a good thesis statement for media violence

Tools and Resources
Customer Services
Corrections
Crime, Media, and Popular Culture
Criminal Behavior
Criminological Theory
Critical Criminology
Geography of Crime
International Crime
Juvenile Justice
Prevention/Public Policy
Race, Ethnicity, and Crime
Research Methods
Victimology/Criminal Victimization
White Collar Crime
Women, Crime, and Justice
Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

Violence, media effects, and criminology.

Nickie D. Phillips Nickie D. Phillips Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, St. Francis College
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.189
Published online: 27 July 2017

Debate surrounding the impact of media representations on violence and crime has raged for decades and shows no sign of abating. Over the years, the targets of concern have shifted from film to comic books to television to video games, but the central questions remain the same. What is the relationship between popular media and audience emotions, attitudes, and behaviors? While media effects research covers a vast range of topics—from the study of its persuasive effects in advertising to its positive impact on emotions and behaviors—of particular interest to criminologists is the relationship between violence in popular media and real-life aggression and violence. Does media violence cause aggression and/or violence?

The study of media effects is informed by a variety of theoretical perspectives and spans many disciplines including communications and media studies, psychology, medicine, sociology, and criminology. Decades of research have amassed on the topic, yet there is no clear agreement about the impact of media or about which methodologies are most appropriate. Instead, there continues to be disagreement about whether media portrayals of violence are a serious problem and, if so, how society should respond.

Conflicting interpretations of research findings inform and shape public debate around media effects. Although there seems to be a consensus among scholars that exposure to media violence impacts aggression, there is less agreement around its potential impact on violence and criminal behavior. While a few criminologists focus on the phenomenon of copycat crimes, most rarely engage with whether media directly causes violence. Instead, they explore broader considerations of the relationship between media, popular culture, and society.

media exposure
criminal behavior
popular culture
media violence
media and crime
copycat crimes

Media Exposure, Violence, and Aggression

On Friday July 22, 2016 , a gunman killed nine people at a mall in Munich, Germany. The 18-year-old shooter was subsequently characterized by the media as being under psychiatric care and harboring at least two obsessions. One, an obsession with mass shootings, including that of Anders Breivik who ultimately killed 77 people in Norway in 2011 , and the other an obsession with video games. A Los Angeles, California, news report stated that the gunman was “an avid player of first-person shooter video games, including ‘Counter-Strike,’” while another headline similarly declared, “Munich gunman, a fan of violent video games, rampage killers, had planned attack for a year”(CNN Wire, 2016 ; Reuters, 2016 ). This high-profile incident was hardly the first to link popular culture to violent crime. Notably, in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine shooting massacre, for example, media sources implicated and later discredited music, video games, and a gothic aesthetic as causal factors of the crime (Cullen, 2009 ; Yamato, 2016 ). Other, more recent, incidents have echoed similar claims suggesting that popular culture has a nefarious influence on consumers.

Media violence and its impact on audiences are among the most researched and examined topics in communications studies (Hetsroni, 2007 ). Yet, debate over whether media violence causes aggression and violence persists, particularly in response to high-profile criminal incidents. Blaming video games, and other forms of media and popular culture, as contributing to violence is not a new phenomenon. However, interpreting media effects can be difficult because commenters often seem to indicate a grand consensus that understates more contradictory and nuanced interpretations of the data.

In fact, there is a consensus among many media researchers that media violence has an impact on aggression although its impact on violence is less clear. For example, in response to the shooting in Munich, Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology, avoided pinning the incident solely on video games, but in the process supported the assertion that video gameplay is linked to aggression. He stated,

While there isn’t complete consensus in any scientific field, a study we conducted showed more than 90% of pediatricians and about two-thirds of media researchers surveyed agreed that violent video games increase aggression in children. (Bushman, 2016 )

Others, too, have reached similar conclusions with regard to other media. In 2008 , psychologist John Murray summarized decades of research stating, “Fifty years of research on the effect of TV violence on children leads to the inescapable conclusion that viewing media violence is related to increases in aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors” (Murray, 2008 , p. 1212). Scholars Glenn Sparks and Cheri Sparks similarly declared that,

Despite the fact that controversy still exists about the impact of media violence, the research results reveal a dominant and consistent pattern in favor of the notion that exposure to violent media images does increase the risk of aggressive behavior. (Sparks & Sparks, 2002 , p. 273)

In 2014 , psychologist Wayne Warburton more broadly concluded that the vast majority of studies have found “that exposure to violent media increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in the short and longterm, increases hostile perceptions and attitudes, and desensitizes individuals to violent content” (Warburton, 2014 , p. 64).

Criminologists, too, are sensitive to the impact of media exposure. For example, Jacqueline Helfgott summarized the research:

There have been over 1000 studies on the effects of TV and film violence over the past 40 years. Research on the influence of TV violence on aggression has consistently shown that TV violence increases aggression and social anxiety, cultivates a “mean view” of the world, and negatively impacts real-world behavior. (Helfgott, 2015 , p. 50)

In his book, Media Coverage of Crime and Criminal Justice , criminologist Matthew Robinson stated, “Studies of the impact of media on violence are crystal clear in their findings and implications for society” (Robinson, 2011 , p. 135). He cited studies on childhood exposure to violent media leading to aggressive behavior as evidence. In his pioneering book Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice , criminologist Ray Surette concurred that media violence is linked to aggression, but offered a nuanced interpretation. He stated,

a small to modest but genuine causal role for media violence regarding viewer aggression has been established for most beyond a reasonable doubt . . . There is certainly a connection between violent media and social aggression, but its strength and configuration is simply not known at this time. (Surette, 2011 , p. 68)

The uncertainties about the strength of the relationship and the lack of evidence linking media violence to real-world violence is often lost in the news media accounts of high-profile violent crimes.

Media Exposure and Copycat Crimes

While many scholars do seem to agree that there is evidence that media violence—whether that of film, TV, or video games—increases aggression, they disagree about its impact on violent or criminal behavior (Ferguson, 2014 ; Gunter, 2008 ; Helfgott, 2015 ; Reiner, 2002 ; Savage, 2008 ). Nonetheless, it is violent incidents that most often prompt speculation that media causes violence. More specifically, violence that appears to mimic portrayals of violent media tends to ignite controversy. For example, the idea that films contribute to violent crime is not a new assertion. Films such as A Clockwork Orange , Menace II Society , Set it Off , and Child’s Play 3 , have been linked to crimes and at least eight murders have been linked to Oliver Stone’s 1994 film Natural Born Killers (Bracci, 2010 ; Brooks, 2002 ; PBS, n.d. ). Nonetheless, pinpointing a direct, causal relationship between media and violent crime remains elusive.

Criminologist Jacqueline Helfgott defined copycat crime as a “crime that is inspired by another crime” (Helfgott, 2015 , p. 51). The idea is that offenders model their behavior on media representations of violence whether real or fictional. One case, in particular, illustrated how popular culture, media, and criminal violence converge. On July 20, 2012 , James Holmes entered the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises , the third film in the massively successful Batman trilogy, in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He shot and killed 12 people and wounded 70 others. At the time, the New York Times described the incident,

Witnesses told the police that Mr. Holmes said something to the effect of “I am the Joker,” according to a federal law enforcement official, and that his hair had been dyed or he was wearing a wig. Then, as people began to rise from their seats in confusion or anxiety, he began to shoot. The gunman paused at least once, several witnesses said, perhaps to reload, and continued firing. (Frosch & Johnson, 2012 ).

The dyed hair, Holme’s alleged comment, and that the incident occurred at a popular screening led many to speculate that the shooter was influenced by the earlier film in the trilogy and reignited debate around the impact about media violence. The Daily Mail pointed out that Holmes may have been motivated by a 25-year-old Batman comic in which a gunman opens fire in a movie theater—thus further suggesting the iconic villain served as motivation for the attack (Graham & Gallagher, 2012 ). Perceptions of the “Joker connection” fed into the notion that popular media has a direct causal influence on violent behavior even as press reports later indicated that Holmes had not, in fact, made reference to the Joker (Meyer, 2015 ).

A week after the Aurora shooting, the New York Daily News published an article detailing a “possible copycat” crime. A suspect was arrested in his Maryland home after making threatening phone calls to his workplace. The article reported that the suspect stated, “I am a [sic] joker” and “I’m going to load my guns and blow everybody up.” In their search, police found “a lethal arsenal of 25 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition” in the suspect’s home (McShane, 2012 ).

Though criminologists are generally skeptical that those who commit violent crimes are motivated solely by media violence, there does seem to be some evidence that media may be influential in shaping how some offenders commit crime. In his study of serious and violent juvenile offenders, criminologist Ray Surette found “about one out of three juveniles reports having considered a copycat crime and about one out of four reports actually having attempted one.” He concluded that “those juveniles who are self-reported copycats are significantly more likely to credit the media as both a general and personal influence.” Surette contended that though violent offenses garner the most media attention, copycat criminals are more likely to be career criminals and to commit property crimes rather than violent crimes (Surette, 2002 , pp. 56, 63; Surette 2011 ).

Discerning what crimes may be classified as copycat crimes is a challenge. Jacqueline Helfgott suggested they occur on a “continuum of influence.” On one end, she said, media plays a relatively minor role in being a “component of the modus operandi” of the offender, while on the other end, she said, “personality disordered media junkies” have difficulty distinguishing reality from violent fantasy. According to Helfgott, various factors such as individual characteristics, characteristics of media sources, relationship to media, demographic factors, and cultural factors are influential. Overall, scholars suggest that rather than pushing unsuspecting viewers to commit crimes, media more often influences how , rather than why, someone commits a crime (Helfgott, 2015 ; Marsh & Melville, 2014 ).

Given the public interest, there is relatively little research devoted to exactly what copycat crimes are and how they occur. Part of the problem of studying these types of crimes is the difficulty defining and measuring the concept. In an effort to clarify and empirically measure the phenomenon, Surette offered a scale that included seven indicators of copycat crimes. He used the following factors to identify copycat crimes: time order (media exposure must occur before the crime); time proximity (a five-year cut-off point of exposure); theme consistency (“a pattern of thought, feeling or behavior in the offender which closely parallels the media model”); scene specificity (mimicking a specific scene); repetitive viewing; self-editing (repeated viewing of single scene while “the balance of the film is ignored”); and offender statements and second-party statements indicating the influence of media. Findings demonstrated that cases are often prematurely, if not erroneously, labeled as “copycat.” Surette suggested that use of the scale offers a more precise way for researchers to objectively measure trends and frequency of copycat crimes (Surette, 2016 , p. 8).

Media Exposure and Violent Crimes

Overall, a causal link between media exposure and violent criminal behavior has yet to be validated, and most researchers steer clear of making such causal assumptions. Instead, many emphasize that media does not directly cause aggression and violence so much as operate as a risk factor among other variables (Bushman & Anderson, 2015 ; Warburton, 2014 ). In their review of media effects, Brad Bushman and psychologist Craig Anderson concluded,

In sum, extant research shows that media violence is a causal risk factor not only for mild forms of aggression but also for more serious forms of aggression, including violent criminal behavior. That does not mean that violent media exposure by itself will turn a normal child or adolescent who has few or no other risk factors into a violent criminal or a school shooter. Such extreme violence is rare, and tends to occur only when multiple risk factors converge in time, space, and within an individual. (Bushman & Anderson, 2015 , p. 1817)

Surette, however, argued that there is no clear linkage between media exposure and criminal behavior—violent or otherwise. In other words, a link between media violence and aggression does not necessarily mean that exposure to violent media causes violent (or nonviolent) criminal behavior. Though there are thousands of articles addressing media effects, many of these consist of reviews or commentary about prior research findings rather than original studies (Brown, 2007 ; Murray, 2008 ; Savage, 2008 ; Surette, 2011 ). Fewer, still, are studies that specifically measure media violence and criminal behavior (Gunter, 2008 ; Strasburger & Donnerstein, 2014 ). In their meta-analysis investigating the link between media violence and criminal aggression, scholars Joanne Savage and Christina Yancey did not find support for the assertion. Instead, they concluded,

The study of most consequence for violent crime policy actually found that exposure to media violence was significantly negatively related to violent crime rates at the aggregate level . . . It is plain to us that the relationship between exposure to violent media and serious violence has yet to be established. (Savage & Yancey, 2008 , p. 786)

Researchers continue to measure the impact of media violence among various forms of media and generally stop short of drawing a direct causal link in favor of more indirect effects. For example, one study examined the increase of gun violence in films over the years and concluded that violent scenes provide scripts for youth that justify gun violence that, in turn, may amplify aggression (Bushman, Jamieson, Weitz, & Romer, 2013 ). But others report contradictory findings. Patrick Markey and colleagues studied the relationship between rates of homicide and aggravated assault and gun violence in films from 1960–2012 and found that over the years, violent content in films increased while crime rates declined . After controlling for age shifts, poverty, education, incarceration rates, and economic inequality, the relationships remained statistically non-significant (Markey, French, & Markey, 2015 , p. 165). Psychologist Christopher Ferguson also failed to find a relationship between media violence in films and video games and violence (Ferguson, 2014 ).

Another study, by Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna, examined violent films from 1995–2004 and found decreases in violent crimes coincided with violent blockbuster movie attendance. Here, it was not the content that was alleged to impact crime rates, but instead what the authors called “voluntary incapacitation,” or the shifting of daily activities from that of potential criminal behavior to movie attendance. The authors concluded, “For each million people watching a strongly or mildly violent movie, respectively, violent crime decreases by 1.9% and 2.1%. Nonviolent movies have no statistically significant impact” (Dahl & DellaVigna, p. 39).

