Outline and evaluate some of the arguments for the supposed effects of media on behaviour

“For some children, under some conditions, some television is harmful. For some children under the same conditions, or for the same children under other conditions, it may be beneficial. For most children, under most conditions, most television is probably neither particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial.” (Schramm, 1960)
The study of media effects includes the relations between media, politics, and the public, the use of media for public health campaigns or for propaganda or educational uses, among many other issues (Livingstone, 1996). Media scholars have been debating the detrimental consequences of media effects, particularly its impact on children for a considerable period of time now. Livingstone (1996) defines the debate as a question of “Whether it can be shown empirically that specific mass media messages, typically those transmitted by television, have specific, often detrimental effects on the audiences who are exposed to them”. A host of statistic observation studies, longitudinal studies and numerical studies have tried to indicate the impact of exposure to violence on TV and movies.
Children have been conventionally viewed as the primary victims of media effects because they are believed to be the most vulnerable to media exposure. Bushman (2001) believes that children are more susceptible because they are more impressionable, have a hard time distinguishing between real and fantasy and cannot easily discern the motives for violence clearly. For instance with respect to the role of advertising, it has been found that children become aware of some of the formal differences between advertisements and programmes at the age of two or three (Jaglom and Gardner, 1981); but the knowledge that advertisements are designed to persuade them to buy particular products tends not to appear until about the age of seven (ITC, 2002; Young, 1990). However, Hodge and Tripp (1986) believe that children could make what they termed “modality judgments” as young as six years old. For instance, when it came to television viewing, they were well aware that the cartoon was not real Researchers like Bandura (1997), Berkowitz (1993), Eron (1963), Huesmann (1988) etc have done extensive work in this area. What are the most common fears associated with childrens exposure to violent programming. The most common fear is articulated by Huesmann (1986) and Bandura (1977) who believe that children who are exposed to violent television shows when they are young are found to be more aggressive later on. Apart from this they are other harmful effects associated with violent media exposure. Drabman and Thomas, (1974) believe that it may lead children to accept more aggressive behaviour in others. Others (Bryant, Careth and Brown, 1981) believe that it may make children more fearful as they come to believe that violence is as common in the real world as it is on television
However are these fears substantiated? What is the actual impact of media content, especially violent media content on children and young people? One of the most famous experiments conducted to test the impact of violent programmes on children is known as the Bandura Experiment conducted in the 1960’s. This study involved children between the ages of 4-5 years. These children were made to watch three films, differing in their violence intensity. For example, in the first film, the attacker won the fight and was rewarded; in the second, the attacker is beaten by his opponent and is punished; in the third one, the two children play together with no aggression. Afterwards the children were taken to a room with a two way mirror and observed. The results showed that those children who saw the aggressive violent film spontaneously performed twice as much imitative aggression as all other groups. However, when these children were interviewed afterwards, they were found to disapprove of the model’s behavior and yet they were influenced to imitate him because his aggression led to success (reward). From his findings Bandura emphasized the ‘observational learning’ of aggression in children. The findings of this research were supported through the 1975 JAMA publication of Rothenberg’s Special Communication, “Effect of Television Violence on Children and Youth,” which alerted the medical community to the deforming effects the viewing of television violence has on normal child development, increasing levels of physical aggressiveness and violence. Although several later works agreed with these findings, these results were by no means unanimous or decisive as several contradictory researches were also found.
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.” A Famous research study supporting this arguement is that conducted by Hennigan et al. (1982). Hennigan et al. reasoned that if television violence was making its audience more aggressive and violent, then this should be reflected in the crime statistics. Analysis of the crime statistics for both categories of city before and after the introduction of television, showed no impact whatsoever on the incidence on violent crimes. In another study comparison of children with and without television, matched for age, sex, social class, and intelligence in the 1950s, Himmelweit (the researcher) found no evidence that viewing made children more aggressive, but he found that teenage girls became more concerned about marriage when compared to those without television. Many researchers (e.g. Social Research Unit, 1983; Milavsky et al, 1983) contest the argument that exposure to violence/aggression on TV/films causes’ aggression, stating that it is a short term phenomenon.
Another argument which makes this debate more problematic is the claim that ‘More aggressive children are more likely to watch violent television’ (Huesmann and Eron, 1986). Huesmann believes that researchers must ask whether more aggressive children tend to watch violent programs, whether violent programs make viewers aggressive, or whether certain social circumstances both make children/people more aggressive and lead them to watch more violent programs (1986).
