Effects of Media Violence

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Effects of Media Violence

• Wong Renhao
• Graham Choo
• Heng Hailee
• Kenny Yeo
• Roshni Rawla
• Hans Yamin

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It seems to be an inevitable human reaction
to search for a cause for everything, to find
something responsible (be it to be blamed on or
to be used as an excuse) for any
happenings.Throughout the entire history of
humanity, for as long as humans have roamed this
earth, violence has been a part of our daily
activities. It has been prevalent since the days
media had not even existed, and yet today the
mass media is being blamed for promoting
violence. As we walk into an era where humans
have become (and are still becoming) more and
more dependent on the mass media, it seems to
have become a consensus among people that the
mass media indeed carries an inalienable impact
on violence in our society today. In this
paper, we would uncover more about the
relationship between media and violence, and
discover the real truth behind it.
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The Copycat Phenomenon

• Imitation of exact behaviors depicted in the
  media
• The Doomsday Flight (1966)
• Altitude bomb (5000 feet above sea level)
• The Burning Bed (1984)
• An estranged housewife murdering her husband
  while he slept

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The Copycat Phenomenon

• MTVs Jackass
• The fire stunt
• The World Wrestling Federation
• Children have died, imitating wrestling moves on
  each other
• As many as 1/3 of convicted male felonies admit
  to copycatting crimes (Centerwall, 1992)

Lionel Tate
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The Copycat Phenomenon

• Are the murder and mayhem on television really to
  blame for the increased violence in society?

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Statistics

• The presence of violent content on television
• ? in ownership of television sets from 1/10 homes
  having 1 (1950) to 1/10 homes NOT having 1 (1960)
• The average child spends gt3 hrs each day in front
  of the tube (Minow, 1996)
• According to the APA, the typical child will view
  gt8,000 murders and over 100,000 acts of TV
  violence in the course of a lifetime

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Statistics

• BUT these studies have nothing to say about how
  the violence may be affecting people
• Content ? effect
• Humans react differently to media messages

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Research Studies

• The causal link between viewing violence and
  behaving aggressively

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Research Studies

• Albert Banduras social learning theory
• Emphasized the importance of rewards and
  punishments
• 2 groups of children watched 2 different videos
• Video 1 The leading characters acted
  aggressively and received rewards for his actions
• Video 2 The leading characters acted
  aggressively and received punishment for his
  actions
• The children played in the room and their actions
  were monitored
• 2 findings
• Children who saw aggressive behavior rewarded
  were more likely to imitate the aggression
• The effects emerged most strongly for boys
  (predisposition to behave more aggressively)

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Research Studies

• BUT not every child who saw the aggression being
  rewarded behaved aggressively after the video

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Research Studies

• Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmanns long term
  studies
• Studied over 800 children under the age of 10,
  during the 1960s
• Tendency for children who watched higher levels
  of TV violence to have higher scores on the
  ratings of aggressive behavior

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Research Studies

• BUT there is no way to tell which came first
  the TV viewing or the aggressive behavior?

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Research Studies

• Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmanns long term
  studies
• Longitudinal investigation (2003) that followed
  children into adulthood
• Boys and girls in the upper 20 on TV viewing
  were significantly higher on the measures of
  adult aggression

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Research Studies

• BUT not every child who watched large amounts of
  TV violence ended up getting involved in crimes
• Was childhood viewing a causal factor in the
  later commission of crimes?
• Research potentially links media violence with
  real-life violence

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Research Studies

• Brandon Centerwalls research
• ? in U.S. crime statistics from 3 homicides per
  100,000 people (1945 Just before TV emerged) to
  6 (1974)
• Claimed that TV was the major culprit in the rise
  of homicides

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Research Studies

• Brandon Centerwalls research
• But the homicide rate in South Africa dropped by
  7 from 1945 1974
• As a result of a ban on TV
• When the ban was lifted in 1974, the murder rate
  i ? by 56 by 1983
• If we adopt a conservative estimate, the numbers
  still have to be taken seriously

