Choosing a classic example of a social problem such as violence, crime, racism or sexism, describe and discuss the ways in which media research has been conducted to show links between your examples and media activities.

Chris King - Media sociology essay 10th December 2003, page

The broadcast media and links to violence

On the 30th October 1994 in Salt Lake City, America, 19 year old Nathan Martinez brutally shot his mother and 10-year old sister. The same act was shown in the film ‘Natural Born Killers’ earlier that year, which Martinez had seen ten times. Upon arrest, he repeatedly said how much he ‘loved’ the film. (Patten, D, 1997 [online])

This was by no means an isolated event. Similar murders have been documented worldwide, and these ‘copycat killings’ form part of the growing theory that films and programmes we watch on the television are the impetus that persuade people like Martinez to commit such acts.

Violence in young society can be attributed to the cinema and video genres, as well as television and films. So called ‘Video Nasties’ (of which Natural Born Killers was one,) have been blamed predominantly for the copycat killings happening throughout the world.

Regulators such as the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and MediawatchUK, (the NVLA before 2001(National Viewers and Listeners Association)) have attempted to ban films and videos for the benefit of the general public. For example, ‘The Exorcist’ was banned for over 30 years due to its explicit violent and sexual references and scenes. Stanley Kubrik even banned his own film ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ feeling that it was too violent to be released.

Bodies such as MediawatchUK and the BBFC would not be set up were it not for media effects theories.

Numerous studies have been conducted in order to investigate the effects of the media on people, especially though, young people. The most famous study is Bandura’s Bobo-doll experiment, which, like most research, concentrated on the effects on children.

Bandura showed children aged three, four and five a video of an adult acting aggressively towards a rocking plastic ‘Bobo’ doll. The adult was kicking, punching, and shaking the doll, and in some conditions, indicated that he was being gratified by this (reinforced.) In other conditions, he showed no emotion, and in some, was punished for his actions.

Afterwards, the children were put into a room full of toys including the doll, with no instruction.

The children that had seen the adult being reinforced by his acts showed greater tendencies to copy what he had performed on the doll than those that had seen him with no emotion. In all, 88% of the children abused the doll. (Gross, 2000, pg 69)

This seemed to prove everything – if a child sees violence without negative repercussions, they are likely to copy the acts themselves. However, a criticism of the study is that it is difficult to extrapolate violence against a doll to violence between humans.

This is a branch of what is known ...

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This is a branch of what is known as Social learning theory which Bandura formulated, and it is the behaviourism branch of psychology – we learn all our behaviour.

In the 1920s and 30s we saw a mass society enter into the world, with people moving from extreme rural locations to large towns and cities to find work. This had a devastating effect on the way society interacted – people did not know how to interact with other people on such a comparatively large scale and therefore nobody knew what the new ‘norms’ in society were. This was known as ‘Normlessness and anomie.’ (Cited in lecture by M. Ette in November 2003)

This period of time was described by a psychologist, Newbold. ‘In the 20s and 30s, society was conceived of as an anonymous crowd, as a mob or indeed a mass of largely undifferentiated individuals open to manipulation by the mass media.’

(Media A level lecture by John Keenan)

The Payne studies in the 20s and 30s attempted to prove this manipulation - that violent films produced violent boys. This was a series of studies in Ohio, America and involved more than 50 communities within the state.

The researchers looked at the national movie going figures and compared those with the figures for the groups they were studying, which were relatively high. Going to the movies in the 20s and 30s was a new experience and subjected the audience to so many more senses than books or newspapers.

The content of the movies being shown at this time was taken from an analysis of 1500 films. Ten categories of content were made: crime, travel, children, sex, mystery, war, love, history, comedy, and social propaganda.

The effects that were studied in the children going to see these movies included the way they picked up information, emotions, health and behaviour.

Attitudes concerning ethnic, racial and social issues were changed by movie viewing. Those movies especially containing fear and tension aroused emotions in the children. Health effects were measured by looking at the sleep patterns of children after watching the movies, and certain movies disturbed healthy sleep. Those who underperformed in school were found to have been watching more films than those at the required standard. The children displayed imitations of ‘good’ behaviour from certain movies but movies also appeared to play a role in delinquency.

Overall, the researchers found that movies influenced both children's attitudes and behaviours. These effects were gradual but persistent over time.

(Ash, R, 1999 [online])

The Payne studies have been rendered out of date now, and were criticised for their lack of control groups. Yet these went some way to showing the world the dangers of media effects, and were a landmark in such research. It is also difficult to replicate such a study today for most of the population of the earth have now been subjected to some form of media.

