Abstract
This research proposal is mainly about the perception of university students towards media violence on youth. There are many articles, journals, forums, etc discussing about the statement which leads to further research on this topic. The topic is a hot issue among societies which is undeniable since the percentage of criminal cases involving youths are growing exponentially every year. One of the problem statements is about social learning theory where the youth nowadays tend to develop characteristics by imitating the behaviors and effects of media. The quantitative method had been chosen to this research, since the research is all about university student’s perception, it is more beneficial to conduct a questionnaire surveying in order to get more information from their point of view.
1.0) Introduction
Mass media is any medium used to transmit mass communication, and it was also comprised of eight mass media sources, which includes books, newspapers, magazines, recordings, radio, movies, television, and internet. It is a fact that mass media has grown leaps and bounds, and the importance of it had grown significantly. Thus, the influences in today’s society are an undeniable fact. One of the main influences of mass media would be media violence.
Media violence is the visual portrays of acts on aggression, and the action could be portrayed by anyone or anything, from human beings to animals. In many cases, the highly influenced group would mainly be youths. Such aggression behaviors include damages to properties, verbal abuse, emotional or physical abuse. In an important study carried out in Canada, children were found to have become significantly more aggressive two years after television was introduced to their town for the first time (Kimball and Zabrack, 1986).
Children who prefer violent television shows when they are young have been found to be more aggressive later on, and this may be associated with trouble with the law in adulthood (Huesmann, 1986). The increase of violence among youths would reflect the growing numbers in violence among adults as well. This would lead to a crisis in society where violence would roam freely.
1.1) Theoretical framework
“Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” (Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory, 1977)
The social learning theory is considering the most influential theory of learning and development was proposed by Albert Bandura. In many of the basic concepts of traditional learning theory, Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning concepts such as observational learning, imitation, and identification.
Theory are follows, people learn by observing the behaviour of others and outcomes of it. Imitation is another direct mechanical reproductive of behaviour and learning can occur without a change in behaviour. Behaviourists say that learning has to be represented by a permanent change in behaviour. Social learning theorists say that because people can learn through observation alone, not necessarily to be shown in their performance. People can learn new information and behaviors by watching other people. Known as observational learning (or modeling), this type of learning can be used to explain a wide variety of behaviors. The observational learning and modeling process involved are attention, retention, reproduction, motivation.
1.2) Problem Statement
The problem statement for this title is what the university students’ perception towards media violence is. Media will effect youth in the development of individual characteristics. The reason for the research on this topic is due to the fact that youth nowadays tend to develop characteristics by imitating the behaviors and effects of media. In many cases, youths tend to develop violence behavior through media, and violence among youths is growing exponentially.
It is an undeniable fact that entertainment and leisure media plays an important next generations. Take the television for example; it had grown from a black and white small image set to full high definition wide screen. Today, it is a constant company to most of the youths. Its influential properties are indeed undeniable, and the effect of media violence on youths is consistent. With parents working most of the time, while youths are left alone depending on media as the sole source of entertainment, youths tend to believe that all the behaviors and results are real and logical.
Youths are generally visual learners. Visual learners think in pictures rather than in words. At this stage, they learn better visually, and usually would see the big picture first before learning the minor details. Most media nowadays depends a lot on visual effects; this includes media violence as well. The false admiration of heroes or heroines will cause youths to imitate the actions and behaviors from the entertainment source, and apply it in the real world. Youth will quickly draw a simple conclusion that aggression could solve problems directly and generate rewards easily.
1.3) Research Objectives
The research scope is only on the students’ perceptions towards the media violence on youth. The research objective is to analyze media violence on youth in contributing negative impact to the society. This research also included about how students’ perception about the seriousness of the media violence affecting the younger generation compare to the older generation in this century.
1.4) Research Questions
- What are the students’ perceptions towards the media violence?
- Does the media violence affect their life?
2.0) Literature Review
It is an undeniable fact that violence among children is growing rapidly in our society today. It happen almost every parts of the world but the question still remains a mystery. How do children develop to be so violent? Is violence genetically programmed in them even before they are born? It is possible to ever change their attitude again?
In many cases, researchers found that nowadays, the entertainment media plays a powerful role in the formation of values and morals in children. “For a variety of reasons, it is now time for a new assessment of what is known scienti?cally about how media violence affects young people and what can be done to mitigate these adverse effects.” (C. A. Anderson et al, 2003)
In the pass few years, there has been an onset of school shootings, and many teenagers had been sacrificed. One of the examples is the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999, which killed 13 people and wounded 23 others. The incident was committed by two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, which involved imitation of characters of video games. They both committed suicide after the tragedy.