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Research Studies

• Seymour Feshbachs Catharsis Hypothesis
• Viewing TV violence could be therapeutic for a
  person filled with anger
• Catharsis To cleanse or purge to get rid of
• Media violence was actually a ve thing

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Research Studies

• Seymour Feshbachs Catharsis Hypothesis
• The detention facility for boys experiment
• Nonviolent TV diet vs. violent TV diet for
  several weeks
• The boys who had watched TV violence behaved less
  aggressively
• BUT we should be slow to arrive at definitive
  conclusions from any single study
• Only demonstrated that people will act more
  violently if they cant watch their favorite TV
  programs than if they can watch them

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Research Studies

• Leonard Berkowitz and associates priming
  analysis
• Angry people and media violence make for volatile
  mix
• Offered the explanation of the facilitating /
  priming effect of media violence
• Understood in terms of association
• Process whereby one thing you think about reminds
  you of other thins in your mind that you
  associate with the first thing

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Research Studies

• Leonard Berkowitz and associates priming
  analysis
• 3 findings
• Violence can prime thoughts that are related to
  hostility
• Media violence might prime thoughts that lead one
  to believe that aggressive behavior might be
  warranted in certain situations and might bring
  about certain benefits
• Media violence might prime action tendencies that
  cause people to be more inclined to act violently

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Desensitization
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Desensitization

• making us numb to violence in real life so that
  we dont react to it as we should if we had never
  seen it on the screen

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Evidence

• Anecdotal
• Research

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Anecdotal Evidence

• sequels have more violence than previous movie
• Increased violence to give viewers who have seen
  the previous movie heightened emotional charge
• There is no easy way to go backwards
• Ever-increasing level of violence

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Evidence from Research

• Ronald Drabman and Margaret Thomas
• Children watch violent/non-violent film
• Asked children to watch TV monitor to observe
  children interacting in another room while
  researcher went to adjacent room, to report if
  there was any trouble
• Monitor was actually playing video of children
  fighting
• Children who watched violent video were far less
  likely than other children to actually make an
  attempt to notify the experimenter about the
  fight that they observed on the monitor

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Funny Violence

• From the concept of desensitization
• Viewers experience desensitization particularly
  when the violence is in a comical context
• Effects of funny violence gt Effects of regular
  violence?

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Funny Violence

• Family Guy A Case Study

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Family Guy

• 9 clips from Best of compilation videos, 1
  standalone clip
• Played in ascending order of level of (funny)
  violence

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Trend of Increasing Violence

• Best of Stewie
• 4 violent clips
• Average Level of Violence 3
• Best of Stewie 2
• 8 violent clips
• Average Level of Violence 3
• Best of Stewie 3
• 9 violent clips
• Average Level of Violence 3.78

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Games Violent Games
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Living with violent games

• Plenty of violent games in the market
• Guns, machine guns, bombs and all sorts of
  weapons
• Realistic
• Technology improves, game graphics improves as
  well
• Close to life-like.

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Violence

• Grand Theft Auto
• Counter-Strike
• Evil Dead
• all are rated Mature(M) blood and gore

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Banned

• Because they are too violent
• In 2000, Singapore banned a PC game, Half-Life
• Parents supported the act because they see these
  sort of game as a bad influence. (Marcus Yam,
  2000)

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Columbine Massacre

• Littleton, Colorado, 1999
• Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
• Fans of Doom
• Playing violent games
• Aggressive behavior?

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Professional Opinions

• Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, 2000s
• Author of a book about killing
• The urge to kill is unnatural
• Convinced that violent gaming is the cause
• AVIDS (acquired violence immune deficiency
  syndrome)

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Coincidently

• 50 years ago, Dr. Frederic Wertham, a
  psychiatrist wrote a book on harmful effects of
  comics
• Very much like Grossman
• Perhaps in the 1950s, comics were the most
  popular entertainment
• Thus the only bad influence.

