ Viewers become excited or emotionally aroused
■ The arousal could transfer to aggression when an
opportunity exists
○ Desensitization
■ Repeated viewing of media violence makes viewers
less and less sensitize to violence
■ Making us numb to violence so that we don’t react
as we would if we had never seen it on the screen
● Seeking out more violent content in the
media
● More likely to accept (less disturbed by)
real-life violence
● Getting indifferent to the suffering of others
as a result of loss of empathy and sympathy
■ Making people feel violence is less significant
■ Removing personal reaction to violence
Document Summary
Series of tests done on adults and children that watched movies. The studies found that the violent and sexual content of movies did not match conventional social mores. Particularly vulnerable children who were prone to juvenile delinquency were influenced by violent and criminal behavior they watched on the screen. First phase: rising rate of juvenile delinquency. Social behavior and well-being of society at a whole. Proactive attempt to reduce televised violence through legislative restrictions. The proportion of violent prime-time network and cable shows increased since. The violence was portrayed on these programs actually encouraged children to imitate the behavior they saw. Age-based ratings did not indicate the amount of violent content in a program. Broadens out more than using just force. Advisory- what kind of warning was given to parents. No physical harm or pain to victim. Found a very high percentage of programs contained violent acts. Any overt depiction of a credible threat of physical force.