Cho Seung-Hui has been identified as the gunman responsible for the two Virginia Tech attacks that claimed 33 lives to become the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history in April 16, 2007. Cho’s inability to handle stress and the “frightening prospect” of being “turned out into the world of work, finances, responsibilities, and a family,” Cho chose to engage in a fantasy where “he would be remembered as the savior of the oppressed, the downtrodden, the poor, and the rejected.” The panel went further, stating that, “His thought processes were so distorted that he began arguing to himself that his evil plan was actually doing good. His destructive fantasy was now becoming an obsession. (The Virginia Tech review panel, 2007).
In many situations, it seems that minority groups are usually targeted. The teenagers who kill seem to feel that they are being shunned and made fun of by their fellow classmates. The feeling would soon developed into hatred and revenge, thus sparkle off any undesirable incidents. Some of these tragedies have led to the killers killing themselves at the end in search of peace of mind. “Violence (homicide, suicide, and trauma) is a leading cause of death for children, adolescents and young adults, more prevalent than disease, cancer or congenital disorders” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001).
Most video games nowadays would consist of violence or sexually elements and characteristics on the games to increase sales and popularity. Most of the youths seem to be indulged in the video gaming world until they apply the gaming world into the real life situation. “Violent video games can cause people to have more aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and decrease empathetic, helpful behaviors with peers” (Anderson, 2004; Gentile, 2003).
Watching television is also one of the main factors contributing to the media violence on youth. “By the time a child is eighteen years old, he or she will witness on television (with average viewing time) 200,000 acts of violence including 40,000 murders” (Huston, et al, 1992).
In?uences that promote aggressive behavior in young children can contribute to increasingly aggressive and ultimately violent behavior many years later. It is therefore important to identify factors�including media violence�that, singly and together, may play a role in these outcomes in childhood. (Huesmann & Moise, 1998; Tremblay, 2000).
According to Donnerstein and Berkowitz’s (1981) study demonstrated that combining violent portrayals with sexual stimulation is particularly potent at stimulating male viewers to be more physically assaultive toward females who have provoked them. In this experiment, male university students watched either a movie portraying sex and violence, a nonviolent sex ?lm, or a movie that was neither sexual nor violent and were then given an opportunity to retaliate against a woman, who had angered them earlier, by giving her electric shocks. The men who had viewed the violent sex ?lm punished the woman more intensely than did their counterparts who had watched either the neutral ?lm or the nonviolent sex movie. Again, the effect size was quite large.
3.0) Methodology
For this particular research, it is better to select quantitative method. The reason is that since the research is all about university student’s perception, it is more beneficial to conduct a questionnaire surveying in order to get more information from their point of view. The qualitative method is not suitable to use in this research because interviewing, focus group or other method in qualitative is only targeting limited people which is not enough to collect the data.
The survey consists of 50 selected students, in age group of 18 to 23 years old in selected universities in Klang Valley, with different races, background and gender. The reason of choosing Klang Valley to conduct the survey because Klang Valley consists of prestigious universities such as University Malaya (UM) and Unversity Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR). University students’ consists of different races, background and gender and by this accurate data can be collect in this research.
In the research, the one who is experiencing the differences is the youths, or mostly considered as students. This is a method where numbers, figures, graphs, etc are important. While there are multiple possible opinions to the research, it is important to narrow down the choices of the answers to a just only a few main selections. So, by carefully setting the questions and grouping the common answers together in the survey, the end result could be narrowed down to only few main key choices. Like all researches, it is crucial to acquire their pass experience and opinion, thus by supplying a survey with important questions and answers, all the opinions and comments could be gathered in one large sum, thus generating an easier but still maintaining a reasonably high accuracy statistic for the research. To maintain the quality of the responses, the survey had divided into two groups, which is 10 questions for correspondent demographic, and 10 open and close ended questions.
In the case of qualitative method, which requires interviews, observation, case studies, and it is mostly subjective to one’s experience. No doubt in many cases, this method may generate extreme accuracy on student’s individual opinion, but if the method were to be used in this research, plenty of interviews would had to be made, and while the answers are only dependable on the students, there would be plenty of different opinions. The end result would be diverged to different areas with different opinions, the final conclusion would be uncertain.