A more recent study by Boyatzis, Mattillo, and Nesbitt in 1995 examined the effects of watching a Power Rangers television programme on video and children’s aggressive behaviour. The researchers counted 140 violent acts in the half-hour show. The behaviour of the children was then observed after the show. Compared to a control group who did not see the video, the children who had seen it committed seven times as many violent acts.

(Ash, R, 1999 [online])

However, an important issue arises when talking about ‘violence,’ and that is, ‘what IS violence?’ For studies such as this one, a definition of violence is needed to ascertain accurate results.

George Gerbner, a leading media effects expert defined violence as ‘..the overt expression of physical force against others or self, or the compelling of an action against one’s will on pain of being hurt or killed.’

(Gross, 2000, pg 89) This is used in most of Gerber’s studies and has been criticised for being too broad a definition. Obviously, the more items that are encompassed in the definition of violence, the more violence will be perceived in studies.

The issue then arises at which point in this explanation are the acts classed as violence? An example given on the internet is ‘Is the Road Runner dropping a boulder on top of Wile E Coyote counted as violence? Is news footage of an IRA bomb exploding violence? Is it the same kind of violence if that same footage is included in, say, a rock video? Are contact sports such as soccer violence? (Anon, 2003, [online])

This is an issue yet to be completely resolved in the scientific world, as the definition can encompass so much.

Most of this empirical research has been conducted in America, due to the raised priority of the subject. Not as many copycat killings have happened in the UK and less money in this country is devoted to such research.

This research was also mainly conducted in the 1960s, not long after the introduction of television. According to Anderson et al, ‘Historically, each new medium of mass communication has, within a few years of its introduction, been condemned as a threat to the young people who use it most.’ (Anderson et al, 2001)

Already, the Internet is taking heavy criticism for allowing an unregulated source of ideologically bad information such as pornography, paedophilia and the like.

Whilst there are criticisms of studies relating TV violence and real violence, there is undoubtedly a connection – it is just difficult to prove. Television programmes and films, especially in America, are saturated with acts of violence that are seen to be unpunished – a key factor in research findings.

Given that the average time per week that the American child aged 2-17 spends watching television is 19 hours, 40 minutes and the percentage of television-time children ages 2-7 spend watching alone and unsupervised is 81%, (Anon, 2003, National Centre for Children Exposed to Violence [online]) the children are bound to gain some kind of gratification from the television.

By the age of 18, the average American child will have seen about 200,000 acts of violence on television alone. (Anon, 2003 American Academy of Paediatrics website [online])

There is a theory that suggests that seeing these 200 000 acts of violence act as a ‘cathartic agent’ (Berger, 1995, pg 77) and use this act of watching violence as a tool to rid themselves of violent thoughts in their own lives. This theory is often discarded however, because there is so much evidence to the contrary.

Gerbner believes that the more violent acts are watched, the more the viewer becomes anxious and wary of violent events in real life. The ‘Mean World’ syndrome states that these people gradually become outsiders in society. This theory comes on the back of Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory which suggests that the more a person is subjected to a message, the more they will start to believe it. Therefore, if people are saturated with images of violence perpetrated on others, with no punishment, they will become desensitised to this violence and have few worries about doing the same.

Gerbner’s methods are mostly quantitative and show no link between cause and effect. Content Analysis – counting violent events in a text does not go the step further and evaluate how these events affect the audience.

He also does not evaluate the aesthetics of the text, such as lighting, camerawork and sound which accompany the images – these have a large effect on the message being given out.

In conclusion, the area of media and links with violence is a broad and complex issue. Many problems are encountered when trying to prove the theories – it is extremely difficult to demonstrate that watching violent acts causes violence. Cases like that of Nathan Martinez suggest such theories have a grounding, but with science, there can be no doubt, and much research needs to be undertaken before we can ascertain what takes place in the minds of the audience.

Why would certain countries in the EU ban advertisers from putting slots around children’s programming? It is certain that the media has effects on people. Just exactly what they are and how effective they are remains to be seen.

CHRIS KING

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Anderson, D et al (2001) ‘Early television viewing and adolescent behaviour – monographs of the society for research in child development’ – Vol 66, no 1

Blackwell / Oxford

Berger, A (1995) ‘Essentials of mass communication theory’ - Sage / London

Gross, R et al (2000) ‘Psychology, a new introduction’ - Hodder and Stoughton / London

Macdonald, M (2003) ‘ Exploring media discourse’ – Hodder and Stoughton / London

INTERNET SITES

Anon (2003) – Mass Media: sex and violence [online] – available from http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html