The research was carried out in two stages. Firstly there was a “preparatory stage for the development of relevant hypotheses” (Belson, 1978: 5) then an investigation was produced from the results of stage one to study the boys. The research was not controlled; the boys were left in their own environment to develop naturally. There were three stages of data collection from each boy. Firstly an interview with the boy and his mother. Next there was a “phase of at-home information provision by the boy and his parents on a self completion basis (requiring a lot of time by the boy and some by his parents)” (Belson, 1978: 12). The last phase was an extensive interview of three and a half hours with the boy at the Survey Research Centre. This involved the “administration of various eliciting and measuring procedures under conditions of complete privacy” (Belson, 1978: 12). The questions asked were open questions, rather than simple yes and no answers giving a wider perception of the boy’s thoughts and a better accuracy to the results.
From his widespread research Belson found out many things about. He asked each of the boys to rate violent acts from one to ten to distinguish their thoughts on violence. He also compared their backgrounds and produced a table. By doing so he shows how many boys of a certain category have acted violently and at what regularity, showing correlations between groups. For example ‘coloured’ boys were more involved with committing violence than white boys. Also grammar school boys committed the least amount of violent acts - confirming certain stereotypical views. The media’s portrayal of black people is as being ‘deviants’ therefore this is how most people view them. Also the view of grammar school boys is an educated and upper class person who does not consort with violence as they know better. As they all did not conform to their stereotypical role it showed that violence is widespread throughout the society. He found from his research that the lower levels of violence which were commited could be related to violence on TV, however the serious kind was irregular with the notion of TV causing violence. Proving hypothesis b. Belson argues that it must be in the child’s disposition for them to be violent. The boys would have to be exposed to a very high content of violence on television before their acts of violence would become very bad, e.g. killing someone. This disproves hypothesis a.
Belson found that although children committed violent acts, they were not classed as violent to the person who committed it. This proves the hypotheses of desensitisation to certain acts of violence because of there constant exposure to it. E.g. if they were to see someone being punched in the face in every programme they watched in time they would become desensitised and would not be bothered by it. This applies to more harsh violent acts too, meaning that the children would be more likely to commit these acts after long exposure because they become unbothered by it. Belson also points out that the children who watched violence had a higher threshold for violence toward them and violence witnessed outside compared to those who viewed less violence.
Belson suggests that although the boys do partake in certain violent acts, it is mainly down to imitation. Not serious violent acts where the boy has deliberately set out to hurt someone. But rather by playing. Children find violent characters on television fun to imitate as the idea’s featured on television are more exciting and enthralling than their own imagination. Examples given were comic books such as Beano and Dandy, nowadays it would be programmes such as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and WWF wrestlers.
The violence which the boys take part in is more of the spontaneous kind. Rather than planned, showing that they are not directly influenced by the television. They are able to leave the television programme and shake off the programme easily. This argues that it is not the TVs fault. Another point I feel is necessary to bring up is the fact that in the days before television children still fought and got into mischief. This implies that the television is not a direct factor of violent children. It may contribute to the imitation of violence but not the committing of conscious deliberate violence.
Although these studies were carried out in London, Belson points out that these studies could also apply to other big cities in Britain. I feel that to balance out his study he could have interviewed children from a rural area also. In another piece of research completed in Israel. 112 schoolchildren from Tel Aviv were tested along with. It was discovered that the children from the urban area watched far more television than the rural children. The researchers found however that both groups were equally likely to choose a violent program when watching television. However the city kids had a higher propensity to regard violent television as an accurate comparison to real life than the farm children. Equally, the city boys related more to the characters within violent programs than the farm children. "Aggressive behavior was more acceptable in the city, where a child's popularity rating with classmates was not hampered by his or her aggression" (Huesmann. 1985:166). This although not relevant to our country shows us that the context of the child plays a big part in their behaviour.
From his research Belson found out that although violence in television increased the scale of how violent the boys were, it made little or no difference to their views and opinions about violence. This is something which is evident today as well as back then. The media are the ones who are flooding us with the stories of people who are violent because of violent programmes, and it is the media who is the cause of this violence. Belson says that “society and the media continue to give verbal opposition to violence…whilst at the same time television bombards its viewers with presentations of violent behaviour as a form of entertainment” (Belson, 1978:522).
In conclusion, this is a very thourough piece of audience research, however I think some of the questions should have been reworded. For example one of the questions was “What sorts of boys watch a lot of violence on television? I want all your ideas about what sorts of boys they are.” (Belson, 1978: 27). This question is phrased in such a way which could make the boy write down what he thinks he should write and not what he wants to write.
The results of this research do not confirm what is thought by the majority about children and violence on television. They show us that serious violence is caused by the nature of the child. However minor acts of violence did have a correlation with the viewing of violence. However this was said to be mostly down to the imitation of characters that the children enjoyed watching. My views were confirmed by this research, as I believe that children have to be that way inclined to want to commit a really serious act of violence. I also feel that children are quite violent anyway and unless taught that punching their peers is wrong they will continue to do so whether exposed to it on television or not. Anything which children do copy from the television is simply imitation which applies to not only violence but also dressing like characters from shows or copying what they say. The fact that they don’t know any better is the most likely reason for them trying out some of the violent acts for example in California, a seven-year-old boy sprinkled ground-up glass into the lamb stew the family was to eat for dinner. When asked why he did it he replied that he wanted to see if the results would be the same in real life as they were on television (Howe 72). It’s the job of the parents to either stop the children from viewing these programmes, or to explain to the child that what they are viewing is a) not real, or b) that they should never do it. Although this is almost thirty years old, it still proves that there are stereotypical roles which were perceived which are still evident today, maybe even more so with the representation of them in films. Belson proves that contrary to many peoples ideas, television does not cause children to be seriously violent, but is a cause of imitation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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