Bibliography
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Appendix
Articles/News
TELEVISION
Television violence affects youngsters of all ages. Today, children and teenagers are subjected to vast amounts of violence on television and in the movies. Because young children cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, they are easily influenced by what they see in the media. “Children are visual learners and they model both positive and negative behaviors they see (Beckman).”
Facts about television viewing and children (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry)(“Children and Violence”)
The effects of television violence on young children
The impact of television violence may be immediately evident in the child’s behavior or may surface years later. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, when children see super heros beating villains with violence, they learn that fighting is the preferred method to resolve the conflict (“Media violence and young children”).
The American Psychological Association estimates that the average American child or teenager views 10,000 murders, rapes and aggravated assaults per year on television. Over 1,000 studies and reviews have found that exposure to heavy doses of television violence increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior. Hundreds of studies on the effects of television violence on children and teenagers have found that children may:
Violence used to resolve a conflict is evident in the movie “Home Alone”. Kevin, the main character, performs numerous acts of violence to defend his home and scare away the intruders. These acts of violence appear to be very real and could potentially hurt someone. The movie however, does not display the harmful effects violence can have on a person. Instead, violence seems to be portrayed as something humorous and children have a reason to laugh at an individual who inflicts deadly force onto another person.
MTV’s “Beavis and Butthead” is another example of a program that contains excessive amounts of violence. The program encourages fire, smoking, foul language, drinking, and stealing. Although the message is clear to an adult, that a person will be labeled as a “butthead” if he/she performs these acts, it is not so clear to children. As stated earlier, children are visual learners and because the characters in the program believe that violence is cool way to solve their problems, the children are inclined to perform these acts.
As a result of watching too much violence on the screen, children have been known to use physical or verbal abuse toward others on the playground or at school. Children may also become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Viewing violence encourages children to see other people as enemies rather than as individuals with thoughts and feelings like themselves. Children who cannot put themselves in others’ shoes may become less desirable playmates (Beckman).
answer to whether violence in video games directly affects a child’s behavior because there are no proven facts that support these claims. However, there are patterns that suggest more interaction with violence will lead to violent actions.
The government has taken action to reduce the amount of violence in video games by urging game makers to reduce the content of violence in their games and passing laws that restrict the purchase of extreme violent graphic games by younger kids.
SOLUTIONS
It’s a fact that violence is everywhere these days. It’s on the streets, in homes, in video games, and in the movies. It is up to adults to set an example for children and to protect them from any form of violence. When children are young, parents can take steps to reduce or minimize the amount of violence their children are exposed to. Parents can build a strong, loving, relationship with their child. Because of this type of relationship, children will feel safe and secure. It’ll also help them develop a sense of trust. Children often learn by example. Adults can show children appropriate behaviors by the way they act. Be firm with children about using violent behavior. Praise children when they display good behavior. Children tend to repeat good behaviors when they are rewarded with attention and praise. According to an article on the Internet, you can teach your children nonaggressive ways to solve problems by (“Raising Children to Resist Violence: What You Can Do”):
Sometimes, it’s hard for parents to know exactly what is wrong with their children. On the same website, they suggested that parents should discuss their concerns with a professional if their children exhibit the signs listed on the following two pages (“Raising Children to Resist Violence: What You Can Do”). The professionals will help parents understand their children in order to prevent violent behavior.
Warning Signs in Toddlers and Preschool Children:
Warning Signs in School-Aged Children:
Warning Signs in Preteens or Teenaged Adolescent:
Violence in the media is not the only source for aggressive or violent behavior, but it is a significant contributor. As a parent, you can protect your children from excessive violence in the media by:
There is a new technology that can help parents censor shows on television. “The v-
chip, technology that allows parents to block objectionable programs, is now available in at least half of all new television sets. V-chip work with an electronically coded rating system that already is in place to identify programs that contain sex, violence or crude language. A 1996 telecommunications law required all new TV sets 13 inches and larger to come with the technology by 2000.” (Morris)
CONCLUSION
By monitoring children’s exposure to violence from entertainment, parents can prevent the onset of violent behavior resulting from this exposure. The government and the entertainment industry can also work together to do the following:
Research on the Effects of Media Violence
Whether or not exposure to media violence causes increased levels of aggression and violence in young people is the perennial question of media effects research. Some experts, like University of Michigan professor L. Rowell Huesmann, argue that fifty years of evidence show “that exposure to media violence causes children to behave more aggressively and affects them as adults years later.” Others, like Jonathan Freedman of the University of Toronto, maintain that “the scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people, or desensitizes them to it.”
