Violence is a prominent force in our lives and is reflected in our media. It can be seen and heard on every news station or radio show as well as in our movies, videogames, and even in some music. Parents have shown concern for years, wondering if their child is being affected by this and if it would manifest into aggressive behavior down the road. Yet violence is read about and taught in history classes and literature, war stories and adventures of heroes. It may not be as visually stimulating as an action movie, but does it have the same effects? Why is violence so prevalent in our media and is it changing our behavior?
The purpose of this research is to get into a psychological level of study for behavior and how viewing violence changes brain chemistry and reactions. This level of analysis will provide proof of correlations, positive or negative. From research into media popularity and how the public receives different levels of violence in media. Research into media popularity will uncover why violence is so prevalent on screens across the United States and the world. The violent media does not directly affect behavior, but rather may desensitize the audience. Violence is natural for humanity and media shows it because it is what the public wants, plus a big conflict with high stakes drives a good story which is what captures audiences. Eight of the top ten most grossing movies of all time are action films, riddled with violence. (IMDb) Avatar, topping the list, is about the extermination of an alien species which many movies deaths occur and much violence ensues. Even the other two movies, Frozen and Titanic have violence in them.
In the article “VIOLENCE” Asa Berger gives seventy instances in which a person would encounter violence in their life, via real world connections with people or through media. Some of these occur every day all around us, and even some are applauded like violence in sports or violence for comedy. (Berger 454) Is it around us so often because humans want it to be? Or must just accepted that the world is an ugly violent place? To look as to why humans see it on screens constantly the audience of this content needs to be addressed. “According to a national survey of more than 1600 US households by the Interactive Digital Software Association…According to the survey, many game players are older, more educated, and more affluent than the public may realize. Findings indicate the following” (Anders 270) 74% of gamers have attended college, 51.2% of the gamers surveyed make over $50,000 a year, 70% of the games rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board were rated as “E” for everyone, meaning playable by all audiences, 54% of console gamers and 69% PC players are 18 or older, and the number one leading category for most sold games was puzzle or board game style games, followed by action, then strategy. (Anders 270-271) Most of the people buying games are adults who are educated contributors to our society, these people are clearly unaffected by any sort of violent games they play, even though it is clear they prefer to play games that challenge their minds. (Anders 271) The article brings up that the children who are getting these violent games are getting them at the negligence of the parents that are buying them.
Legislation has passed instilling the rating system and the inability for businesses to sell games above a certain rating to minors. Regardless of the blockades put up kids will get their hands on these games and mature movies. A field experiment explained in “Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime?” a study was done in which movies were given classification, nonviolent (like a family movie or comedy), mildly violent (like a superhero movie), or strongly violent (like a thriller about serial killers). (Dahl and DellaVinga 678)
Data was collected over the course of nine years determining the change in crime rate on the weekends of and days following the showings of violent movies in the theatre. It was determined that, “For every million-people watching a strongly or mildly violent movie, respectively, violent crime decreased by 1.9% and 2.1% nonviolent movies saw no statistically significant impact.” (Dahl and DellaVinga 681) There was approximately a 2% decrease in violent crime after the release of moderately and intensely violent movies, which equates to about 1,000 less assaults in one weekend. (Dahl and DellaVinga 681) This is well collected evidence that shows the exact opposite of the claims that violent movies cause violent behavior. In fact, according to “Video Games and Classical Antiquity” there are a multitude of games that are historically accurate and could be beneficial for student when learning about given time in a history class. The article also states that just the act of playing video games alone could increase reaction time and problem solving skills. (CHRISTESEN and MACHADO 107-109) Not only are movies and videogames not as harmful as they are made out to be, but they could help students learn and help children, adults, and even the elderly with increased brain functionality. (CHRISTESEN and MACHADO 107-109)
The counterargument is one of concern and feeling rather than fact. “Viewpoint #1 Video-Game Violence” describe how a parent felt when seeing their child play a violent game, afraid it would harm them, and their actions to get it removed. (Klemm 53-55) It perfectly encapsulates the people most concerned about this topic, parents. The experiment in the article “The influence of Media Violence on Youth” describe an experiment conducted to determine short term and long term effects (via longitudinal study) for the exposure to violent media. They even analyzed that other characteristics such as the way characters are shaped to the audience, attractiveness of the perpetrator of the violence, and home life can change how influenced the child could be. This experiment
focused on psychological changes through different stages of life and determined that aggression was increased when exposed to violent media. (Anderson, Berkowitz, Donnerstein…83-89 )
In “Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature” a meta-analysis of existing data took place, finding positive relationships to aggressive tendencies in those who were exposed to violent videogames and movies. It claims that this violent media poses health threats to anyone ranging from childhood into college. They describe a lack of prosocial behavior, meaning that those who engage in violent video games or movies would react in an aggressive or non-welcoming way in a social scenario. (Anderson and Bushman 354-357) This is consistent with the findings in the experiment described in “The influence of Media Violence on Youth”, describing those exposed to violence as being more aggressive and less social.