High-profile cases over the last several years have shifted public concern toward the perceived danger of video games, but research demonstrating a link between video games and criminal violence remains scant. The American Psychiatric Association declared that “research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression . . .” but stopped short of claiming that video games impact criminal violence. According to Breuer and colleagues, “While all of the available meta-analyses . . . found a relationship between aggression and the use of (violent) video games, the size and interpretation of this connection differ largely between these studies . . .” (APA, 2015 ; Breuer et al., 2015 ; DeCamp, 2015 ). Further, psychologists Patrick Markey, Charlotte Markey, and Juliana French conducted four time-series analyses investigating the relationship between video game habits and assault and homicide rates. The studies measured rates of violent crime, the annual and monthly video game sales, Internet searches for video game walkthroughs, and rates of violent crime occurring after the release dates of popular games. The results showed that there was no relationship between video game habits and rates of aggravated assault and homicide. Instead, there was some indication of decreases in crime (Markey, Markey, & French, 2015 ).

Another longitudinal study failed to find video games as a predictor of aggression, instead finding support for the “selection hypothesis”—that physically aggressive individuals (aged 14–17) were more likely to choose media content that contained violence than those slightly older, aged 18–21. Additionally, the researchers concluded,

that violent media do not have a substantial impact on aggressive personality or behavior, at least in the phases of late adolescence and early adulthood that we focused on. (Breuer, Vogelgesang, Quandt, & Festl, 2015 , p. 324)

Overall, the lack of a consistent finding demonstrating that media exposure causes violent crime may not be particularly surprising given that studies linking media exposure, aggression, and violence suffer from a host of general criticisms. By way of explanation, social theorist David Gauntlett maintained that researchers frequently employ problematic definitions of aggression and violence, questionable methodologies, rely too much on fictional violence, neglect the social meaning of violence, and assume the third-person effect—that is, assume that other, vulnerable people are impacted by media, but “we” are not (Ferguson & Dyck, 2012 ; Gauntlett, 2001 ).

Others, such as scholars Martin Barker and Julian Petley, flatly reject the notion that violent media exposure is a causal factor for aggression and/or violence. In their book Ill Effects , the authors stated instead that it is simply “stupid” to query about “what are the effects of [media] violence” without taking context into account (p. 2). They counter what they describe as moral campaigners who advance the idea that media violence causes violence. Instead, Barker and Petley argue that audiences interpret media violence in a variety of ways based on their histories, experiences, and knowledge, and as such, it makes little sense to claim media “cause” violence (Barker & Petley, 2001 ).

Given the seemingly inconclusive and contradictory findings regarding media effects research, to say that the debate can, at times, be contentious is an understatement. One article published in European Psychologist queried “Does Doing Media Violence Research Make One Aggressive?” and lamented that the debate had devolved into an ideological one (Elson & Ferguson, 2013 ). Another academic journal published a special issue devoted to video games and youth and included a transcript of exchanges between two scholars to demonstrate that a “peaceful debate” was, in fact, possible (Ferguson & Konijn, 2015 ).

Nonetheless, in this debate, the stakes are high and the policy consequences profound. After examining over 900 published articles, publication patterns, prominent authors and coauthors, and disciplinary interest in the topic, scholar James Anderson argued that prominent media effects scholars, whom he deems the “causationists,” had developed a cottage industry dependent on funding by agencies focused primarily on the negative effects of media on children. Anderson argued that such a focus presents media as a threat to family values and ultimately operates as a zero-sum game. As a result, attention and resources are diverted toward media and away from other priorities that are essential to understanding aggression such as social disadvantage, substance abuse, and parental conflict (Anderson, 2008 , p. 1276).

Theoretical Perspectives on Media Effects

Understanding how media may impact attitudes and behavior has been the focus of media and communications studies for decades. Numerous theoretical perspectives offer insight into how and to what extent the media impacts the audience. As scholar Jenny Kitzinger documented in 2004 , there are generally two ways to approach the study of media effects. One is to foreground the power of media. That is, to suggest that the media holds powerful sway over viewers. Another perspective is to foreground the power and heterogeneity of the audience and to recognize that it is comprised of active agents (Kitzinger, 2004 ).

The notion of an all-powerful media can be traced to the influence of scholars affiliated with the Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School, in the 1930–1940s and proponents of the mass society theory. The institute was originally founded in Germany but later moved to the United States. Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes outlined how mass society theory assumed that members of the public were susceptible to media messages. This, theorists argued, was a result of rapidly changing social conditions and industrialization that produced isolated, impressionable individuals “cut adrift from kinship and organic ties and lacking moral cohesion” (Jewkes, 2015 , p. 13). In this historical context, in the era of World War II, the impact of Nazi propaganda was particularly resonant. Here, the media was believed to exhibit a unidirectional flow, operating as a powerful force influencing the masses. The most useful metaphor for this perspective described the media as a “hypodermic syringe” that could “‘inject’ values, ideas and information directly into the passive receiver producing direct and unmediated ‘effects’” (Jewkes, 2015 , pp. 16, 34). Though the hypodermic syringe model seems simplistic today, the idea that the media is all-powerful continues to inform contemporary public discourse around media and violence.

Concern of the power of media captured the attention of researchers interested in its purported negative impact on children. In one of the earliest series of studies in the United States during the late 1920s–1930s, researchers attempted to quantitatively measure media effects with the Payne Fund Studies. For example, they investigated how film, a relatively new medium, impacted children’s attitudes and behaviors, including antisocial and violent behavior. At the time, the Payne Fund Studies’ findings fueled the notion that children were indeed negatively influenced by films. This prompted the film industry to adopt a self-imposed code regulating content (Sparks & Sparks, 2002 ; Surette, 2011 ). Not everyone agreed with the approach. In fact, the methodologies employed in the studies received much criticism, and ultimately, the movement was branded as a moral crusade to regulate film content. Scholars Garth Jowett, Ian Jarvie, and Kathryn Fuller wrote about the significance of the studies,

We have seen this same policy battle fought and refought over radio, television, rock and roll, music videos and video games. Their researchers looked to see if intuitive concerns could be given concrete, measurable expression in research. While they had partial success, as have all subsequent efforts, they also ran into intractable problems . . . Since that day, no way has yet been found to resolve the dilemma of cause and effect: do crime movies create more crime, or do the criminally inclined enjoy and perhaps imitate crime movies? (Jowett, Jarvie, & Fuller, 1996 , p. 12)

As the debate continued, more sophisticated theoretical perspectives emerged. Efforts to empirically measure the impact of media on aggression and violence continued, albeit with equivocal results. In the 1950s and 1960s, psychological behaviorism, or understanding psychological motivations through observable behavior, became a prominent lens through which to view the causal impact of media violence. This type of research was exemplified by Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll studies demonstrating that children exposed to aggressive behavior, either observed in real life or on film, behaved more aggressively than those in control groups who were not exposed to the behavior. The assumption derived was that children learn through exposure and imitate behavior (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963 ). Though influential, the Bandura experiments were nevertheless heavily criticized. Some argued the laboratory conditions under which children were exposed to media were not generalizable to real-life conditions. Others challenged the assumption that children absorb media content in an unsophisticated manner without being able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. In fact, later studies did find children to be more discerning consumers of media than popularly believed (Gauntlett, 2001 ).

Hugely influential in our understandings of human behavior, the concept of social learning has been at the core of more contemporary understandings of media effects. For example, scholar Christopher Ferguson noted that the General Aggression Model (GAM), rooted in social learning and cognitive theory, has for decades been a dominant model for understanding how media impacts aggression and violence. GAM is described as the idea that “aggression is learned by the activation and repetition of cognitive scripts coupled with the desensitization of emotional responses due to repeated exposure.” However, Ferguson noted that its usefulness has been debated and advocated for a paradigm shift (Ferguson, 2013 , pp. 65, 27; Krahé, 2014 ).

Though the methodologies of the Payne Fund Studies and Bandura studies were heavily criticized, concern over media effects continued to be tied to larger moral debates including the fear of moral decline and concern over the welfare of children. Most notably, in the 1950s, psychiatrist Frederic Wertham warned of the dangers of comic books, a hugely popular medium at the time, and their impact on juveniles. Based on anecdotes and his clinical experience with children, Wertham argued that images of graphic violence and sexual debauchery in comic books were linked to juvenile delinquency. Though he was far from the only critic of comic book content, his criticisms reached the masses and gained further notoriety with the publication of his 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent . Wertham described the comic book content thusly,

The stories have a lot of crime and gunplay and, in addition, alluring advertisements of guns, some of them full-page and in bright colors, with four guns of various sizes and descriptions on a page . . . Here is the repetition of violence and sexiness which no Freud, Krafft-Ebing or Havelock Ellis ever dreamed could be offered to children, and in such profusion . . . I have come to the conclusion that this chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction by comic books, both their content and their alluring advertisements of knives and guns, are contributing factors to many children’s maladjustment. (Wertham, 1954 , p. 39)

Wertham’s work was instrumental in shaping public opinion and policies about the dangers of comic books. Concern about the impact of comics reached its apex in 1954 with the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Wertham testified before the committee, arguing that comics were a leading cause of juvenile delinquency. Ultimately, the protest of graphic content in comic books by various interest groups contributed to implementation of the publishers’ self-censorship code, the Comics Code Authority, which essentially designated select books that were deemed “safe” for children (Nyberg, 1998 ). The code remained in place for decades, though it was eventually relaxed and decades later phased out by the two most dominant publishers, DC and Marvel.

Wertham’s work, however influential in impacting the comic industry, was ultimately panned by academics. Although scholar Bart Beaty characterized Wertham’s position as more nuanced, if not progressive, than the mythology that followed him, Wertham was broadly dismissed as a moral reactionary (Beaty, 2005 ; Phillips & Strobl, 2013 ). The most damning criticism of Wertham’s work came decades later, from Carol Tilley’s examination of Wertham’s files. She concluded that in Seduction of the Innocent ,

Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain. (Tilley, 2012 , p. 386)

Tilley linked Wertham’s approach to that of the Frankfurt theorists who deemed popular culture a social threat and contended that Wertham was most interested in “cultural correction” rather than scientific inquiry (Tilley, 2012 , p. 404).

Over the decades, concern about the moral impact of media remained while theoretical and methodological approaches to media effects studies continued to evolve (Rich, Bickham, & Wartella, 2015 ). In what many consider a sophisticated development, theorists began to view the audience as more active and multifaceted than the mass society perspective allowed (Kitzinger, 2004 ). One perspective, based on a “uses and gratifications” model, assumes that rather than a passive audience being injected with values and information, a more active audience selects and “uses” media as a response to their needs and desires. Studies of uses and gratifications take into account how choice of media is influenced by one’s psychological and social circumstances. In this context, media provides a variety of functions for consumers who may engage with it for the purposes of gathering information, reducing boredom, seeking enjoyment, or facilitating communication (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973 ; Rubin, 2002 ). This approach differs from earlier views in that it privileges the perspective and agency of the audience.

Another approach, the cultivation theory, gained momentum among researchers in the 1970s and has been of particular interest to criminologists. It focuses on how television television viewing impacts viewers’ attitudes toward social reality. The theory was first introduced by communications scholar George Gerbner, who argued the importance of understanding messages that long-term viewers absorb. Rather than examine the effect of specific content within any given programming, cultivation theory,

looks at exposure to massive flows of messages over long periods of time. The cultivation process takes place in the interaction of the viewer with the message; neither the message nor the viewer are all-powerful. (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Singnorielli, & Shanahan, 2002 , p. 48)

In other words, he argued, television viewers are, over time, exposed to messages about the way the world works. As Gerbner and colleagues stated, “continued exposure to its messages is likely to reiterate, confirm, and nourish—that is, cultivate—its own values and perspectives” (p. 49).

One of the most well-known consequences of heavy media exposure is what Gerbner termed the “mean world” syndrome. He coined it based on studies that found that long-term exposure to media violence among heavy television viewers, “tends to cultivate the image of a relatively mean and dangerous world” (p. 52). Inherent in Gerbner’s view was that media representations are separate and distinct entities from “real life.” That is, it is the distorted representations of crime and violence that cultivate the notion that the world is a dangerous place. In this context, Gerbner found that heavy television viewers are more likely to be fearful of crime and to overestimate their chances of being a victim of violence (Gerbner, 1994 ).

Though there is evidence in support of cultivation theory, the strength of the relationship between media exposure and fear of crime is inconclusive. This is in part due to the recognition that audience members are not homogenous. Instead, researchers have found that there are many factors that impact the cultivating process. This includes, but is not limited to, “class, race, gender, place of residence, and actual experience of crime” (Reiner, 2002 ; Sparks, 1992 ). Or, as Ted Chiricos and colleagues remarked in their study of crime news and fear of crime, “The issue is not whether media accounts of crime increase fear, but which audiences, with which experiences and interests, construct which meanings from the messages received” (Chiricos, Eschholz, & Gertz, p. 354).

Other researchers found that exposure to media violence creates a desensitizing effect, that is, that as viewers consume more violent media, they become less empathetic as well as psychologically and emotionally numb when confronted with actual violence (Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, 2006 ; Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, 2007 ; Cline, Croft, & Courrier, 1973 ; Fanti, Vanman, Henrich, & Avraamides, 2009 ; Krahé et al., 2011 ). Other scholars such as Henry Giroux, however, point out that our contemporary culture is awash in violence and “everyone is infected.” From this perspective, the focus is not on certain individuals whose exposure to violent media leads to a desensitization of real-life violence, but rather on the notion that violence so permeates society that it has become normalized in ways that are divorced from ethical and moral implications. Giroux wrote,

While it would be wrong to suggest that the violence that saturates popular culture directly causes violence in the larger society, it is arguable that such violence serves not only to produce an insensitivity to real life violence but also functions to normalize violence as both a source of pleasure and as a practice for addressing social issues. When young people and others begin to believe that a world of extreme violence, vengeance, lawlessness, and revenge is the only world they inhabit, the culture and practice of real-life violence is more difficult to scrutinize, resist, and transform . . . (Giroux, 2015 )

For Giroux, the danger is that the normalization of violence has become a threat to democracy itself. In our culture of mass consumption shaped by neoliberal logics, depoliticized narratives of violence have become desired forms of entertainment and are presented in ways that express tolerance for some forms of violence while delegitimizing other forms of violence. In their book, Disposable Futures , Brad Evans and Henry Giroux argued that as the spectacle of violence perpetuates fear of inevitable catastrophe, it reinforces expansion of police powers, increased militarization and other forms of social control, and ultimately renders marginalized members of the populace disposable (Evans & Giroux, 2015 , p. 81).