Many Studies, Many Conclusions
Andrea Martinez at the University of Ottawa conducted a comprehensive review of the scientific literature for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1994. She concluded that the lack of consensus about media effects reflects three “grey areas” or constraints contained in the research itself.
First, media violence is notoriously hard to define and measure. Some experts who track violence in television programming, such as George Gerbner of Temple University, define violence as the act (or threat) of injuring or killing someone, independent of the method used or the surrounding context. Accordingly, Gerber includes cartoon violence in his data-set. But others, such as University of Laval professors Guy Paquette and Jacques de Guise, specifically exclude cartoon violence from their research because of its comical and unrealistic presentation.
Second, researchers disagree over the type of relationship the data supports. Some argue that exposure to media violence causes aggression. Others say that the two are associated, but that there is no causal connection. (That both, for instance, may be caused by some third factor.) And others say the data supports the conclusion that there is no relationship between the two at all.
Third, even those who agree that there is a connection between media violence and aggression disagree about how the one effects the other. Some say that the mechanism is a psychological one, rooted in the ways we learn. For example, Huesmann argues that children develop “cognitive scripts” that guide their own behaviour by imitating the actions of media heroes. As they watch violent shows, children learn to internalize scripts that use violence as an appropriate method of problem-solving.
Other researchers argue that it is the physiological effects of media violence that cause aggressive behaviour. Exposure to violent imagery is linked to increased heart rate, faster respiration and higher blood pressure. Some think that this simulated “fight-or-flight” response predisposes people to act aggressively in the real world.
Still others focus on the ways in which media violence primes or cues pre-existing aggressive thoughts and feelings. They argue that an individual’s desire to strike out is justified by media images in which both the hero and the villain use violence to seek revenge, often without consequences.
In her final report to the CRTC, Martinez concluded that most studies support “a positive, though weak, relation between exposure to television violence and aggressive behaviour.” Although that relationship cannot be “confirmed systematically,” she agrees with Dutch researcher Tom Van der Voot who argues that it would be illogical to conclude that “a phenomenon does not exist simply because it is found at times not to occur, or only to occur under certain circumstances.”
What the Researchers Are Saying
The lack of consensus about the relationship between media violence and real-world aggression has not impeded ongoing research. Here’s a sampling of conclusions drawn to date, from the various research strands:
Research strand: Children who consume high levels ofmedia violence are more likely to be aggressive in the real world
In 1956, researchers took to the laboratory to compare the behaviour of 24 children watching TV. Half watched a violent episode of the cartoon Woody Woodpecker, and the other 12 watched the non-violent cartoon The Little Red Hen. During play afterwards, the researchers observed that the children who watched the violent cartoon were much more likely to hit other children and break toys.
Six years later, in 1963, professors A. Badura, D. Ross and S.A. Ross studied the effect of exposure to real-world violence, television violence, and cartoon violence. They divided 100 preschool children into four groups. The first group watched a real person shout insults at an inflatable doll while hitting it with a mallet. The second group watched the incident on television. The third watched a cartoon version of the same scene, and the fourth watched nothing.
When all the children were later exposed to a frustrating situation, the first three groups responded with more aggression than the control group. The children who watched the incident on television were just as aggressive as those who had watched the real person use the mallet; and both were more aggressive than those who had only watched the cartoon.
Over the years, laboratory experiments such as these have consistently shown that exposure to violence is associated with increased heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration rate, and a greater willingness to administer electric shocks to inflict pain or punishment on others. However, this line of enquiry has been criticized because of its focus on short term results and the artificial nature of the viewing environment.
Other scientists have sought to establish a connection between media violence and aggression outside the laboratory. For example, a number of surveys indicate that children and young people who report a preference for violent entertainment also score higher on aggression indexes than those who watch less violent shows. L. Rowell Huesmann reviewed studies conducted in Australia, Finland, Poland, Israel, Netherlands and the United States. He reports, “the child most likely to be aggressive would be the one who (a) watches violent television programs most of the time, (b) believes that these shows portray life just as it is, [and] (c) identifies strongly with the aggressive characters in the shows.”
A study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2003 found that nearly half (47 per cent) of parents with children between the ages of 4 and 6 report that their children have imitated aggressive behaviours from TV. However, it is interesting to note that children are more likely to mimic positive behaviours � 87 per cent of kids do so.
