There main findings where:
- Films which where at the time the focus of a moral panic had been watched by very few in either group
- Offenders lives are full of chaos and deprivation and the media are of less significance for them than their non offending peers
- they conclude that considerable doubt must be cast upon the claims of some direct causal connection between television and anti-social behavior.
Through my research I want to disprove this research by proving there is a link between media violence and violent behavior.
My first concept is desensitization. Desensitization is a psychological process by which an emotional response is repeatedly evoked in situations in which the action tendency that arises out of the emotion proves irrelevant. This is a main concept in my research as the basis of my research is to prove that exposure to media violence, particularly that which entails bitter
hostilities or graphic displays of injuries, initially induces an intense emotional reaction in viewers. Over time and with exposure the viewers exhibit decreasing emotional responses to the depiction of violence and injury. Therefore they can potentially commit acts of violence more easily.
My second concept is media effects. This is the study of whether exposure to media content pays any role for several dependant variables: attitude, behavior, salience, knowledge etc. for example the media effected peoples voting behavior by influencing their opinions. Through my research I want to prove that violent media content can affect an individuals behavior which is what the media effects theories assume.
Word count : 416
Methodology
After careful consideration of numerous methods, I have decided to use closed questionnaires.
A closed questionnaire consists of written questions that limit the participant to a fixed set of responses.
I have chosen this method because: -
- Closed questionnaires will let me get a wide range of participants and do a large survey, so that I can generalize my findings.
- By using closed questionnaires I can restrict the participant’s answers so that each individual can only give the same responses therefore I can use my data to generalize and give more reliable results.
- Closed questionnaires are also the most practical of the 3 methods, as they are very economical and don’t cost too much to conduct. This is very important as I am a student and therefore anyway I can minimize cost without jepodising the quality of my research is extremely useful.
- Closed questionnaires are also less biased and more objective as they let me gather quantitative data therefore I can be more scientific. This is important, as I am a positivist sociologist.
The actual questionnaire will be split into 2 sections. The first section will be devised to find out what genre of film the participant watches the most. This way I can check if the participant watches violent movies i.e. action films, gory horror films etc a lot. The second section will require the participant to rate how violent a series of 25 movies are from a pre-determined list by ticking a box under various headings. I will then compare the results of 200 people that watch violent films to the results of 200 people who don’t. This will allow me to see if there are any differences in the way the two groups rate the films. I think, the evidence will potentially show that people who do watch a lot of violent films will rate the films in the list lower than the people who don’t watch violent films as the first group of people would have become desensitized to the violence.
For my research I am going to use stratified sampling, as it is the only way I can get access to the people I want to study. So that I can generalize I will split the country up into North, South, East, and west and take 100 questionnaires to each part (50 for each group). I will then take 5 questionnaires to 10 different cinemas throughout the area and hand out the questionnaires to people coming out of a violent film that fit into my target group (I will do the same for a non-violent film as well). I should be able to get my target audience, as 16-20 year olds are the age range that attends the cinemas most frequently. I will be able to do this, as I will have friends that will help me carry this out.
When I have collected all of my data I will put it into graphs that I can then use to make generalizations for areas of Britain. This will be useful, as it will show if one area is more affected than others are and it will show if there is a national problem. I have chosen to record my results this way, as I am a positivist sociologist and prefer to analyze statistical and quantitative data than qualitative data.
Word count: 559
Problems
My first problem is time, as I am going to have to travel to these areas and wait for people to come out of the cinemas. As I am a student this could be a problem, as I don’t have a lot of time.
My research is also a macro project so I will not be looking at things in detail, as I want a wider picture so that I can generalize my results, therefore interprevisits will contradict my study by saying that is focuses too much on wider aspects and not on the individual.
I have also chosen to be as reliable as possible and because of this validity is compromised because of the lack of detail and interpretation.
A big problem I am going to face is defining violence and how it is caused. This is because it is extremely difficult to isolate one factor from society and try and study it. My concept of media effects suggested a number of different variables could be influencing the victim so I cannot just isolate one factor. It could therefore be argued that my data might not prove desensitization, as everyone’s answers will always depend on how they see violence, how it affects them and whether they have a high or low threshold for it.
Also the respondents will be limited to answering by choosing one of the classified categories already determined by myself. I will also have to make judgements on what films are violent when I am constructing the list of films for section 2 of the questionnaire. This is a problem as everyone might not think a film I have selected is particularly violent or be able to answer within the set categories.
Word count: 286
Total word count: 1370