Criminology and the “Media/Crime Nexus”

Most criminologists and sociologists who focus on media and crime are generally either dismissive of the notion that media violence directly causes violence or conclude that findings are more complex than traditional media effects models allow, preferring to focus attention on the impact of media violence on society rather than individual behavior (Carrabine, 2008 ; Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2015 ; Jewkes, 2015 ; Kitzinger, 2004 ; Marsh & Melville, 2014 ; Rafter, 2006 ; Sternheimer, 2003 ; Sternheimer 2013 ; Surette, 2011 ). Sociologist Karen Sternheimer forcefully declared “media culture is not the root cause of American social problems, not the Big Bad Wolf, as our ongoing public discussion would suggest” (Sternheimer, 2003 , p. 3). Sternheimer rejected the idea that media causes violence and argued that a false connection has been forged between media, popular culture, and violence. Like others critical of a singular focus on media, Sternheimer posited that overemphasis on the perceived dangers of media violence serves as a red herring that directs attention away from the actual causes of violence rooted in factors such as poverty, family violence, abuse, and economic inequalities (Sternheimer, 2003 , 2013 ). Similarly, in her Media and Crime text, Yvonne Jewkes stated that U.K. scholars tend to reject findings of a causal link because the studies are too reductionist; criminal behavior cannot be reduced to a single causal factor such as media consumption. Echoing Gauntlett’s critiques of media effects research, Jewkes stated that simplistic causal assumptions ignore “the wider context of a lifetime of meaning-making” (Jewkes, 2015 , p. 17).

Although they most often reject a “violent media cause violence” relationship, criminologists do not dismiss the notion of media as influential. To the contrary, over the decades much criminological interest has focused on the construction of social problems, the ideological implications of media, and media’s potential impact on crime policies and social control. Eamonn Carrabine noted that the focus of concern is not whether media directly causes violence but on “how the media promote damaging stereotypes of social groups, especially the young, to uphold the status quo” (Carrabine, 2008 , p. 34). Theoretically, these foci have been traced to the influence of cultural and Marxist studies. For example, criminologists frequently focus on how social anxieties and class inequalities impact our understandings of the relationship between media violence and attitudes, values, and behaviors. Influential works in the 1970s, such as Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order by Stuart Hall et al. and Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics , shifted criminological critique toward understanding media as a hegemonic force that reinforces state power and social control (Brown, 2011 ; Carrabine, 2008 ; Cohen, 2005 ; Garland, 2008 ; Hall et al., 2013 /1973, 2013/1973 ). Since that time, moral panic has become a common framework applied to public discourse around a variety of social issues including road rage, child abuse, popular music, sex panics, and drug abuse among others.

Into the 21st century , advances in technology, including increased use of social media, shifted the ways that criminologists approach the study of media effects. Scholar Sheila Brown traced how research in criminology evolved from a focus on “media and crime” to what she calls the “media/crime nexus” that recognizes that “media experience is real experience” (Brown, 2011 , p. 413). In other words, many criminologists began to reject as fallacy what social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson deemed “digital dualism,” or the notion that we have an “online” existence that is separate and distinct from our “off-line” existence. Instead, we exist simultaneously both online and offline, an

augmented reality that exists at the intersection of materiality and information, physicality and digitality, bodies and technology, atoms and bits, the off and the online. It is wrong to say “IRL” [in real life] to mean offline: Facebook is real life. (Jurgenson, 2012 )

The changing media landscape has been of particular interest to cultural criminologists. Michelle Brown recognized the omnipresence of media as significant in terms of methodological preferences and urged a move away from a focus on causality and predictability toward a more fluid approach that embraces the complex, contemporary media-saturated social reality characterized by uncertainty and instability (Brown, 2007 ).

Cultural criminologists have indeed rejected direct, causal relationships in favor of the recognition that social meanings of aggression and violence are constantly in transition, flowing through the media landscape, where “bits of information reverberate and bend back on themselves, creating a fluid porosity of meaning that defines late-modern life, and the nature of crime and media within it.” In other words, there is no linear relationship between crime and its representation. Instead, crime is viewed as inseparable from the culture in which our everyday lives are constantly re-created in loops and spirals that “amplify, distort, and define the experience of crime and criminality itself” (Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2015 , pp. 154–155). As an example of this shift in understanding media effects, criminologist Majid Yar proposed that we consider how the transition from being primarily consumers to primarily producers of content may serve as a motivating mechanism for criminal behavior. Here, Yar is suggesting that the proliferation of user-generated content via media technologies such as social media (i.e., the desire “to be seen” and to manage self-presentation) has a criminogenic component worthy of criminological inquiry (Yar, 2012 ). Shifting attention toward the media/crime nexus and away from traditional media effects analyses opens possibilities for a deeper understanding of the ways that media remains an integral part of our everyday lives and inseparable from our understandings of and engagement with crime and violence.

Over the years, from films to comic books to television to video games to social media, concerns over media effects have shifted along with changing technologies. While there seems to be some consensus that exposure to violent media impacts aggression, there is little evidence showing its impact on violent or criminal behavior. Nonetheless, high-profile violent crimes continue to reignite public interest in media effects, particularly with regard to copycat crimes.

At times, academic debate around media effects remains contentious and one’s academic discipline informs the study and interpretation of media effects. Criminologists and sociologists are generally reluctant to attribute violence and criminal behavior directly to exposure to violence media. They are, however, not dismissive of the impact of media on attitudes, social policies, and social control as evidenced by the myriad of studies on moral panics and other research that addresses the relationship between media, social anxieties, gender, race, and class inequalities. Scholars who study media effects are also sensitive to the historical context of the debates and ways that moral concerns shape public policies. The self-regulating codes of the film industry and the comic book industry have led scholars to be wary of hyperbole and policy overreach in response to claims of media effects. Future research will continue to explore ways that changing technologies, including increasing use of social media, will impact our understandings and perceptions of crime as well as criminal behavior.

How Violent Media Can Impact Your Mental Health

Carol Yepes / Getty Images

Violent Media & Aggresssion
Controversy
Violent Media & Mental Health
How to Help Your Child

When to Seek Therapy

One of the most studied—and most controversial—topics in media psychology is the impact of violent media on consumers, especially children. Violence in is movies, on television, in video games, and on the internet. It's also included in content aimed at kids, tweens, and teens, and therefore, it's no surprise that psychologists, parents, and media consumers, in general, are concerned about the impact it has on people.

As a result, ever since the advent of television decades ago, psychologists have investigated the possibility of a link between the consumption of violent media and increases in real-life aggression.

This article will explore the research on this topic including arguments for and against an association. In addition, this article will examine newer research that has found a relationship between exposure to violent content, especially via news media, and mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety .

Does Consuming Violent Content Lead to Increased Aggression?

Studies have consistently shown that media violence has an impact on real-life aggression . These studies use a diverse set of methods and participants, leading many experts on the impact of media violence to agree that aggression increases as a result of media violence consumption.

However, that doesn't mean exposure to media violence drives consumers to murder or other particularly violent acts. These studies explore different kinds of aggression, making the association the research has established between violent media and aggression more nuanced than it initially appears.

Evidence for a Link Between Violent Content and Aggression

Many experiments in labs have provided evidence that demonstrates that short-term exposure to violent media increases aggression in children, teenagers, and young adults. However, aggression doesn't always mean physical aggression. It can also mean verbal aggression , such as yelling insults, as well as thinking aggressive thoughts or having aggressive emotions.

There Varying Degrees of Aggression

Moreover, even physical aggression exists on a continuum from a light shove to something far more dangerous. As a result, people may become more aggressive immediately following exposure to media violence but that aggression manifests itself in a variety of different ways, a majority of which wouldn't be considered particularly dangerous.

Consuming Violent Media During Childhood May Result in Adult Aggression

More disturbing are the few longitudinal studies that have followed people over decades and have shown that frequent exposure to media violence in childhood results in adult aggression even if people no longer consume violent media as adults.

For example, one study found that frequent exposure to violent television at age 8 predicted aggressive behavior at ages 19 and 30 for male, but not female, participants. This effect held even after controlling for variables like social class, IQ , and initial aggressiveness.

Similarly, another study that surveyed 329 participants between the ages of 6 and 9 found that 15 years later the exposure of both males and females to television violence in childhood predicted increased aggression in adulthood. In particular, the 25% of study participants who viewed the most media violence in childhood were the most likely to be much more aggressive in adulthood.

These individuals exhibited a range of behaviors including:

Shoving their spouses
Beating people up
Committing crimes

This was especially true if they identified with aggressive characters and felt that television violence was realistic when they were children.

These findings suggest that frequent early exposure to television violence can have a powerful impact on individuals over time and well into their adult lives.

Why Is This Topic So Controversial?

So if there's so much research evidence for a link between media violence and real-world aggression, why is the debate over this topic ongoing? Part of the issue is one of definition.

Studies often define violence and aggression in very different ways and they use different measures to test the association, making it hard to replicate the results. Moreover, many researchers edit together media for lab experiments , creating a situation where participants must watch and react to media that bears minimal resemblance to anything they'd actually consume via TV, movies, or the internet.

As a result, even when these experiments find media violence causes aggression, the extent to which it can be generalized to the population as a whole is limited.

Of course, it would be naïve to think that consuming media violence has no impact on people, but it appears it may not be the most powerful influence. The effect of media violence is likely to vary based on other factors including personality traits, developmental stage, social and environmental influences, and the context in which the violence is presented.

It's also important to recognize that not all aggression is negative or socially unacceptable. One study found that a relationship between exposure to television violence and an increase in positive aggression, or aggression that isn't intended to cause harm, in the form of participation in extreme or contact sports.

Does Consuming Violent Media Lead to Mental Health Issues?

While psychologists have been studying the association between the consumption of violent media and increased aggression for well over 50 years, more recently, some have turned their attention to the impact of media violence on mental health concerns.

Consumption of Violent Media May Lead to Anxiety

Studies have demonstrated that there's a correlation between exposure to media violence and increased anxiety and the belief that the world is a scary place. For instance, an experimental investigation found that late adolescents who were exposed to a violent movie clip were more anxious than those who watched a nonviolent clip.

These findings suggest that the regular consumption of violent media could lead to anxiety in the long-term .

Constant Exposure to Violent Media Via Technology May Lead to Poorer Mental Health

Today, the violence shown on the news media may especially impact people's mental health. New technology means that violent events, including terrorist attacks, school shootings , and natural disasters, can be filmed and reported on immediately, and media consumers all over the world will be exposed to these events almost instantly via social media or news alerts on their smartphones and other devices.

Moreover, this exposure is likely to be intense and repeated due to the need to fill a 24-hour news cycle. Studies have shown that this kind of exposure, especially to acts of terrorism, has the potential to lead to depression , anxiety, stress reactions, substance use, and even post-traumatic stress (PTSD).

Plus, those who take in more images of a disaster tend to be more likely to experience negative mental health consequences. For example, in a study conducted shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, people who viewed more television news reports about what happened in the seven days after the event had more symptoms of PTSD than those who had viewed less television news coverage.

How to Cope With the Impact of Media Violence

Violence will continue to be depicted in the media and, for most adults, there's nothing wrong with watching a violent horror or action movie or playing a violent video game, as long as it doesn't impair your mental health or daily functioning.

However, if you feel you're being negatively impacted by the violence depicted in the media, especially after a disaster that's getting constant coverage on the news, the first solution is to stop engaging with devices that could lead to further exposure.

This means turning off the TV, and for anyone who frequently looks at the news on their computers or mobile devices, adjusting any settings that could lead you to see more images of a violent event.

How You Can Help Your Child

For parents concerned about children's exposure to violent media, the solution isn't to attempt to prevent children from consuming violence altogether, although limiting their exposure is valuable.

Instead, parents should co-view violent media with their children and then talk about what they see. This helps children become discerning media consumers who can think critically about the content they read, watch, and play.

Similarly, when a disturbing event like a school shooting happens it's valuable to discuss it with children so they can express their emotions and parents can put the incident in the context of its overall likelihood.

If a parent notices their child seems depressed or anxious after frequent exposure to media violence or an adult notices their mental health is suffering due to regular consumption of violent media, it may be valuable to seek the help of a mental health professional .

Anderson CA, Berkowitz L, Donnerstein E et al. The Influence of Media Violence on Youth . Psychological Science in the Public Interest . 2003;4(3):81-110. doi:10.1111/j.1529-1006.2003.pspi_1433.x

Huesmann LR, Eron LD. Television And The Aggressive Child: A Cross-National Comparison . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.; 1986.

Huesmann LR, Moise-Titus J, Podolski C-L, Eron LD. Longitudinal relations between children's exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977-1992 . Dev Psychol . 2003;39(2):201-221. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.39.2.201

Giles D. Psychology Of The Media . London: Palgrave Macmillan; 2010.

Giles D. Media Psychology . Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers; 2003.

Slotsve T, del Carmen A, Sarver M, Villareal-Watkins RJ. Television Violence and Aggression: A Retrospective Study. Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice . 2008;5(1):22-49.

Madan A, Mrug S, Wright RA. The Effects of Media Violence on Anxiety in Late Adolescence . J Youth Adolesc . 2013;43(1):116-126. doi:10.1007/s10964-013-0017-3

Pfefferbaum B, Newman E, Nelson SD, Nitiéma P, Pfefferbaum RL, Rahman A. Disaster Media Coverage and Psychological Outcomes: Descriptive Findings in the Extant Research . Curr Psychiatry Rep . 2014;16(9). doi:10.1007/s11920-014-0464-x

Ahern J, Galea S, Resnick H, Vlahov D. Television Images and Probable Posttraumatic Stress Disorder After September 11: The Role of Background Characteristics, Event Exposures, and Perievent Panic . Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease . 2004;192(3):217-226. doi:10.1097/01.nmd.0000116465.99830.ca

The Conversation. Here's How Witnessing Violence Harms Children's Mental House .