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Researchers Nicola Schutte and colleagues (1988)

• Targets Children 5-7 years old
• Karateka (violent) vs. Jungle Hunt (non-violent)
• Result Kids who played Karateka showed
  aggressive behavior towards other kids. Jungle
  Hunt kids were more gentle at play.

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Researchers Craig Anderson and Catherine Ford

• Targets College students
• Zaxxon (high-aggression) vs. Centipede
  (mild-aggression).
• Result Students were asked to check off words
  that describe their feelings. Zaxxon players felt
  hostile, Centipede players were less hostile.
  Control group least hostile.

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Researchers Karen Dill and Craig Anderson

• Targets College students
• 1st study Students habits of playing video
  games vs. aggressive delinquent. Measurement of
  trait of aggression.
• 2nd study Wolfenstein 3D (violent game) vs.
  Myst (non-violent game) Both games generate the
  same amount of physiological arousal. After that,
  all students play a reaction game which they did
  not know it is part of the study. Winners get to
  blast the losers.
• Result
• 1st study Violent games players have been
  involved in more aggressive delinquents and those
  who played are more aggressive according to the
  trait of aggressive.
• 2nd study Students who played the Wolf 3D tend
  to blast their opponents louder and louder.

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Researcher Ron Tamborini

• Some guys played violent games, observers were
  placed beside them.
• Result Players were more hostile after the game,
  compared to the observers.

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Researcher John Sherry

• Meta-analysis
• Result Significant effect of video game play on
  aggression, however, the effect found was smaller
  than violent TV on aggression.
• Meta-analysis is the combination of the results
  of several studies that address a set of related
  research hypotheses. In short, meta-analysis is
  the studies with small sample sizes analyzing
  the results from a group of studies can allow
  more accurate data analysis.

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(No Transcript)
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IRL (In Real Life)
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2005s Top 10 Most Violent Games

• Resident Evil 4
• Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
• God of War
• NARC
• Killer 7
• The Warriors
• 50 Cent Bulletproof
• Crime Life Gang Wars
• Condemned Criminal Origins
• True Crime New York City
• (Family Media Guide, 2005)

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Grand Theft Auto

• Game-play revolves around gang warfare
• Heavily influenced by gangster films (Scarface,
  Miami Vice, Boyz N the Hood)
• Free-form sandbox play
• Steal
• Rob
• Kill
• Mass destruction

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Case 1

• Shylo Kujawski caught stealing a car
• History of convictions
• Hardcore GTA fan (tattoo on the back)
• Is he really influenced by
• the game?
• Recidivism mental or crime
• issue?
• (Gamespot, 2006)

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Case 2

• William and Joshua Buckner
• Shot at cars with .22 caliber rifle
• They told the police who arrested them that they
  were bored, and decided to mimic their favorite
  videogame, Grand Theft Auto
• Blame Game (Other issues to consider)
• Access to firearms
• Massive sales around the world
• Or perhaps the answer to the perennial problem
  of delinquent teenagers dropping bricks from
  motorway and railway bridges is to sue the
  creators of Tetris.
• (The Register, 2003)

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Case 3

• Devin Moore, 18
• Killed 2 police-men and 1 dispatcher
• Sentenced to death by lethal injection in 2005
• Life is a videogame. Everybodys got to die
  sometime.
• Again, an isolated case in the US
• In the 50s, comic books were blamed for juvenile
  delinquency (scapegoatism)
• Retailers selling games to minors.
• David Walsh, child psychologist, believes that
  teenage brains are wired differently.
• (Fox News, 2005)

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Media Violence- MOVIES

• In a crowded marketplace, where everyone is
  trying to be heard and where there's an amazing
  number of choices, the loudest, coarsest, most
  shocking voice does tend to be the one that at
  least grabs your attention for a
  moment.(Seabrook, J.,2001)

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Top 10 Most Violent Movies

• 1) Taxi Driver
• 2) Blood Simple
• 3) Natural Born Killers
• 4) A Clockwork Orange
• 5) Blood In Blood Out
• 6) True Romance
• 7) Fight Club
• 8) Gang Related
• 9) The Shield
• 10) Hannibal

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Did You Know?

