Violent Video Games And Tv example essay topic

Describe And Evaluate Evidence Of The Influence Of The Media On Aggressive Behaviour There is evidence that promotes the view that anti-social behaviour can be promoted by the media. Some of the effects are short lived and others will vary depending on whether the anti-social behaviour is shown on its own or not. Violent video games and TV are the main sources of media violence. On TV there is very little aggression overall. The Gerber Studies (1970's and 1980s) found that in childrens TV programmes 20 violent acts per hour occurred. Since 1967, the percentage of violent programmes has not increased but the number of violent acts per programme has increased.

Halloran and C roll (1972) found that violence was a common feature on TV programmes but not as prevalent on British as it was on American TV programmes. Cumberbatch (1987) supported this, finding that 30% of programmes had violence in them but only 1% of TV is violent overall. Gunter and Harrison (1995) said that violence only occupies a tiny proportion of TV in few programmes. They found that 1% of terrestrial TV was violent and less that, 2% on satellite TV was violent. Altogether there is not very much violence on TV but what there is seems to be concentrated to a few programmes which if young children are exposed to could be damaging to them mentally especially in later life. The problem with these studies is that what some people perceive as violent others do not.

In younger children a small violent act such as pushing or shoving can be imitated and interpreted as violent. In a longitudinal study by Lefkowitz et al. (1972), a preference for TV violence at 8 years of age was found to be related to aggression at the same age. Older children (17-18 years old) who preferred violence on TV were not more aggressive. If a preference for TV violence was found at 8 years old then this was found to be related to violence at 18 years old, but a preference at 18 for TV violence was not found to be related to early aggression. This shows that exposing younger children to violence on TV in earlier life can have long-term as well as short-term effects on the child.

Australian research has shown that there is no significant correlation between early TV violence viewing and later aggression. In Poland, the researchers agreed that a greater preference for violence at an early age was related to later aggression but the effects were not large and the results should be treated cautiously. A cross-national survey was carried out by Hues mann and Er on (1987) across six countries (Holland, Australia, USA, Israel, Poland and Finland) and they found that viewing television violence at an early age is a predictor of later aggression. Cumberbatch (1997) criticised this study saying that there was actually no evidence to support this.

The problem with longitudinal studies is that there could be many other potential intervening variables especially when studying over a long period. Band ura (1963) showed children aggressive behaviour on a film. It showed adults in a room hitting a bobo doll. The children who saw the film were compared with children who hadnt, the children who watched the film were found to be more aggressive in their play.

This is supported by Liebert and Baran (1972) who found that children watching an aggressive film demonstrated a greater willingness to hurt another child. Both of these laboratory studies show that if children are exposed to aggression in the media, although this was set up intentionally, they can become more aggressive. Both of these studies are laboratory studies and the problem with these is that it is difficult to generalise findings to real life situations. A comparison of two cities was made by Hennig an et al (1982); one city had TV the other didnt. The presence or absence of TV did not affect the crime rate and there was no increase in violent crime when the city without TV got TV. There was an increase in robberies due to people seeing affluence on TV and wanting to possess more.

Williams (1986) supported this finding that aggression in children increased when TV was introduced. Centre wall 91989) compared South Africa, Canada and USA. In USA and Canada the murder rates increased after TV was introduced. In South Africa the number of murders declined but only in white people. Therefore these studies show that if there is no TV in a certain place then the introduction of TV can increase the crime rate in that place. The problem arises in comparing cities, communities or countries because there are too many other factors, which could account for the difference e.g. the cultural differences.

There are two explanations of the effects of violent video games: the social learning theory suggesting that children will imitate what they have seen on the screen; and the catharsis theory that suggests that violent video games channel a childs aggression and stop them from being aggressive in real life. Observational studies (e.g. Irwin and Gross, 1995) have found that playing violent video games increases aggression in children in the short-term at least so supporting the social learning theory view. Griffiths (1998) found that video game violence has more effect on young children, but far less effect on teenagers and no apparent effects on adults. There is, on the other hand, very little research into the long-term effects of violent video games and at the moment, it is entirely speculation of the effects.

The problem with blaming the media for violent behaviour is that it is rather like explaining it backwards beginning with the media and using that to explain why offenders offend. Hagel l and New burn (1996) have found that young offenders watch less TV than their non-offending counterparts and had little interest in particularly violent programmes in the first place. Research suggests that children are victims of the media and are drawn in, the media tricks children into all kinds of ill advised behaviour (Gauntlet t, 1998). Research that is more recent has shown that children are able to talk critically and intelligently about the media (Buckingham, 1996) and that young children from as young as 7 years old are able to make media literate productions themselves. On TV, violence is not often shown along with the negative effects possibly leading children to believe that there arent any. Often in addition, violence goes unpunished showing children that it is alright to commit violent acts, they wont be punished for it.

From this study called the National Violence Media Study only 4% of violent programmes showed and anti violent theme and childrens programmes were the least likely of all to show the long-term negative consequences of violence. Different people interpret violent acts in different ways and they can be portrayed in the media for different reasons. e.g. a man had his house broken into, caught the burglars in his house and he shot them, was this a justified act of violence It was highly publicised because of this. Media violence in studies is restricted to fictional programmes news programmes are exempt. If violence in fictional programmes have such adverse effects on people then why dont they have the same effects on people when they are shown in the news The evidence does show that the media does have an effect on violent behaviour but the difference is very small and as Cumberbatch said, the results should be treated cautiously.

The media does also have pro-social effects as well as anti-social ones, if the catharsis theory is correct then it can relieve aggressive feelings and prevent aggression in real life. The media cannot be completely blamed for aggression; there are other factors to be considered that could influence the person particularly a child. Research portrays children as helpless victims of the medias influence but it has been shown that children can critically talk about the media at age seven. The childs upbringing, background, culture and peers could all influence any possible aggressive behaviour. The media alone cannot be blamed for all aggression, other factors have to be taken into account. 3 af.