In such a complex environment it becomes extremely difficult to draw any straight forward conclusions on the impact of violence on children. In fact the gamut of the ‘study of media effects’ may draw a similar conclusion as sadly most research in this field draws a ‘no effects conclusion’. This is primarily due to the inadequacies of the current research methods. Field experiments tend to draw null results because of inadequate or poor research design. Also it only tends to show the exposure to a single program which can be tested against a control group who are not shown that program. Yet the every day lives of the both experimental and control groups involve years of exposure to a similar television diet (Livingstone, 1996). Likewise laboratory experiments are considered to artificial to be generalized to outside life (Livingstone, 1996). Do we wish to understand the long term impact of violent programs on children or the short term impact? For if we want to evaluate its long term impact then we need to integrate the social and viewing environment of the child to gain a holistic understanding, rather than recording the behaviour of children viewing in an artificial laboratory environment. If we factor the external environment then we have to deal with the fact that innumerable factors play a role in determining the influence of violence on children. For example it has been found that children of lower economic status and lower IQ are known to watch more TV (Comstock & Paik, 1991). Hodge and Tripp (1986: 41) suggest that a child belonging to a higher class will have greater understanding of television codes because children of a higher class will be more strongly socialized than the lower.
Both Schramm and Himmelweit suggested that the effects of television violence vary according to the personal and social characteristics of viewers, and according to how violent acts were portrayed (http://www.aber.ac.uk/media). Comstock and Paik, 1994 believe that ‘most reviews of the literature agree that viewers learn both pro-social and antisocial attitudes and behavior from television portrayals’. Broadly it has been found that violence that is portrayed as punished is less likely to be imitated (Livingstone, 1996). Overall, researchers have described four main responses to exposure to violence; desensitization i.e. becoming numb to the mindless violence on television, secondly accepting violence as a normal way of solving problems, thirdly imitating the aggression on television and lastly identification with certain victims/victimizers ( American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry, November 2002).
TV researcher Dr. Leonard Eron of the University of Michigan believes that,’ The only people who dispute the connection between smoking and cancer are people in the tobacco industry. And the only people who dispute the TV and violence connection are people in the entertainment industry’ (http://www.abelard.org/tv/tv.htm.) This argument gains some merit when we examine the evidence. While the debate surrounding the impact of violence on children continues, the increase in violent content continues to increase at an alarming rate. According to an official Offcom (www.ofcom.org.uk/research/tv/reports/food_ads/ report), Children in the UK watch a total of 17 hours of television each week. Children’s programs that were recorded to feature 18.6 violent acts per hour a decade ago are now believed to have about 26.4 violent acts each hour (Gerbner, 1990). The official viewing figures in the United Kingdom are published by the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB); they are drawn from a national panel of some three thousand households (www.barb.co.uk). According to the BARB 2005 study, the number of households with 2-3 televisions has risen from 17 percent in 1995 to 25 percent in 2005. This means that the number of children with a TV in their bedroom has risen dramatically.
Despite the inconclusive evidence, most media researchers tend to agree that the media has significant effects even though they are hard to demonstrate (Livingstone, 1996). At the same time researchers also agree that effects like increased aggression can rarely be attributed to exposure of violent programming alone and are facilitated by a multitude of socio-environmental factors. In her book, ‘Shocking Entertainment: Viewers Response to Violent Movies’, Hill argues that it is necessary to understand the process of viewing violence to fully comprehend the effects of violence. Inspite of this scholars, researchers and parents continue to remain concerned for the effects of violent programs on children and believe that the negative impact of these violent programs is immeasurable. In an effort to curb the menace, some organizations are lobbying for the introduction of media literacy in schools. Media literacy attempts to educate children about the effects of the media. The objective is to make the child more discerning about the media dynamics so that he/she can recognize difference between reality and contrived programs. However, ironically, in the field of media effects, even an effect between increased media literacy and resistance to media panic has not been proven (Livingstone, 1996).
To conclude, although a large volume of work has been done around the impact of the media, the field has yet to draw any substantial conclusions. As Schramm (1961) highlights in his quote (above) about the impact of television on children, there is no clear pattern of effects. Research inadequacies ensure that it will be a while before we will be able to obtain conclusive results. Yet one thing is clear: the exposure to violent programming should be monitored and supervised. The onus for children’s health and development lies on the school teachers and parents and it is vital that parents take adequate steps in ensuring that their children are made aware and have a healthy outlook towards the violent content that they consume daily. Media literacy is a vital component, yet the field still remains largely unstructured and needs to be developed further to ensure effectiveness. Till then the onus remains on us to equip our children with the correct attitude towards violence and television. There is too much evidence to simply ignore the issue as another ‘moral panic’.