By Cynthia Vinney, PhD Cynthia Vinney, PhD is an expert in media psychology and a published scholar whose work has been published in peer-reviewed psychology journals.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

Knowledge Base
How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

Start with a question
Write your initial answer
Develop your answer
Refine your thesis statement

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

Academic style
Vague sentences
Style consistency

See an example

a good thesis statement for media violence

Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

Why you hold this position
What they’ll learn from your essay
The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Ad hominem fallacy
Post hoc fallacy
Appeal to authority fallacy
False cause fallacy
Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

Choosing Essay Topic
Write a College Essay
Write a Diversity Essay
College Essay Format & Structure
Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

(AI) Tools

Grammar Checker
Paraphrasing Tool
Text Summarizer
AI Detector
Plagiarism Checker
Citation Generator

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

It gives your writing direction and focus.
It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

Ask a question about your topic .
Write your initial answer.
Develop your answer by including reasons.
Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, August 15). How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved August 8, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/thesis-statement/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples, how to write topic sentences | 4 steps, examples & purpose, academic paragraph structure | step-by-step guide & examples, what is your plagiarism score.

General Information
Media Issues
Digital Issues
Educational Games
Media Literacy Week
e-Tutorials
Our Approach
Research Reports
Young Canadians in a Wireless World
For Parents
Find Lessons & Resources
Digital Media Literacy Outcomes by Province & Territory
Digital Media Literacy Framework
Media Literacy 101
Digital Literacy 101
Class Tutorials - Licensed
Become a donor
Become a volunteer
Become a Corporate Partner
Teen Fact-Checking Network

What do We Know About Media Violence?

It is difficult to set down in a definitive way what effect media violence has on consumers and young people. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main issue is that terms like “violence” and “aggression” are not easily defined or categorized. To a child, almost any kind of conflict, such as the heated arguments of some talk-radio shows or primetime news pundits, can sound as aggressive as two cartoon characters dropping anvils on one another.

The reality is that we have not yet successfully defined violence and aggression, whether when analyzing the content we consume, or investigating the potentially resultant aggressive behaviour. Because individual studies define these notions differently, the goal posts are constantly moving for anyone who is trying to get a big picture look at the situation. The difficulty of quantifying aggression and violence in a strict way makes it nearly impossible to accurately answer the question “Does media violence cause people to commit violence?”

Many studies, many conclusions

In 1994, Andrea Martinez at the University of Ottawa conducted a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on media violence for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). She concluded that the lack of consensus about media effects reflects three “grey areas” or constraints contained in the research itself. These grey areas still apply today.

Firstly, media violence is notoriously hard to define and measure. Some experts who track violence in television programming, such as the late George Gerbner, defined violence as the act (or threat) of injuring or killing someone, independent of the method used or the surrounding context. As such, Gerbner included cartoon violence in his data-set. But others, such as University of Laval professors Guy Paquette and Jacques de Guise, specifically excluded cartoon violence from their research because of its comical and unrealistic presentation. How they would view some of the increasingly realistic violence in many of today’s cartoons aimed at teens – such as the gruesome injuries suffered by many of the characters on Rick and Morty and Family Guy – is an open question.

Second, researchers disagree over the type of relationship the data supports. Some argue that exposure to media violence causes aggression. Some say that the two are associated, but that there is no causal connection (that both, for instance, may be caused by some third factor), while 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 affects the other.

More than a decade later, the debate of whether media violence causes violence continues. In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a policy statement in the online issue of their journal entitled “Virtual Violence,” which found that “exposure to media violence is becoming an inescapable component of children’s lives.” The report’s overall conclusion, after looking at 400 reports about violent media, was that “there [is] a significant association between exposure to media violence and aggressive behaviour.” At the same time, the AAP report stressed that “no single risk factor consistently leads a person to act aggressively or violently. Rather, it is the accumulation of risk factors that tends to lead to aggressive or violent behavior.” As well, the report pointed out that “all violence is aggression, but not all aggression is violence.” While violent media may lead viewers or players to be more aggressive, it may only rarely make enough of a difference to provoke them to commit acts of violence they otherwise wouldn’t have. [1]

Despite the apparent consensus shown in the AAP report, many studies have found no significant impacts of violent media on concerns such as bullying or antisocial behaviours; [2] aggressive behaviour; [3] reduced academic performance, depressive symptoms, attention deficit symptoms; [4] empathy [5] or violence. [6]

With that in mind, based on a number of recent studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals, there are some things we can say:

What’s the good news?

Violent video games are not directly linked to incidents like high school shootings. [7]
Video games are not directly linked to youth crime, aggression and dating violence. [8]
Violent video games have not led to an increase in violent crime; in fact, violent crime has decreased in the years since game playing became a common activity for youth. [9]
Even though consumers tend to gravitate towards violent media, we are generally more satisfied by or take more joy from non-violent media. [10]
Playing action video games results in increased basic visual sensory processing, selective visual attention and some higher cognitive skills. [11]
At low to medium levels, time spent playing video games – violent or otherwise – reduces violent behaviour among teens “by keeping them occupied and reducing opportunities and motivation to acquire guns” (however, this effect fades at high levels of playing time). [12]
Violent media, especially video games, have been used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems. [13]

What’s the bad news?

Youth and adults who plan mass shootings do look to media coverage of past shootings for models and, in some cases, are motivated by the notoriety brought by news coverage. [14]
Violent video games may desensitize players to other violent images and emotional stimuli. [15]
Violent media often portray violent acts and situations but rarely represent the consequences of violence. [16]
Violent video games may lead to increased aggression in some young children and youth by making aggression seem like a reasonable response to everyday conflicts. [17]
Exposure to violent media is affiliated with executive control impairments, which predicts high levels of impulsive aggression. [18]
For youth who are already involved in violent subcultures, such as gangs, media such as music and social networks may promote aggression as a social norm and can even incite violent acts. [19] , [20]

Physical aggression

To date, most research on violent media has focused on its relationship with physical aggression – either aggressive attitudes or actually aggressive behaviour. Though this is the area that has attracted the most attention, it is also where researchers have most often found no relationship between media violence and behaviour.

There is also reason to think that violence in media has different effects on different people and may interact with other risk factors. A 2017 study from Dartmouth College, assessing 24 studies and looking at 17,000 participants, concluded that playing violent video games is associated with greater levels of physical aggression over time. The research showed some disparity between ethnicities with the highest percentage of observation being among white participants, then Asian participants and hardly any at all among Hispanic participants. [21] Another meta-analysis found a relationship between violent video games and physical aggression with youth aged 14-16. [22]

It may also be that because some young people are more interested in violent media than others, a spiral effect occurs in which those who are consume a progressively higher amount of violent media relative to their peers, leading to greater and greater impacts. [23] Media violence can also have an influence on social norms around violence among teens, but its effect depends on how common they believe real-world aggression to be. Exposure to media violence made teens more likely to think their peers approved of it if they already thought there were high levels of aggression in their peer group, while those who thought there were lower levels were actually less likely to think their peers approved of violence after seeing it in the media. [24]

It’s important to note that even those researchers who have found a relationship between media violence and physical aggression consider it 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 consumed. The study 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. [25] Similarly, the Ontario government report Roots of Youth Violence identified a number of other risk factors that may interact with media violence in increasing the risk of aggressive behaviour, including “poverty, racism, community design, issues in the education system, family issues health, lack of economic opportunity for youth, issues in the justice system and lack of youth voice.” [26] Other research has identified as risk factors “parents’ low media literacy, limited social skills, male gender [and] availability of audiovisual media in the bedroom.” [27]

Relational aggression

Numerous studies have also found a relationship between media portrayals of relational aggression – including non-physical relationship violence [28] and “social” forms of bullying such as name-calling, ostracism and spreading rumours – and engaging in these behaviours or seeing them as acceptable, [29] leading some researchers to conclude that “social aggression on television poses more of a risk for imitation and learning than do portrayals of physical aggression” [30] and has a more powerful influence on behaviour than physical violence. [31] Relational aggression may also be more common in youth-focused media than physical aggression: researchers have found that nine in ten of the 50 most popular programs among 2 to 11-year-olds contain it. [32] Similarly, a worrying amount of pornography features sexual violence. One study found that one in eight videos shown to first-time visitors of popular porn sites featured content such as sexual assault, voyeurism, coercion and physical violence [33] – which may promote a ‘sexual script’ that normalizes aggressive and abusive sexual activity. [34]

As with physical aggression, the relationship between media and behaviour is complex. Some studies have found that girls are more heavily influenced than boys [35] , [36] while research on relational aggression in reality TV found that viewers who believe it to accurately reflect reality are more heavily influenced. [37]

Attitudes towards violence

Violence in media can also influence our views and attitudes. Some studies have found that exposure to media violence can make teens feel less concern for people who are in distress [38] or are victims of crime, [39] though some other researchers have found media violence does not reduce empathy. [40] Here, too, the details matter: research has found that representations of female victims of crime that depersonalize them make viewers less empathetic towards them and more prone to blaming the victims for what happened to them. [41]

In some cases, of course, attitudes can influence behaviour. One study found that playing violent video games made men more confident of their own fighting ability, less likely to see other men as tough and less able to recognize anger on others’ faces. [42] Similarly, research has found that whether or not violent media leads to aggression may depend on how much it fosters moral disengagement in players and viewers. [43]

Media may also have an impact on our views of violence as a desirable or acceptable solution to problems, even if it does not lead directly to aggression. One study found that boys who played violent video games were significantly more likely to have pro-violence attitudes than those who played non-violent games. [44] This is particularly true when it comes to the use of violence by military or police. Viewing violence on television is associated with higher support for using force to resolve social or political issues. [45] More specifically, viewers of crime shows are more likely to believe that police only use force when necessary and that ‘bending the rules’ will produce positive results rather than false confessions [46] and to support the use of the death penalty. [47]

A related phenomenon, “Mean World Syndrome,” coined by researcher George Gerbner, suggests that heavy TV viewers tend to perceive the world in ways that are consistent with the images on TV. Gerbner’s research found that those who watch greater amounts of television are more likely to:

overestimate their risk of being victimized by crime;
believe their neighbourhoods are unsafe;
believe “fear of crime is a very serious personal problem” [48] and
assume the crime rate is increasing, even when it is not. [49]

Research has consistently confirmed that media representations of crime influence how people perceive it, which can also lead to an exaggerated fear of crime or to worrying more about crimes that are less frequent but more newsworthy. [50] Media can also influence how we perceive specific types of violence. News coverage of domestic violence, for instance, can promote misconceptions about how common it is and encourage excuses for the perpetrator’s behaviour, [51] while coverage of gun violence can lead people to overestimate the number of mass shootings relative to other gun deaths. [52] However, as with other media forms, there are important differences between different kinds of news coverage. Local news has the biggest impact on perceptions of crime, [53] while in ‘news deserts’ (areas not served or underserved by local news) social networks, such as Nextdoor or Facebook groups, sometimes spread inaccurate information both about crime rates and specific incidents, sometimes even falsely accusing community members of committing crimes. [54]

Some scholars argue that, in the past few decades, violence in media, especially on television, has not only become more frequent and extreme but also more actively hostile to compassion. Perhaps the best example of this is The Walking Dead , which – along with being a breakout hit for its network, one of the last remaining “water-cooler” shows (i.e. those that most viewers can expect their friends and co-workers to have watched, or at least be aware of) and a pioneer in portraying gruesome violence on U.S. basic cable – also represents a change from the traditional portrayal of violence in American TV as being committed by ‘good guys’ in the name of maintaining the social order to “a repeated pattern of brutal killings of characters who are moral inspirations.” [55] Violence against characters that have been dehumanized, such as the zombies in The Walking Dead , may encourage moral disengagement . [56] Though some degree of moral disengagement is necessary to enjoy a violent media text, [57] especially one like a video game in which players are performing the violent acts, [58] under normal circumstances our moral sense is never entirely disengaged and seeing or performing violent acts that seem extreme or unjustified can provoke a strong moral reaction. [59] While othering and dehumanization are the intentional goals of much hate propaganda , portraying enemies as fundamentally inhuman – whether as literal zombies, in fiction, or as metaphorically ‘othered’ monsters in crime coverage – can also unintentionally promote greater moral disengagement, encouraging us to see their killing as morally neutral or even desirable and making us less likely to question the use of force against them. [60] For example, the group most influenced by crime dramas and news coverage of crime is white people with Black neighbours. [61]

Theories of violent media impact

One theory of how violent media may influence behaviour is priming , which holds that media, particularly interactive media such as video games, serve as teaching tools, demonstrating to us which behaviours are punished and which are rewarded. Its impact, then, does not come from a single exposure to a violent media text but from repetition. [62] According to priming theory, exposure to violent media will increase aggressive attitudes and behaviour, [63] while prosocial media will prompt empathy and more prosocial behaviour. [64] Some longitudinal studies have found support for this idea: a Canadian study of high school students found that high levels of playing violent video games was associated with a steeper increase in aggression over time compared to those who played less often. [65]

Priming effects have been found most powerfully in connection with images of weapons. Experiments have found that seeing images of guns primed aggressive thoughts, regardless of whether the gun was being used by a criminal, a soldier or a police officer. [66] Similarly, seeing gun violence in media made children more likely to play with and practice firing a (disabled) handgun, though seeing violence committed with a sword did not. [67] Other studies have found that just images of guns – even in the context of a sign prohibiting guns – can make people who see them more aggressive. [68]

However, other research has shown that context can be key to the impacts of violent media, with very different effects depending on who is committing it. For example, one study found that while watching heroic characters commit violent acts increased aggression, violent villains did not have the same impact. [69] Unfortunately, recent research has found that heroes in films popular with youth commit more violent acts than the villains. [70]

In video games, by contrast, committing violent acts while playing as a heroic character is not associated with being more aggressive, while playing as a violent villain or antihero is associated with aggression. [71] Therefore both the specific content (whether the violence is committed by a hero or villain) and the form (whether you are watching the violence or virtually committing it) influence the impact violent media may have. Similarly, some studies have found that while single-player video games may be related to aggression, violence in multiplayer games is not [72] – suggesting that the effect depends on players perceiving it as a story rather than simply a game.