An experiment was done by Richard Felson, described in “Mass Media Effects on Violent Behavior” but this experiment considered the difference in reaction that would occur in and out of an experimental setting, so there was also a field study done. Also, the idea of modeling is introduced, referring to the famous Bobo Doll experiment done by Albert Bandura in 1961. The experiment proved that children would mimic the behavior of adults, watching the adults interact with the bobo doll. The children that watched adults punch and kick the doll followed with the same behavior, while children who watched adults ignore the doll paid no attention to it. This is a psychological concept called modeling, in which humans learn appropriate behavior through watching others and understanding social norms. One part of Felson’s experiment was comparing the behavior of 1st and 2nd grader on the playground after introducing the town to tv, which has violent programs. He compared the behavior of the kids with that of other kids in surrounding towns, although those towns already had tv. He found that although the towns with tv showed aggressive behavior, it was no more aggressive than that of the town without tv. Later when tv was introduced to this town the aggression increased above the other towns, the only explanation was that that town had particularly violent children for an unrelated reason. (Felson 103-108)
Although the counterargument seems strong, there are significant weak points, beginning with content and audience. As stated before in “Marketing and Policy Considerations for Violent Video Games” 54% of console gamers and 69% PC players are 18 or older, children are not the target audience for this mature content. (Anders 271) The only way they would be getting to it would be negligence by the parents or buyer of the game due to legislation put in place restricting the sale of mature games and strict sale of R rated movie tickets to individuals 17 and older (18 in case of M rated games). (Anders 271-272) Both studies done in the articles “The Influence of Media Violence on Youth” and “Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Psychological, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature” are strong, but they both have the same weak point, they focus on aggression rather than aggressive behavior. Aggression is a mental state which would be very difficult to measure, they do not have clear statistical data such as the 52,000 annual assaults prevented by viewing violent movies, seen in the “Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime?” article by Dahl and DellaVinga. They also claim that there is a decrease in prosocial behavior, but as we saw in “Marketing and Policy Considerations for Violent Video Games” 74% of gamers have attended college and 51.2% of the gamers surveyed make over $50,000 a year which shows that they have jobs and are educated individuals, not aggressive loners. (Anders 271) Not to mention, those two experiments didn’t take into considerations the same focuses as the study done in “Mass Media Effects on Violent Behavior”, “1. Exposure to violence in laboratory and field experiments is as likely to affect nonaggressive antisocial behavior as it does aggressive behavior…2. The message learned from the media about when it is legitimate to use violence is not much different from the message learned from other sources, with the exceptions that illegitimate violence is more likely to be punished in media presentation; 3. The fact that violent criminals tend to be more versatile” (Felson 103) This points out that the experiments done generally have low field validity and only yield those results in the lab. It also explains that media teaches some when violence is appropriate and when it is not, explaining that there are learning opportunities in it, like the benefits described by the article “Video Games and Classical Antiquity”. Also, it explains that the media doesn’t portray the villains in the exact way they occur in the world, they don’t dress up or look particularly menacing like in superhero movies. (Felson 103) As described in Felson’s article through the Bobo Doll experiment, children model what they see, in real life and in media, there are great learning benefits in that. Hillary Smith, a doctoral candidate in the field of clinical psychology at Florida State University said, “Modeling is a powerful behavioral learning phenomenon that extends to all types of social behavior. To a certain extent, I think that children can model behavior that they see on TV in the sense that it may affect their play by providing scripts or they may mimic or quote the show. If there’s a child who is acting violently toward his/her peers in a way they saw on TV, the likelihood is that that child was already prone to acting violently and would do so regardless of what TV they watched.” (Hillary Smith 1 question3) Modeling can be used in a negative or positive way, the content is what matters.
Violent behavior in children and young adults is a serious issue but it is not their movies or videogames that are causing them to act out in this way. Violence has been seen throughout history as a form of entertainment, gladiator fights and violent sports to the death are well recorded throughout history. “Ultimately, it appears that the videogame industry can flourish only as long as it supplies the public with what it wants. Video Games, violent or otherwise, would not be created and sold if there was no demand for them.” (Anders 273) The violence is media is supplied due to our own demand, there is a desire deep down for conflict and to get our adrenaline pumping. The violence humans see drives a primal part of our brain that we have suppressed, it’s the desire to fight for survival and come out on top.
Reflection
After finishing project 2 I feel utterly relieved, this was our most cumbersome project by far and I am finally through the research and the paper! I enjoyed getting to know my topic, getting a different view and hearing concerns from either side. It was interesting to research something that occurs so frequently in our lives. Violence consumes our media and it took me all the way till starting this project to ask why, and to ask what its doing to us. I feel much more informed on the topic and feel as though I could make a case for either side, I don’t think watching a horror movie will turn a regular kid into a future killer. I agree that it desensitizes a person from seeing violence but I don’t think it would really effect the person’s reaction to real life violence. People across the nation watch hour of violent television yet we can all agree that tragedies like Sandy Hook or 9/11 are absolutely terrible and were committed by monsters. Regardless of how much violence we encounter on a screen I don’t think it can take our humanity. As an avid movie watcher and gamer I may have gone into the research with some bias but I can see the other side much better now, understanding that its not a fight against the existence of mature content, rather a concern for young kids having access to it and how it may be affecting them. This is not an attack on the first amendment or on viewers and audiences, rather an act of parental concern over their young viewers and movie lovers.