Recent research is exploring the effect of new media on children’s behaviour. Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman of Iowa State University reviewed dozens of studies of video gamers. In 2001, they reported that children and young people who play violent video games, even for short periods, are more likely to behave aggressively in the real world; and that both aggressive and non-aggressive children are negatively affected by playing.
In 2003, Craig Anderson and Iowa State University colleague Nicholas Carnagey and Janie Eubanks of the Texas Department of Human Services reported that violent music lyrics increased aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings among 500 college students. They concluded, “There are now good theoretical and empirical reasons to expect effects of music lyrics on aggressive behavior to be similar to the well-studied effects of exposure to TV and movie violence and the more recent research efforts on violent video games.”
Research Strand: Children who watch high levels of media violence are at increased risk of aggressive behaviour as adults
In 1960, University of Michigan Professor Leonard Eron studied 856 grade three students living in a semi-rural community in Columbia County, New York, and found that the children who watched violent television at home behaved more aggressively in school. Eron wanted to track the effect of this exposure over the years, so he revisited Columbia County in 1971, when the children who participated in the 1960 study were 19 years of age. He found that boys who watched violent TV when they were eight were more likely to get in trouble with the law as teenagers.
When Eron and Huesmann returned to Columbia County in 1982, the subjects were 30 years old. They reported that those participants who had watched more violent TV as eight-year-olds were more likely, as adults, to be convicted of serious crimes, to use violence to discipline their children, and to treat their spouses aggressively.
Professor Monroe Lefkowitz published similar findings in 1971. Lefkowitz interviewed a group of eight-year-olds and found that the boys who watched more violent TV were more likely to act aggressively in the real world. When he interviewed the same boys ten years later, he found that the more violence a boy watched at eight, the more aggressively he would act at age eighteen.
Columbia University professor Jeffrey Johnson has found that the effect is not limited to violent shows. Johnson tracked 707 families in upstate New York for 17 years, starting in 1975. In 2002, Johnson reported that children who watched one to three hours of television each day when they were 14 to 16 years old were 60 per cent more likely to be involved in assaults and fights as adults than those who watched less TV.
Kansas State University professor John Murray concludes, “The most plausible interpretation of this pattern of correlations is that early preference for violent television programming and other media is one factor in the production of aggressive and antisocial behavior when the young boy becomes a young man.”
However, this line of research has attracted a great deal of controversy. Pullitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes has attacked Eron’s work, arguing that his conclusions are based on an insignificant amount of data. Rhodes claims that Eron had information about the amount of TV viewed in 1960 for only 3 of the 24 men who committed violent crimes as adults years later. Rhodes concludes that Eron’s work is “poorly conceived, scientifically inadequate, biased and sloppy if not actually fraudulent research.”
Guy Cumberbatch, head of the Communications Research Group, a U.K. social policy think tank, has equally harsh words for Johnson’s study. Cumberbatch claims Johnson’s group of 88 under-one-hour TV watchers is “so small, it’s aberrant.” And, as journalist Ben Shouse points out, other critics say that Johnson’s study “can’t rule out the possibility that television is just a marker for some unmeasured environmental or psychological influence on both aggression and TV habits.”
Research Strand: The introduction of television into a community leads to an increase in violent behaviour
Researchers have also pursued the link between media violence and real life aggression by examining communities before and after the introduction of television. In the mid 1970s, University of British Columbia professor Tannis McBeth Williams studied a remote village in British Columbia both before and after television was introduced. She found that two years after TV arrived, violent incidents had increased by 160 per cent.
Researchers Gary Granzberg and Jack Steinbring studied three Cree communities in northern Manitoba during the 1970s and early 1980s. They found that four years after television was introduced into one of the communities, the incidence of fist fights and black eyes among the children had increased significantly. Interestingly, several days after an episode of Happy Days aired, in which one character joined a gang called the Red Demons, children in the community created rival gangs, called the Red Demons and the Green Demons, and the conflict between the two seriously disrupted the local school.
University of Washington Professor Brandon Centerwall noted that the sharp increase in the murder rate in North America in 1955 occurred eight years after television sets began to enter North American homes. To test his hypothesis that the two were related, he examined the murder rate in South Africa where, prior to 1975, television was banned by the government. He found that twelve years after the ban was lifted, murder rates skyrocketed.
University of Toronto Professor Jonathan Freedman has criticized this line of research. He points out that Japanese television has some of the most violent imagery in the world, and yet Japan has a much lower murder rate than other countries, including Canada and the United States, which have comparatively less violence on TV.
Research Strand: Media violence stimulates fear in some children
A number of studies have reported that watching media violence frightens young children, and that the effects of this may be long lasting.