Both of these theories may be partly true. Even in experiments that found priming effects, context was found to be important: images of athletes firing guns during Olympic shooting competitions, for instance, did not prime aggressive thoughts in the way that images of police, soldiers or criminals did. [73] Conversely, some studies have found that the key to whether or not seeing media violence leads to aggression is not simply whether the character is heroic or villainous, but whether or not the viewer identifies with them, suggesting that both priming and cultivation are at work. [74] Here, too, the relationship seems to be different for interactive media such as video games, where research found that identifying with a character did not influence media impact. [75]

Portrayals of relational aggression, similarly, had different impacts depending both on the content – in particular, whether or not the character engaging in the behaviour and whether or not the viewer thought the behaviour was funny [76] – and on elements of the particular medium or genre, such as whether or not the behaviour was followed by “canned laughter” from the laugh track. [77]

What should be apparent when we look at these all of these studies and data conclusions is that media violence is a highly complex and nuanced issue. There are clearly concerns with regards to violent media content such as age-appropriateness, saturation, desensitization and instilling fear or unease in viewers. At the same time, many of the media products through which we are exposed to violent imagery provide benefits as well. Games and movies may expose young people to some violent content, but studies increasingly show that they also offer positive benefits. There is no way to completely shut out violent content, to guarantee that children will never play video games that are rated for an older audience or to make certain that everyone’s feelings on what is inappropriate content will coincide with industry self-regulation practices. What concerned adults and parents can do is promote critical engagement with the media that young people and children consume, monitor children’s media use and discuss and establish rules at home to let young people understand what is or is not appropriate. More on how to talk about media violence with children can be found in the subsection Critically Engaging with Media Violence . If you are interested in legislation and industry tools that can help you to understand laws or give you a better idea of what to look out for, see our Government and Industry Responses to Media Violence .

[1] AAP committee on communications and media (2016). Virtual Violence. Pediatrics. 138(1).

[2] Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (2019). Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents' aggressive behaviour: evidence from a registered report. Royal Society open science , 6 (2), 171474.

[3] Dowsett, A., & Jackson, M. (2019). The effect of violence and competition within video games on aggression. Computers in Human Behavior , 99 , 22-27.

[4] Ferguson, C. J. (2015). Do angry birds make for angry children? A meta-analysis of video game influences on children’s and adolescents’ aggression, mental health, prosocial behavior, and academic performance. Perspectives on psychological science , 10 (5), 646-666.

[5] Gao, X., Pan, W., Li, C., Weng, L., Yao, M., & Chen, A. (2017). Long-time exposure to violent video games does not show desensitization on empathy for pain: an fMRI study. Frontiers in psychology , 8 , 650.

[6] DeCamp, W., & Ferguson, C. J. (2017). The impact of degree of exposure to violent video games, family background, and other factors on youth violence. Journal of youth and adolescence , 46 (2), 388-400.

[7] (2008) “The School Shooting/Violent Videogame Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?” Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling Volume 5, Issue 1-2.

[8] Ferguson, C, et al. (2012) “A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents.” Journal of Psychiatric Research . 46(2), 141-146,

[9] Cunningham, S. Engelstätter, B & Ward, M (2011) “Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1804959

[10] Weaver, A & Kobach, M. (2012) “The Relationship Between Selective Exposure and the Enjoyment of Television Violence.” Aggressive Behaviour Vol. 8

[11] CS, G & Bavelier, D (2012). Learning, attentional control, and action video games. Curr Biol. 22(6).

[12] Turel, O. (2020). Videogames and guns in adolescents: Tests of a bipartite theory. Computers in human behavior , 109 , 106355.

[13] Carras, M. C., Kalbarczyk, A., Wells, K., Banks, J., Kowert, R., Gillespie, C., & Latkin, C. (2018). Connection, meaning, and distraction: A qualitative study of video game play and mental health recovery in veterans treated for mental and/or behavioral health problems. Social Science & Medicine , 216 , 124-132

[14] Silva, J. R., & Greene-Colozzi, E. A. (2019). Fame-seeking mass shooters in America: Severity, characteristics, and media coverage. Aggression and violent behavior , 48 , 24-35.

[15] (2012) “Does excessive play of violent first-person-shooter-video-games dampen brain activity in response to emotional stimuli?” Biological Psychology . Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21982747

[16] Webb,T, Jenkins, L, Browne, N, Afifi, A & Kraus, J. (2007) “Violent Entertainment Pitched to Adolescents: An Analysis of PG-13 Films”. Pediatrics. Retrieved from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/6/e1219.full

[17] Anderson, C et al. (2008) “Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States”. Pediatrics . Retrieved from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/5.toc

[18] Swing EL, Anderson CA (2014). The role of attention problems and impulsiveness in media violence effects on aggression. Aggress Behav. ;40(3):197–203pmid:24452487

[19] Lauger, T. R., & Densley, J. A. (2018). Broadcasting badness: Violence, identity, and performance in the online gang rap scene. Justice Quarterly , 35 (5), 816-841.

[20] Patton, D. U., McGregor, K., & Slutkin, G. (2018). Youth gun violence prevention in a digital age. Pediatrics , 141 (4).

[21] Prescott, A et al. (2018) Violent video games and aggression metanalysis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (40) 9882-9888

[22] Burkhardt, J. & Lenhard, W. (2021) A Meta-Analysis on the Longitudinal, Age-Dependent

Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression. Media Psychology. DOI: 10.1080/15213269.2021.1980729

[23] Maria von Salisch, Jens Vogelgesang, Astrid Kristen & Caroline Oppl (2011):

Preference for Violent Electronic Games and Aggressive Behavior among Children: The Beginning of the Downward Spiral?, Media Psychology, 14:3, 233-258

[24] Fikkers, K. M., Piotrowski, J. T., Lugtig, P., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2016). The role of perceived peer norms in the relationship between media violence exposure and adolescents' aggression. Media Psychology , 19 (1), 4-26.

[25] Karlsen, F & Syvertsen, T (2004). Media Regulation and Parents . Statens Filmtilsyn.

[26] Government of Ontario (2018). “Review of the roots of youth violence: executive summary”. Retrieved from http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/professionals/oyap/roots/what.aspx

[27] Genner, S., & Süss, D. (2017). Socialization as media effect. The international encyclopedia of media effects , 1-15.

[28] Connolly, J., Friedlander, L., Pepler, D., Craig, W., & Laporte, L. (2010). The ecology of adolescent dating aggression: Attitudes, relationships, media use, and socio-demographic risk factors. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(5), 469–491. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2010.495028

[29] Martins, N. (2020). Effects of Media Use on Social Aggression in Childhood and Adolescence. The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology , 1-5.

[30] Martins, N., & Wilson, B. J. (2012). Mean on the screen: Social aggression in programs popular with children. Journal of Communication , 62 (6), 991-1009.

[31] Martins, N., & Weaver, A. (2019). The role of media exposure on relational aggression: A meta-analysis. Aggression and violent behavior , 47 , 90-99.

[32] Martins, N., & Wilson, B. J. (2012). Mean on the screen: Social aggression in programs popular with children. Journal of Communication , 62 (6), 991-1009.

[33] Vera-Gray, F., McGlynn, C., Kureshi, I., & Butterworth, K. (2021). Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography. British journal of criminology.

[34] Wiederman, M. W. (2015), ‘Sexual Script Theory: Past, Present, and Future’, in J. DeLamater and R. F. Plante,

eds, Handbook of the Sociology of Sexualities, 7–22. Springer.

[35] Coyne, S. M., Ehrenreich, S. E., Holmgren, H. G., & Underwood, M. K. (2019). “We're not gonna be friends anymore”: Associations between viewing relational aggression on television and relational aggression in text messaging during adolescence. Aggressive behavior , 45 (3), 319-326.

[36] Martins, N., & Wilson, B. J. (2012). Social aggression on television and its relationship to children's aggression in the classroom. Human Communication Research , 38 (1), 48-71.

[37] Ward, L. M., & Carlson, C. (2013). Modeling meanness: Associations between reality TV consumption, perceived realism, and adolescents' social aggression. Media Psychology , 16 (4), 371-389.

[38] Vossen, H. G., Piotrowski, J. T., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2017). The longitudinal relationship between media violence and empathy: Was it sympathy all along?. Media Psychology , 20 (2), 175-193.

[39] McLean, L. & Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Violent video games and attitudes towards victims of crime: An empirical study among youth. International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning,2(3), 1-16

[40] Ramos, R. A., Ferguson, C. J., Frailing, K., & Romero-Ramirez, M. (2013). Comfortably numb or just yet another movie? Media violence exposure does not reduce viewer empathy for victims of real violence among primarily Hispanic viewers. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2(1), 2–10. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030119

[41] Flood, M., & Pease, B. (2009). Factors influencing attitudes to violence against women. Trauma, violence, & abuse , 10 (2), 125-142.

[42] Denson, T. F., Dixson, B. J., Tibubos, A. N., Zhang, E., Harmon-Jones, E., & Kasumovic, M. M. (2020). Violent video game play, gender, and trait aggression influence subjective fighting ability, perceptions of men's toughness, and anger facial recognition. Computers in Human Behavior , 104 , 106175.

[43] Richmond, J., & Wilson, J. C. (2008). Are graphic media violence, aggression and moral disengagement related?. Journal of Managerial Psychology , 15 (2), 350-357.

[44] Bajovic, M. (2012). Violent Video Game Playing, Moral Reasoning, and Attitudes Towards Violence in Adolescents: Is There a Connection?.

[45] Eyal, K., Metzger, M. J., Lingsweiler, R. W., Mahood, C., & Yao, M. Z. (2006). Aggressive political opinions and exposure to violent media. Mass Communication & Society, 9(4), 399-428.

[46] Donovan, Kathleen and Klahm, Charles IV (2015). "The Role of Entertainment Media in Perceptions of Police Use of Force." Criminal Justice and Behavior42.12, 1261-1281.

[47] Britto, S., & Noga-Styron, K. E. (2014). Media consumption and support for capital punishment. Criminal Justice Review , 39 (1), 81-100.

[48] Gerbner, G. Violence and Terror in the Mass Media. Reports and Paper on Mass Communication No. 102. France: UNESCO.

[49] (2009). “Researchers rest their case: TV consumption predicts opinions about criminal justice system.” Purdue University.

[50] Champagne-Buckley, L. (2019) Media Influence on Perceptions of Crime. Master’s Project, University of Houston-Clear Lake.

[51] Sweeney, K. (2016). Factors Contributing to the Social Acceptance of Domestic Violence: A Systematic Review.

[52] Jashinsky, J. M., Magnusson, B., Hanson, C., & Barnes, M. (2017). Media agenda setting regarding gun violence before and after a mass shooting. Frontiers in public health , 4 , 291.

[53] Baranauskas, A. J., & Drakulich, K. M. (2018). Media construction of crime revisited: Media types, consumer contexts, and frames of crime and justice. Criminology , 56 (4), 679-714.

[54] Zarozny, B. (2021) “In a Pennsylvania town, a Facebook group fills the local news void.” NBC. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/pennsylvania-town-facebook-group-fills-local-news-void-rcna577

[55] Ta, H. (2017). Blood, Guns, and Plenty of Explosions: The Evolution of American Television Violence . eScholarship, University of California.

[56] Hartmann, T., Krakowiak, K. M., & Tsay-Vogel, M. (2014). How violent video games communicate violence: A literature review and content analysis of moral disengagement factors. Communication Monographs , 81 (3), 310-332.

[57] Richmond, J., & Wilson, J. C. (2008). Are graphic media violence, aggression and moral disengagement related?. Journal of Managerial Psychology , 15 (2), 350-357.

[58] Hartmann, T. (2017). The ‘Moral Disengagement in Violent Videogames’ Model. Game Studies , 17 (2).

[59] Bareither, C. (2017). “That was so mean: D”–Playful virtual violence and the pleasure of transgressing intersecting emotional spaces. Emotion, space and society , 25 , 111-118.

[60] Linnemann, T., Wall, T., & Green, E. (2014). The walking dead and killing state: Zombification and the normalization of police violence. Theoretical Criminology , 18 (4), 506-527.

[61] Baranauskas, A. J., & Drakulich, K. M. (2018). Media construction of crime revisited: Media types, consumer contexts, and frames of crime and justice. Criminology , 56 (4), 679-714.

[62] Gentile, D. A., & Gentile, J. R. (2008). Violent video games as exemplary teachers: A conceptual analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 37 (2), 127-141.

[63] Huesmann, L. R. (2007). The impact of electronic media violence: Scientific theory and research. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41 , S6−S13.

[64] Prot,S.,Anderson,C.A.,Barlett,C.P.,Coyne,S.M.,&Saleem,M.(2017).Content effects: Violence in the Media. In P.Roessler, C.A.Hoffner, & L.vanZoonen (Eds.) International Encyclopedia of Media Effects.Wiley-Blackwell.DOI:10.1002/9781118783764.wbieme0121

[65] Willoughby, T., Adachi, P. J., & Good, M. (2012). A longitudinal study of the association between violent video game play and aggression among adolescents. Developmental psychology , 48 (4), 1044.

[66] Bushman, B. J. (2018). Guns automatically prime aggressive thoughts, regardless of whether a “good guy” or “bad guy” holds the gun. Social Psychological and Personality Science , 9 (6), 727-733.

[67] Chang, J. H., & Bushman, B. J. (2019). Effect of exposure to gun violence in video games on children’s dangerous behavior with real guns: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA network open , 2 (5), e194319-e194319.

[68] Benjamin AJ, Crosby M (2019) A Case of Unintended Cognitive Consequences: Guns Prohibited Images Prime

Aggressive Thoughts. J Ment Health Soc Behav 1: 103. https://doi.org/10.33790/jmhsb1100103

[69] Phillips, C. B. (2018). Mechanisms driving the effects of violent and non-violent media on aggression and mood (Doctoral dissertation, University of Birmingham).

[70] Muller, J. N., Moroco, A., Loloi, J., Portolese, A., Wakefield, B. H., King, T. S., & Olympia, R. (2020). Violence depicted in superhero-based films stratified by protagonist/antagonist and gender. Cureus , 12 (2).