• When Hollywood Movies Producers make a sequel
  to a violent movie, they pack it up with more
  violence than they did the original film.

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Interesting Facts

• RoboCop featured 32
• bodies
• RoboCop 2 featured 81!
• Similarly,
• Die Hard 2 264 deaths
• Rambo 3 106 deaths
• Total Recall 74 deaths!

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Action Sells

• Action Movies
• Dont require complex plots or characters
• Rely on fights, killings, special effects and
  explosions to hold their audiences
• Theyre simple and universally understood
• Short-on-dialogue, high-on-testosterone" makes
  their dubbing or translation relatively
  inexpensive

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Desensitization to Movie Violence

• The level of violence in popular media is both
  hard to miss and easy to ignore. Studies have
  shown excessive exposure can result in
• - Violence desensitization and lower levels of
  empathy toward others
• - Increased levels of fear due to perceiving the
  world as violent
• - Acceptance of violence as a way of settling
  conflict
• - Higher tolerance and threshold of violence
  leading to a desire to experience more violence
  in both movies and real life.

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Effects of Violence in Movies

• Some violent movies may result in
• Increased Aggression
• Increased Crime
• Influence and Effect
• Cognition
• Create Hostile Feelings

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Movie Ratings

• G- General Audiences
• PG- Parental Guidance
• R- Restricted
• A movie is strongly
• violent if it has a rating
• of 8 or above (Hannibal),
• and mildly violent if it has
• a rating of 5 to 7 (Spider-Man).

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WARNINGS

• VIOLENT KILLING SCENES IN THIS MOVIE?MAY DIRECTLY
  OR INDIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE TO?THE INSIDENCE OF
  VIOLENCE.?
• VIEWER DISRETION IS ADVISED.

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VIDEO URL

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vNL0SILzGs4g

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Music

• Music is another form of media people like to
  point finger on, with regard to the effects of
  media violence
• Previously, the accusation mainly points mostly
  to underground extreme music, e.g. Hardcore,
  Punk, Metal
• However, researchers and scientists were not able
  to find any solid evidence on this. (Columbine
  incident, remember?)
• As of recently, we can also see Hip-hop (i.e.
  Gangsta Rap) becoming the new scapegoat

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Music

• It seems that the blame on Music is no longer
  just on the audio itself, but rather, music
  videos
• A lot of researchers look into music videos and
  what kind of impacts it brings about on youths
  today, e.g. the relationship between sexually
  violent rock music videos and males acceptance
  of violence against women JS Lawrence, DJ
  Joyner. 1991
• However, instead of proving the effect of music,
  such studies actually adds on to the fact that
  music itself do not really carry any harmful
  effects towards listeners, and that
  visual-oriented media are the ones really
  affecting people as far as violent behaviors are
  concerned

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Conclusion

• We have looked into the possible impacts of
  violent contents in different forms of media on
  people, be it TV, Music, Movies, Games, etc.
• Each affects people differently in different
  degrees, and different individuals react to it
  differently as well
• It seems that it may really affect people in
  certain ways, but cases discussed are still
  pretty much the minority, or idiosyncratic
• Is media really that big an influence where
  violence is concerned?
• people tend to point fingers on media alone when
  something happens, undermining the impact of long
  years of education we have had, as well as
  natural instinct and instilled integrity/morality
  that people may possess
• There has got to be a better way in explaining
  violent behaviors in people, perhaps it is time
  to look away from the media and re-assess the
  whole thing with a fresh point of view