In 1998, Professors Singer, Slovak, Frierson and York surveyed 2,000 Ohio students in grades three through eight. They report that the incidences of psychological trauma (including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress) increased in proportion to the number of hours of television watched each day.
A 1999 survey of 500 Rhode Island parents led by Brown University professor Judith Owens revealed that the presence of a television in a child’s bedroom makes it more likely that the child will suffer from sleep disturbances. Nine per cent of all the parents surveyed reported that their children have nightmares because of a television show at least once a week.
Tom Van der Voort studied 314 children aged nine through twelve in 1986. He found that although children can easily distinguish cartoons, westerns and spy thrillers from reality, they often confuse realistic programmes with the real world. When they are unable to integrate the violence in these shows because they can’t follow the plot, they are much more likely to become anxious. This is particularly problematic because the children reported that they prefer realistic programmes, which they equate with fun and excitement. And, as Jacques de Guise reported in 2002, the younger the child, the less likely he or she will be able to identify violent content as violence.
In 1999, Professors Joanne Cantor and K. Harrison studied 138 university students, and found that memories of frightening media images continued to disturb a significant number of participants years later. Over 90 per cent reported they continued to experience fright effects from images they viewed as children, ranging from sleep disturbances to steadfast avoidance of certain situations.
Research Strand: Media violence desensitizes people to real violence
A number of studies in the 1970’s showed that people who are repeatedly exposed to media violence tend to be less disturbed when they witness real world violence, and have less sympathy for its victims. For example, Professors V.B. Cline, R.G. Croft, and S. Courrier studied young boys over a two-year period. In 1973, they reported that boys who watch more than 25 hours of television per week are significantly less likely to be aroused by real world violence than those boys who watch 4 hours or less per week.
When researchers Fred Molitor and Ken Hirsch revisited this line of investigation in 1994, their work confirmed that children are more likely to tolerate aggressive behaviour in the real world if they first watch TV shows or films that contain violent content.
Research Strand: People who watch a lot of media violence tend to believe that the world is more dangerous than it is in reality
George Gerbner has conducted the longest running study of television violence. His seminal research suggests that heavy TV viewers tend to perceive the world in ways that are consistent with the images on TV. As viewers’ perceptions of the world come to conform with the depictions they see on TV, they become more passive, more anxious, and more fearful. Gerbner calls this the “Mean World Syndrome.”
Gerbner’s research found that those who watch greater amounts of television are more likely to:
Andr� Gosselin, Jacques de Guise and Guy Paquette decided to test Gerbner’s theory in the Canadian context in 1997. They surveyed 360 university students, and found that heavy television viewers are more likely to believe the world is a more dangerous place.However, they also found heavy viewers are not more likely to actually feel more fearful.
Research Strand: Family attitudes to violent content are more important than the images themselves
A number of studies suggest that media is only one of a number of variables that put children at risk of aggressive behaviour.
For example, a Norwegian study that included 20 at-risk teenaged boys found that the lack of parental rules regulating what the boys watched was a more significant predictor of aggressive behaviour than the amount of media violence they watched. It also indicated that exposure to real world violence, together with exposure to media violence, created an “overload” of violent events. Boys who experienced this overload were more likely to use violent media images to create and consolidate their identities as members of an anti-social and marginalized group.
On the other hand, researchers report that parental attitudes towards media violence can mitigate the impact it has on children. Huesmann and Bacharach conclude, “Family attitudes and social class are stronger determinants of attitudes toward aggression than is the amount of exposure to TV, which is nevertheless a significant but weaker predictor.”
Does TV Teach Children to be Violent?
Since television service was introduced to Canada in 1952, it has become so much a part of our
existence that many people cannot imagine a life without it. Virtually every Canadian household
has a TV set; many have two or three.
We love TV and we watch a lot of it, and yet our pleasure is tainted by a profound unease. What is
television doing to us, anyway? Everyone knows people who can’t seem to turn off the TV, but
there is no agreement on how much TV is “too much.” Nor is there any agreement on what is
“good TV” and what is “bad” or “dangerous.”
People who grew up with TV are usually the most ambivalent about it. They feel guilty about
enjoying vulgar, exploitative,violent shows when they could be watching something more
edifying like Masterpiece Theatre. They recognize the seductive power of the medium.
And yet, many parents who feel uneasy about TV also admit they use TV as a babysitter. What
kind of upbringing are children getting from their electronic nannies?