[71] Sauer, J. D., Drummond, A., & Nova, N. (2015). Violent video games: The effects of narrative context and reward structure on in-game and postgame aggression. Journal of experimental psychology: applied , 21 (3), 205.

[72] Shoshani, A., & Krauskopf, M. (2021). The Fortnite social paradox: The effects of violent-cooperative multi-player video games on children's basic psychological needs and prosocial behavior. Computers in Human Behavior , 116 , 106641.

[73] Bushman, B. J. (2018). Guns automatically prime aggressive thoughts, regardless of whether a “good guy” or “bad guy” holds the gun. Social Psychological and Personality Science , 9 (6), 727-733.

[74] Phillips, C. B. (2018). Mechanisms driving the effects of violent and non-violent media on aggression and mood (Doctoral dissertation, University of Birmingham).

[75] Lin, J. H. (2013). Do video games exert stronger effects on aggression than film? The role of media interactivity and identification on the association of violent content and aggressive outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior , 29 (3), 535-543.

[76] Martins, N., Mares, M. L., Malacane, M., & Peebles, A. (2020). Liked characters get a moral pass: Young viewers’ evaluations of social and physical aggression in tween sitcoms. Communication Research , 47 (8), 1181-1205.

[77] Russo, C. E. (2014). The insidious sitcom: features of tween TV that increase tolerance of verbal insults (Doctoral dissertation).

Essay on Media and Violence

Introduction

Research studies indicate that media causes violence and plays a role in desensitization, aggressive behavior, fear of harm, and nightmares. Examples of media platforms include movies, video games, television, and music. Violence in media has also been associated with health concerns. The youth have been the most common victims of media exposure and thus stand higher chances of exposure to violence (Anderson, 2016). In the contemporary world, violence in media platforms has been growing, reaching heightened levels, which is dangerous for society. When you turn on the television, there is violence, social media platforms; there is violence when you go to the movies; there is violence. Studies indicate that an average person in the United States watches videos for nearly five hours in a day. In addition, three-quarters of television content contain some form of violence, and the games being played today have elements of violence. This paper intends to evaluate the concept of media messages and their influence on violent and deviant behaviors. Television networks and video games will be considered.

The Netflix effect involves the behavior of staying home all day, ordering food, and relaxing the couch to watch Netflix programs (McDonald & Smith-Rowsey, 2016). Netflix and binge-watching have become popular among the younger generation and thus are exposed to different kinds of content being aired. Studies indicate that continuous exposure to violent materials has a negative effect on the aggressive behavior of individuals. Netflix is a global platform in the entertainment industry (Lobato, 2019). Although, the company does not have the rights to air in major countries such as China, India, and Japan, it has wide audience. One of the reasons for sanctions is the issues of content being aired by the platform, which may influence the behaviors of the young generation. The primary goal of Netflix is entertainment; it’s only the viewers who have developed specific effects that affect their violent behaviors through imitation of the content.

Television Networks

Television networks focus on feeding viewers with the latest updates on different happenings across the globe. In other instances, they focus on bringing up advertisements and entertainment programs. There is little room for violent messages and content in the networks unless they are airing movie programs, which also are intended for entertainment. However, there has been evidence in the violence effect witnessed in television networks. Studies called the “Marilyn Monroe effect” established that following the airing of many suicidal cases, there has been a growth in suicides among the population (Anderson, Bushman, Donnerstein, Hummer, & Warburton, 2015). Actual suicide cases increased by 2.5%, which is linked to news coverage regarding suicide. Additionally, some coverages are filled with violence descriptions, and their aftermath with may necessitate violent behaviors in the society. For instance, if televisions are covering mass demonstrations where several people have been killed, the news may trigger other protests in other parts of the country.

Communications scholars, however, dispute these effects and link the violent behaviors to the individuals’ perception. They argue that the proportion of witnessing violent content in television networks is minimal. Some acts of violence are associated with what the individual perceives and other psychological factors that are classified into social and non-social instigators (Anderson et al., 2015). Social instigators consist of social rejection, provocation, and unjust treatment. Nonsocial instigators are physical objects present, which include weapons or guns. Also, there are environmental factors that include loud noises, overcrowding, and heat. Therefore, there is more explanation of the causes of aggressive behaviors that are not initiated by television networks but rather a combination of biological and environmental factors.

Video games

Researchers have paid more attention to television networks and less on video games. Children spend more time playing video games. According to research, more than 52% of children play video games and spend about 49 minutes per day playing. Some of the games contain violent behaviors. Playing violent games among youth can cause aggressive behaviors. The acts of kicking, hitting, and pinching in the games have influenced physical aggression. However, communication scholars argue that there is no association between aggression and video games (Krahé & Busching, 2015). Researchers have used tools such as “Competition Reaction Time Test,” and “Hot Sauce Paradigm” to assess the aggression level. The “Hot Sauce Paradigm” participants were required to make hot sauce tor tasting. They were required to taste tester must finish the cup of the hot sauce in which the tester detests spicy products. It was concluded that the more the hot sauce testers added in the cup, the more aggressive they were deemed to be.

The “Competition Reaction Time Test” required individuals to compete with another in the next room. It was required to press a button fast as soon as the flashlight appeared. Whoever won was to discipline the opponent with loud noises. They could turn up the volume as high as they wanted. However, in reality, there was no person in the room; the game was to let individuals win half of the test. Researchers intended to test how far individuals would hold the dial. In theory, individuals who punish their opponents in cruel ways are perceived to be more aggressive. Another way to test violent behaviors for gamer was done by letting participants finish some words. For instance, “M_ _ _ ER,” if an individual completes the word as “Murder” rather than “Mother,” the character was considered to possess violent behavior (Allen & Anderson, 2017). In this regard, video games have been termed as entertainment ideologies, and the determination of the players is to win, no matter how brutal the game might be.

In this paper, fixed assumptions were used to correlate violent behaviors and media objects. But that was not the case with regards to the findings. A fixed model may not be appropriate in the examination of time-sensitive causes of dependent variables. Although the model is applicable for assessing specific entities in a given industry, the results may not be precise.

Conclusion .

Based on the findings of the paper, there is no relationship between violent behaviors and media. Netflix effect does not influence the behavior of individuals. The perceptions of the viewers and players is what matters, and how they understand the message being conveyed. Individuals usually play video games and watch televisions for entertainment purposes. The same case applies to the use of social media platforms and sports competitions. Even though there is violent content, individuals focus on the primary objective of their needs.

Analysis of sources

The sources have been thoroughly researched, and they provide essential information regarding the relationship between violent behaviors and media messages. Studies conducted by various authors like Krahé & Busching did not establish any relationship between the two variables. Allen & Anderson (2017) argue that the models for testing the two variables are unreliable and invalid. The fixed assumptions effect model was utilized, and its limitations have been discussed above. Therefore, the authors of these references have not been able to conclude whether there is a connection between violence and media messages.

Allen, J. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). General aggression model. The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects , 1-15.

Anderson, C. A. (2016). Media violence effects on children, adolescents and young adults. Health Progress , 97 (4), 59-62.

Anderson, C. A., Bushman, B. J., Donnerstein, E., Hummer, T. A., & Warburton, W. (2015). SPSSI research summary on media violence. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy , 15 (1), 4-19.

Krahé, B., & Busching, R. (2015). Breaking the vicious cycle of media violence use and aggression: A test of intervention effects over 30 months. Psychology of Violence , 5 (2), 217.

Lobato, R. (2019). Netflix nations: the geography of digital distribution . NYU Press.

McDonald, K., & Smith-Rowsey, D. (Eds.). (2016). The Netflix effect: Technology and entertainment in the 21st century . Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Cite this page

Similar essay samples.

Cybersecurity Research
Essay on Why It Is Difficult To Mitigate the Effects of Climate Change...
Essay on Outdoor Patio Furniture
Essay on Drug Abuse Among High School Students
A perfectly potent partnership – MPL and Aluminium Salt
Thought Paper

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Gun Violence — Thesis Statement On Gun Violence

Thesis Statement on Gun Violence

Categories: Gun Violence

About this sample

Words: 659 |

Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 659 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Introduction, causes of gun violence, impacts of gun violence, solutions to gun violence, 1. easy access to firearms, 2. illegal gun trafficking, 3. mental health issues, 4. stigma surrounding mental health, 5. socioeconomic factors, 1. strengthening gun laws, 2. investing in mental health resources, 3. addressing root causes of violence.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

Expert in: Social Issues

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 668 words

3 pages / 1355 words

1 pages / 400 words

3 pages / 1235 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Gun Violence

Why are guns dangerous? Guns, often considered tools for personal protection, pose significant dangers that extend far beyond their intended purposes. This essay delves into the inherent dangers of firearms by analyzing the [...]

Guns have been a controversial topic in the United States for many years. While some argue that owning a gun is a right and can be used for self-defense, there are several reasons why guns are bad for society. This essay will [...]

Roughly 30,000 men, women, and children are murdered in the United States every year at the barrel of a firearm. Whether it is in educational institutions, cinema theaters, work environments, places of worship, or on live TV, [...]

Mental health care strategies for victims of gun violence require a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach that addresses the psychological, emotional, and practical needs of these individuals. By recognizing the impact of gun [...]

People nationwide are debating about ways to reduce gun violence. Guns have always been a part of America. In the beginning, guns were a key part of survival. They were needed to kill animals for food and for protection. [...]

At different points of American History, deliberations attributed to the bearing of arms have resulted in heated debates with opposing sides criticizing each other perceptions while simultaneously providing extensive evidence in [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Forgot Password?
Create Account
User ID: -->
Password: -->

Our website has detected that you are using an outdated internet browser. Using an outdated browser can limit your ability to use all of the features on our website, including the ability to make purchases and register for meetings. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Directories

Community Benefit
Disaster Resources
Diversity & Disparities
Environment
Global Health
Human Trafficking
Immigration
Ministry Formation
Ministry Identity Assessment
Palliative Care
Pastoral Care
Sponsorship
We Are Called
Calendar of Events
Assembly 2024
Safety Protocols
Prayers During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Meditations
For Patients & Families
Observances
For Those Who Work in Catholic Health Care
For Meetings
Social Justice
Calendar of Prayers
Prayer Cards
Health Progress Prayer Services
World Day of the Sick Blessing
The Angel Gabriel En Route to Mary
The Annunciation and St. Ann
The Visitation and Zechariah
The Magi Set Up Camp
The Nativity and The Midwives
2020 Advent Reflections
Lent Reflections Archive
Video & Audio Reflections
Inspired by the Saints
The Synod on Synodality
Bibliography of Prayers
Hear Us, Heal Us
2018 Month of Prayer
2017 Month of Prayer
Links to Other Prayer Resources
Week of Thanks
Current Issue
Prayer Service Archives
DEI Discussion Guide
Advertising Rates & Specifications
Subscription Rates
Author's Guide
Submit an Article
2024 Awards for 2023 Work
HCEUSA Subject Index
Periodical Review
Submit story ideas to the editor
Catholic Media Association Awards 2024

Media Violence Effects on Children, Adolescents and Young Adults

BY: CRAIG A. ANDERSON, MA, PhD

I killed my first Klingon in 1979. It took place in the computer center at Stanford University, where I was playing a new video game based on the Star Trek television series. I was an "early adopter" of the new technology of video games, and continued to be so for many years, first as a fan of this entertainment medium, and later as a researcher interested in the question of what environmental factors influence aggressive and violent behavior.

Of course, like most young men and women of that era, I had grown up witnessing thousands of killings and other acts of aggression in a wide array of television shows and films. Today's youth are even more inundated with media violence than past generations, mostly from entertainment sources but also from news and educational media. And even though the public remains largely unaware of the conclusiveness of more than six decades of research on the effects of exposure to screen media violence, the scientists most directly involved in this research know quite a bit about these effects.

The briefest summary of hundreds of scientific studies can be boiled down to two main points. First, exposure to media violence is a causal risk factor for physical aggression, both immediately after the exposure and months, even years, later. Second, in the absence of other known risk factors for violence, high exposure to media violence will not turn a normal well-adjusted child or adolescent into a mass killer.

SOME DEFINITIONS One reason for much of the confusion and debate among even highly educated citizens, health care professionals and even a few scientists is that when media violence researchers use certain terms and concepts, they have somewhat different meanings than when the general public uses the same words.

By "aggression," researchers mean "behavior that is intended to harm another person who does not wish to be harmed." Thus, hitting, kicking, pinching, stabbing and shooting are types of physical aggression.

Playing soccer or basketball or even football with energy and confidence are not usually considered acts of aggression, even though that is what most coaches mean when they exhort their charges to "play aggressively." Somehow, the phrase "play assertively" doesn't have the same ring to it.

By "violent behavior," most modern aggression and violence scholars mean "aggressive behavior (as defined above) that has a reasonable chance of causing harm serious enough to require medical attention." Note that the behavior does not have to actually cause the harm to be classified as violent; shooting at a person but missing still qualifies as a violent behavior.

By "media violence" we mean scenes and story lines in which at least one character behaves aggressively towards at least one other character, using the above definition of "aggression," not the definition of "violence." Thus, television shows, movies, and video games in which characters fight (Power Rangers, for example), or say mean things about each other (often called relational aggression), or kill bad guys, all are instances of media violence, even if there is no blood, no gore, no screaming in pain. By this definition, most modern video games rated by the video game industry as appropriate for children — up to 90 percent, by some estimates — are violent video games.

AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE Short-term and long-term effects of violent media use on aggressive behavior have been demonstrated by numerous studies across age, culture, gender, even personality types. Overall, the research literature suggests that media violence effects are not large, but they accumulate over time to produce significant changes in behavior that can significantly influence both individuals and society.

For example, one of the longest duration studies of the same individuals found that children exposed to lots of violent television shows at age 8 later became more violent adults at age 30, even after statistically controlling for how aggressive they were at age 8.

Similar long-term effects (up to three years, so far) on aggressive and violent behavior have been found for frequent exposure to violent video games. One six-month longitudinal study found that frequent violent video game play at the beginning of a school year was associated with a 25 percent increase in the likelihood of being in a physical fight during that year, even after controlling for whether or not the child had been in a fight the previous year.

Short-term experimental studies, in which children are randomly assigned to either a violent or nonviolent media exposure condition for a brief period, conclusively demonstrate that the media violence effects are causal. In one such study, for example, children who played a child-oriented violent video game (i.e., no blood, gore, screaming …) later attempted to deliver 47 percent more high-intensity punishments to another child than did children who had been randomly assigned to play a nonviolent video game. Even cartoonish media violence increases aggression.

In recent years, there have been several intervention studies designed to test whether reducing exposure to screen violence over several months or longer can reduce inappropriate aggressive behavior. These randomized control experiments have found that, yes, children and adolescents randomly assigned to the media intervention conditions show a decrease in aggression relative to those in the control conditions.

HOW MEDIA VIOLENCE INCREASES AGGRESSION How does exposure to media violence lead to increased aggressive behavior? Media violence scholars have identified several basic psychological processes involved. They differ somewhat for short-term versus long-term effects, but they all involve various types of learning.

Short-term effects are those that occur immediately after exposure. The main ways that media violence exposure increases aggression in the short term are:

Direct imitation of the observed behavior
Observational learning of attitudes, beliefs and expected benefits of aggression
Increased excitation
Priming of aggression-related ways of thinking and feeling

In essence, for at least a brief period after viewing or playing violent media, the exposed person thinks in more aggressive ways, feels more aggressive, perceives that others are hostile towards him or her and sees aggressive solutions as being more acceptable and beneficial.

The short-term effects typically dissipate quickly. However, with repeated exposure to violent media, the child or adolescent "learns" these short-term lessons in a more permanent way, just as practicing multiplication tables or playing chess improves performance on those skills. That is, the person comes to hold more positive beliefs about aggressive solutions to conflict, develops what is sometimes called a "hostile attribution bias" (a tendency to view ambiguous negative events in a hostile way) and becomes more confident that an aggressive action on their part will work.

There also is growing evidence that repeated exposure to blood, gore and other aspects of extremely violent media can lead to emotional desensitization to the pain and suffering of others. In turn, such desensitization can lead to increased aggression by removing one of the built-in brakes that normally inhibits aggression and violence. Furthermore, this desensitization effect reduces the likelihood of pro-social, empathetic, helping behavior when viewing a victim of violence.

Interestingly, these same basic learning and priming effects account for the fact that exposure to nonviolent, pro-social media can lead to increased pro-social behavior.

SCREEN TIME EFFECTS For a number of years, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended very strict limits on children's exposure to any types of screen media, including TVs and computers, primarily because of concern about attention deficits. For example, they recommend that children under the age of 2 years have no exposure to electronic screens, even nonviolent media. Recent research with children, adolescents and young adults suggests that both nonviolent and violent media contribute to real-world attention problems, such as attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Furthermore, these attention problems are strongly linked to aggressive behavior, especially impulsive types of aggression.

Another emerging problem with video game usage goes by various addiction-related labels, such as video game addiction, internet addiction and internet/gaming disorder. Research across multiple countries and various measures of problematic game use suggests that about 8 percent of "gamers" have serious problems with their gaming habit. That is, their gaming activities interfere with significant aspects of their lives, such as interpersonal relationships, school or work activities. This newer research literature suggests that for some individuals, video game problems look much like gambling addiction.

MAGNITUDE OF HARM News media often report exaggerated claims about "the" cause of the most recent violent tragedy, whether it is a school shooting or another mass killing. Sometimes the cause that is hyped by these stories is violent video games; other times it is mental illness, or gun control, or lack of gun control.

Behavioral scientists (and reasonably thoughtful people in general) know that human behavior is complex, and it is affected by many variables. Violence researchers in particular know that such extreme events as homicide cannot be boiled down to a single cause. Instead, behavioral scientists (including violence scholars) rely on what is known as risk and resilience models, or risk and protective factors.

All consequential behavior is influenced by dozens (maybe hundreds) of risk and protective factors. In the violence domain, there are dozens of known risk and protective factors. Growing up in a violent household or seeing lots of violence in one's neighborhood are two such risk factors. Growing up in a nonviolent household and having warm, caring parents who are highly involved with child rearing are protective factors. From this perspective, exposure to media violence is one known risk factor for later inappropriate aggression and violence. It is not the most important risk factor; joining a violent gang is a good candidate for that title. But it also isn't the least important risk factor.

Indeed, some studies suggest that media violence exposure carries about the same risk potential as having abusive parents or antisocial parents. One major difference from other known risk factors for later aggression and violence is that parents and caregivers can relatively easily and inexpensively reduce a child's exposure to media violence.

WHY BELIEVE THIS ARTICLE? It is easy to find very vocal critics of the mainstream summary that I have presented in this article. A simple web search will generate links to any number of them. Many of the critics are supported by the media industries in one way or another, many are heavy users of violent media and so feel threatened by violence research (much like cigarette smokers once felt threatened by cancer research), some are threatened by anything they see as impinging on free-speech rights, and many are simply ignorant about the science. But, a few appear to have relevant scientific credentials. So, a reasonable question for a parent or health care professional to ask is why believe that exposure to media violence creates harmful effects, rather than maintain the much more comfortable position that there are no harmful effects.

The simple answer is this: Every major professional scientific body that has conducted reviews of the scientific literature has come to the same conclusion. This group includes the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the U.S. Surgeon General and the International Society for Research on Aggression, among others. I have posted these and other, similar reports online. 1

In 1972, former U.S. Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld, MD, testified before the U.S. Senate on his assessment of the research on TV violence and behavior: "It is clear to me that the causal relationship between televised violence and antisocial behavior is sufficient to warrant appropriate and immediate remedial action," he said. "There comes a time when the data are sufficient to justify action. That time has come." 2

In response to one or two vocal critics of the mainstream research community and perhaps to pressure from other groups, the American Psychological Association created a new media violence assessment panel in 2013 to assess the association's 2005 statement and update it. They took a very unusual step to avoid any appearance of bias by excluding all major mainstream media violence scholars from the panel. Instead, the panel was composed of reputable psychological science scholars with expertise in developmental, social and related psychology domains, along with leading meta-analysis statistical experts. Their report, released in 2015, confirmed what the mainstream media violence research community has been saying for years: There are real and harmful effects of violent media.

Violent media are neither the harmless fun that the media industries and their apologists would like you to believe, nor are they the cause of the downfall of society that some alarmists proclaim. Nonetheless, electronic media in the 21st century dominate many children's and adolescents' waking hours, taking more time than any other activity, even time in school and interactions with parents. Thus, electronic media have become important socializing agents, agents that have a measurable impact.

Many of the effects of nonviolent electronic media are positive, but the vast majority of violent media effects are negative. Parents and other caregivers can mitigate the harmful effects of violent media in several ways, such as by increasing positive or "protective" factors in the child's environment, and by reducing exposure to violent media. This is not an easy task, but it can be done with little or no expense. The benefits of doing so are healthier, happier, more successful children, adolescents and young adults.

CRAIG A. ANDERSON is Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, and director of the Center for the Study of Violence, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

http://public.psych.iastate.edu/caa/StatementsonMediaViolence.html .
Jesse Feldman, statement in hearings before Subcommittee on Communications of Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, Serial #92-52 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972) 25-27.

For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3490.

Also in this Issue

Is Violence 'Senseless'? Not According to Science: Let's Make Sense of It and Treat It Like a Disease
Violence: A Community Health Approach
Why a Trash-Strewn Lot Became a Soccer Field
Leaving Gangs Behind to Live Parables of Kinship
Women Religious Unite to Eradicate Trafficking

1625 Eye Street NW Suite 550 Washington, DC 20006 (202) 296-3993

ST. LOUIS OFFICE

4455 Woodson Road St. Louis, MO 63134 (314) 427-2500

Social Media
Focus Areas
Publications
Career Center

We Will Empower Bold Change to Elevate Human Flourishing SM

The Effects of Media Violence on People Argumentative Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

Despite the fact that there is some evidence that, lengthy exposure to violent media increases aggressive behavior in people, this exposure alone cannot cause people to become violent and aggressive for there is no established connection between violent entertainment and violent behavior.

On the contrary, there is substantial evidence that violent, belligerent, and emotionally delinquent environments lead to aggressive behavior more than watching violent films does. This may be a contentious issue with numerous people linking violent media to aggressive behavior. Nevertheless, there are other people, as the writer, who think that exposure to violent media alone does not lead to increase in aggressive behavior. I strongly refute the claims that exposure to violent media leads to increase in violent behavior.

First, the research methodologies used to study and analyze the link between violent media exposure and aggressive behavior are more than often flawed. According to Gauntlett, mainstream researchers approach the issue of violent media from the perspective that media causes violence (23).

With this ingrained deeply in researchers’ minds, they seek to establish violent reactions only in the context of media consumption. The anticipated results in such a case would obviously place blame increase in aggressive behavior on exposure to violent media. This should not be the case as research should start by focusing on the violence itself; regardless of the cause, and then try to mire its causes.

This approach would work better to produce results that are more credible. Moreover, most of the studies focus on children without using controls like adults. Most of these studies seek to qualify a “barely-concealed conservative ideology” (Gauntlett 45). To complicate the whole issue, what researchers may consider as ‘violent’ in research premises, may not be violent in context of the viewer. Additionally, the research objects are based on former studies that used blemished methodologies not founded on theory.

Supporters of allegations that exposure to violent media leads to aggressive behavior may be quick to point out cases like the media attention generated by Michael Johnson case. It is true that this case attracted much publicity but these critics forget to indicate that this is not always the case.

Human beings are not copycats and they will draw a clear line between what is good and bad. It is true that there are copycat violent acts like murder and suicide among others. However, Barker posits that, these copycat violent acts occur mostly in abnormal fostering (56). Research indicates that, raising people in violent or aggressive environments will have great impact in life than mere watching of given movies or listening to some music. There is enough evidence to show that most of copycat murderers are mentally unstable.

It beats logic to assume that simply because people have seen violent acts, they will go ahead and commit them. Millions of people watch violent movies all over the world; therefore, if exposure to violent media increases aggressive behaviors then we would have millions of aggressive people world allover.

This is not the case and research indicates that, only few people engage in aggressive behaviors as a direct result of watching violent movies. Moreover, people who watch these movies in their childhood grow up to be normal responsible people (Ward 87). Therefore, to claim that exposure to violent media leads to increased aggressive behavior hold no substance to qualify it.

People like Elizabeth Newson have drawn a strong link between violent media and violent lifestyle. For instance, in 1994, Elizabeth made reported that the movie Child’s Play 3 caused two boys, aged 10, to murder James Bulger. Nevertheless, in response to these allegations, Barker indicates that, Elizabeth’s accounts relied greatly on opinions and press instead of relying on results from an independent research (63).

This points out how flawed research on media violence can be. In the murder of James Bulger, there was no evidence that the two boys had watched the alleged film. Unfortunately, after something pops into the media, people accept it without taking a step further to investigate the credibility of the information. Ward posits that, many researches on violent media have failed to establish adverse effects and that most of the hypotheses have proved to be null (12).

There are cases whereby people have reacted violently even without watching violent scenes in the media. For instance, after watching the evening news, a father kills his entire family using a gun; he is arrested and brought before the judge; he explains that his actions emanated from the ‘bad’ news he watched.

He claims that, the news was too bad that he saw no need of anyone living. Is this case different from any other violent behaviors arising from violent media? The answer is of course no! In this incidence, the man must have been abnormal and his actions cannot be explained entirely under the pretext of ‘bad news’ he watched.

Similarly, the few cases of violent behavior arising from watching violent films cannot be explained by the fact that the assailant had watched a violent film. There has to be something more than watching violent films and this is where researchers fail in their work.

According to Barker, there are other factors as socio-cultural issues in criminal cases. These factors cannot be dictated by watching of violent media only. “We must look beyond a specific film to think about the specific context in which it has been consumed, and the wider social background of the people” (29).

We cannot explicitly say that this issue on media can cause or cannot cause aggressive behavior. The best thing is to probe what other factors as social issues make some people perceive and use media in a way that will bring aggression to them. The bottom line is; influence from violent media alone cannot lead to increase in aggressive behavior.

To cap it all, the research on violent media is minimal and often utilizes flawed methodologies. Questioning the credibility of these methodologies, Ward said, “The real puzzle is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this field could draw any conclusions about the pattern let alone argue with such confidence and even passion that it demonstrates the harm of violence on television, in film and in video games” (34).

According to Barker, if exposure to violent media leads to increase in aggressive behavior, then America would be a violent state (68) because in contemporary times, the media is littered with violent scenes of sundry and diversity. In the US, crime up surged between 1965 and 1980 and this was attributed to violent media. The authorities responded appropriately and crime rates leveled around 1992. Since then, violent media is allover and there is no equal increase in crime rates.

The way out of this long-standing misconception about violent media is to conduct more conclusive research works. Research should be independent and should use credible sources not just opinions and sentiments from the press.

Most of the films that are violent have political themes and this may explain in part why many people do not like them. Nevertheless, people should be informed about what is happening around them. In this regard, we should not criminalize some informative and entertaining sentiments in the media like violent films or movies.

Therefore, we can see that, although evidence suggests prolonged exposure to violent media increases aggressive behavior in people, that exposure alone does not cause people to become violent and aggressive for two main reasons. First, there is no established connection between violent entertainment and violent behavior. Additionally, there is enough evidence to show that violent environment leads to violent behaviors more than violent media does.

Works Cited

Barker, Mitchell. The Newson Report: a Case Study in Common Sense in III Effects in The Media /Violence Debate. London: Routledge, 2001.

Gauntlett, Dean. Ten Things Wrong with the ‘Effects Model’, Approaches to Audiences – A Reader , 1998. Web.

Ward, Michael. Video games, Crime & Violence, 2007. Web.

“Mind over Mass Media” Steven Pinker Article in New York Times
Mass Media Impact on Society
Soldier Treatment in "Regeneration" by Pat Barker
Marketing: Main Categories of Private Brands
Competitive Rivalry in Rental Housing
ESPN Sports Media Social Response
The Impact of Media on Society
Role of Media in Society
Media and Celebrity Influence on Society
Animation Problems
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, October 10). The Effects of Media Violence on People. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-effects-of-media-violence-on-people/

"The Effects of Media Violence on People." IvyPanda , 10 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-effects-of-media-violence-on-people/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Effects of Media Violence on People'. 10 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Effects of Media Violence on People." October 10, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-effects-of-media-violence-on-people/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Effects of Media Violence on People." October 10, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-effects-of-media-violence-on-people/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Effects of Media Violence on People." October 10, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-effects-of-media-violence-on-people/.

Media Violence - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Media violence refers to representations of violent acts and situations in media outlets like television, films, and video games. Essays could explore the possible correlation between media violence and real-world aggression, the societal implications of media violence, or the effectiveness of regulations and censorship. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to Media Violence you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Is Violence Media Good for Kids?

Children usually learn better from what they see than what parents or teachers teach them. Even though, parents usually tell your children that violent media is not good for them, they should not try to play it, and it has to be forgotten completely, but some of them still try to play it, and many of them has been addicted to violent games. In the article "Violent Media is Good for Kids", the author Gerard Jones argues that bloody videogames, […]

Gerard Jones’ Biased Evaluation of Violence in Media

In the essay "Violent Media Is Good for Kids", Gerard Jones is arguing that violent media is more beneficial than harmful to children. In his essay, Jones explains how it is important for children to have a medium in which they can express their feelings in, instead of repressing them deep within themselves. Jones maintains that children need an outlet to release feelings that they tend to suffocate within themselves, because society has made rage and other feelings such as; […]

Graphic Violence in the Media

Because of easy access to all types of media in today's world, exposure to graphic violence in the media has become a troubling social issue. Graphic violence is described as especially vivid, brutal, and realistic acts of violence in visual media such as literature, film, television and video games. It may be simulated through live action or animation. Graphic violence generally consists of any clear and uncensored depictions of various violent acts. Violent acts include murder, assault with a weapon, […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

Is Violence Media Good?

Violence portrayed in the media has set certain expectations for audiences when they watch action films and believe conflict is necessary. But how much violence is too much violence, and can media violence be argued as good or bad for kids? Some people believe that media violence increases the possibility of actual violence in society while other people might say that media has little impact on our lives. According to Urban Dictionary, violence in media is described as "an extreme […]

Violence Caused by Media or not

Many people argue that media violence is the gateway to violent behavior in individuals. But upon closer examination, this argument falls apart. In fact, several studies definitively demonstrate how violence is caused by other factors, with media violence playing just a small part in the outcome. So, while it is commonly believed that consumption of violent media leads to more aggressive behavior in the population, personality, psychological disorders, upbringing, economics, and substance abuse are shown to contribute more towards the […]

Effects of Multi Media on Violence in School

School violence on students can cause psychological and physical pain. The physical pain they get can cause them to be hospitalized. Sometimes that school violence cause students to shoot up schools. People's aggressive behavior increased watching aggressive programs on TV. Students that watch aggressive TV show start to become tougher and less emotional. TV mainly effect students because in the show they watch they become aggressive with other people. Research has also shown that the viewers who watch violent shows […]

Violence in the Mass Media

Violence has been shown through movies, TV shows, and video games since the early 1900s. The nation that we live in today has changed due to an increased demand for violence. The amount of violence shown needs to be reduced to help this generation and the ones to ones to come, while many argue the media has caused teens to show an increase in aggressive behavior everytime they watch or play something that involves violence. People tend to blame the […]

Violence Caused by Media

Literature Review Violence in media such as, in television, video games, or movies has raised a substantial amount of concern regarding its effects on certain populations. Media violence portrays various graphic images and scenes that convey criminal acts or horror-like graphics such as, blood. Through studies of violence in mass media, there has been a correlation between themes of violence in media sources with real-world aggression and violence over time. Many social scientists have been able to support this correlation. […]

Violence in Media

Researchers from Ohio State did a study where they showed one group of 8-12 year olds a movie where the characters used guns and another group a movie where the characters did not use guns. When the group that watched the movie with guns were handed a real, unloaded gun, they pulled the trigger on average 2-3 times more than the group that was not shown the movie (LoBue). The idea that violence shown through media is the source of […]

Music Lyrics and Aggression: a Critical Examination

Music, as a form of artistic expression, has long been a subject of fascination and controversy. Within the realm of music, the influence of lyrics on listener behavior, particularly in relation to aggression, has garnered significant attention. This essay delves into the complex interplay between violent lyrics and listener behavior, shedding light on the potential impact of music on societal attitudes and actions. The connection between music lyrics and aggression is a multifaceted issue that demands nuanced exploration. At the […]

Additional Example Essays

Should Teachers Carry Guns
What A Streetcar Named Desire lost in the film
What is the Importance of Professionalism?
A Letter From The Trenches
Animal Testing Should Be Banned
Followership and Servant Leadership
The Mental Health Stigma
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
Substance Abuse and Mental Illnesses
Oedipus is a Tragic Hero
Dogs Are Better Than Cats Essay
Nursing Shortage: solutions of the problem

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Publications
Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

Advanced Search
Journal List
HHS Author Manuscripts

The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research

L. rowell huesmann.

The University of Michigan

Since the early 1960s research evidence has been accumulating that suggests that exposure to violence in television, movies, video games, cell phones, and on the internet increases the risk of violent behavior on the viewer’s part just as growing up in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of them behaving violently. In the current review this research evidence is critically assessed, and the psychological theory that explains why exposure to violence has detrimental effects for both the short run and long run is elaborated. Finally, the size of the “media violence effect” is compared with some other well known threats to society to estimate how important a threat it should be considered.

One of the notable changes in our social environment in the 20 th and 21st centuries has been the saturation of our culture and daily lives by the mass media. In this new environment radio, television, movies, videos, video games, cell phones, and computer networks have assumed central roles in our children’s daily lives. For better or worse the mass media are having an enormous impact on our children’s values, beliefs, and behaviors. Unfortunately, the consequences of one particular common element of the electronic mass media has a particularly detrimental effect on children’s well being. Research evidence has accumulated over the past half-century that exposure to violence on television, movies, and most recently in video games increases the risk of violent behavior on the viewer’s part just as growing up in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of violent behavior. Correspondingly, the recent increase in the use of mobile phones, text messaging, e-mail, and chat rooms by our youth have opened new venues for social interaction in which aggression can occur and youth can be victimized – new venues that break the old boundaries of family, neighborhood, and community that might have protected our youth to some extent in the past. These globe spanning electronic communication media have not really introduced new psychological threats to our children, but they have made it much harder to protect youth from the threats and have exposed many more of them to threats that only a few might have experienced before. It is now not just kids in bad neighborhoods or with bad friends who are likely to be exposed to bad things when they go out on the street. A ‘virtual’ bad street is easily available to most youth now. However, our response should not be to panic and keep our children “indoors” because the “streets” out there are dangerous. The streets also provide wonderful experiences and help youth become the kinds of adults we desire. Rather our response should be to understand the dangers on the streets, to help our children understand and avoid the dangers, to avoid exaggerating the dangers which will destroy our credibility, and also to try to control exposure to the extent we can.

Background for the Review

Different people may have quite different things in mind when they think of media violence. Similarly, among the public there may be little consensus on what constitutes aggressive and violent behavior . Most researchers, however, have clear conceptions of what they mean by media violence and aggressive behavior.

Most researchers define media violence as visual portrayals of acts of physical aggression by one human or human-like character against another. This definition has evolved as theories about the effects of media violence have evolved and represents an attempt to describe the kind of violent media presentation that is most likely to teach the viewer to be more violent. Movies depicting violence of this type were frequent 75 years ago and are even more frequent today, e.g., M, The Maltese Falcon, Shane, Dirty Harry, Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, Kill Bill . Violent TV programs became common shortly after TV became common in American homes about 55 years ago and are common today, e.g., Gunsmoke, Miami Vice, CSI, and 24. More recently, video games, internet displays, and cell phone displays have become part of most children’s growing-up, and violent displays have become common on them, e.g., Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, Warrior .

To most researchers, aggressive behavior refers to an act that is intended to injure or irritate another person. Laymen may call assertive salesmen “aggressive,” but researchers do not because there is no intent to harm. Aggression can be physical or non-physical. It includes many kinds of behavior that do not seem to fit the commonly understood meaning of “violence.” Insults and spreading harmful rumors fit the definition. Of course, the aggressive behaviors of greatest concern clearly involve physical aggression ranging in severity from pushing or shoving, to fighting, to serious assaults and homicide. In this review he term violent behavior is used to describe these more serious forms of physical aggression that have a significant risk of seriously injuring the victim.

Violent or aggressive actions seldom result from a single cause; rather, multiple factors converging over time contribute to such behavior. Accordingly, the influence of the violent mass media is best viewed as one of the many potential factors that influence the risk for violence and aggression. No reputable researcher is suggesting that media violence is “the” cause of violent behavior. Furthermore, a developmental perspective is essential for an adequate understanding of how media violence affects youthful conduct and in order to formulate a coherent response to this problem. Most youth who are aggressive and engage in some forms of antisocial behavior do not go on to become violent teens and adults [ 1 ]. Still, research has shown that a significant proportion of aggressive children are likely to grow up to be aggressive adults, and that seriously violent adolescents and adults often were highly aggressive and even violent as children [ 2 ]. The best single predictor of violent behavior in older adolescents, young adults, and even middle aged adults is aggressive behavior when they were younger. Thus, anything that promotes aggressive behavior in young children statistically is a risk factor for violent behavior in adults as well.

Theoretical Explanations for Media Violence Effects

In order to understand the empirical research implicating violence in electronic media as a threat to society, an understanding of why and how violent media cause aggression is vital. In fact, psychological theories that explain why media violence is such a threat are now well established. Furthermore, these theories also explain why the observation of violence in the real world – among the family, among peers, and within the community – also stimulates aggressive behavior in the observer.

Somewhat different processes seem to cause short term effects of violent content and long term effects of violent content, and that both of these processes are distinct from the time displacement effects that engagement in media may have on children. Time displacement effects refer to the role of the mass media (including video games) in displacing other activities in which the child might engage which might change the risk for certain kinds of behavior, e.g. replacing reading, athletics, etc. This essay is focusing on the effects of violent media content, and displacement effects will not be reviewed though they may well have important consequences.

Short-term Effects

Most theorists would now agree that the short term effects of exposure to media violence are mostly due to 1) priming processes, 2) arousal processes, and 3) the immediate mimicking of specific behaviors [ 3 , 4 ].

Priming is the process through which spreading activation in the brain’s neural network from the locus representing an external observed stimulus excites another brain node representing a cognition, emotion, or behavior. The external stimulus can be inherently linked to a cognition, e.g., the sight of a gun is inherently linked to the concept of aggression [ 5 ], or the external stimulus can be something inherently neutral like a particular ethnic group (e.g., African-American) that has become linked in the past to certain beliefs or behaviors (e.g., welfare). The primed concepts make behaviors linked to them more likely. When media violence primes aggressive concepts, aggression is more likely.

To the extent that mass media presentations arouse the observer, aggressive behavior may also become more likely in the short run for two possible reasons -- excitation transfer [ 6 ] and general arousal [ 7 ]. First, a subsequent stimulus that arouses an emotion (e.g. a provocation arousing anger) may be perceived as more severe than it is because some of the emotional response stimulated by the media presentation is miss-attributed as due to the provocation transfer. For example, immediately following an exciting media presentation, such excitation transfer could cause more aggressive responses to provocation. Alternatively, the increased general arousal stimulated by the media presentation may simply reach such a peak that inhibition of inappropriate responses is diminished, and dominant learned responses are displayed in social problem solving, e.g. direct instrumental aggression.

The third short term process, imitation of specific behaviors, can be viewed as a special case of the more general long-term process of observational learning [ 8 ]. In recent years evidence has accumulated that human and primate young have an innate tendency to mimic whomever they observe [ 9 ]. Observation of specific social behaviors around them increases the likelihood of children behaving exactly that way. Specifically, as children observe violent behavior, they are prone to mimic it. The neurological process through which this happens is not completely understood, but it seems likely that “mirror neurons,” which fire when either a behavior is observed or when the same behavior is acted out, play an important role [ 10 , 4 ].

Long-term Effects

Long term content effects, on the other hand, seem to be due to 1) more lasting observational learning of cognitions and behaviors (i.e., imitation of behaviors), and 2) activation and desensitization of emotional processes.

Observational learning

According to widely accepted social cognitive models, a person’s social behavior is controlled to a great extent by the interplay of the current situation with the person’s emotional state, their schemas about the world, their normative beliefs about what is appropriate, and the scripts for social behavior that they have learned [ 11 ]. During early, middle, and late childhood children encode in memory social scripts to guide behavior though observation of family, peers, community, and mass media. Consequently observed behaviors are imitated long after they are observed [ 10 ]. During this period, children’s social cognitive schemas about the world around them also are elaborated. For example, extensive observation of violence has been shown to bias children’s world schemas toward attributing hostility to others’ actions. Such attributions in turn increase the likelihood of children behaving aggressively [ 12 ]. As children mature further, normative beliefs about what social behaviors are appropriate become crystallized and begin to act as filters to limit inappropriate social behaviors [ 13 ]. These normative beliefs are influenced in part by children’s observation of the behaviors of those around them including those observed in the mass media.

Desensitization

Long-term socialization effects of the mass media are also quite likely increased by the way the mass media and video games affect emotions. Repeated exposures to emotionally activating media or video games can lead to habituation of certain natural emotional reactions. This process is called “desensitization.” Negative emotions experienced automatically by viewers in response to a particular violent or gory scene decline in intensity after many exposures [ 4 ]. For example, increased heart rates, perspiration, and self-reports of discomfort often accompany exposure to blood and gore. However, with repeated exposures, this negative emotional response habituates, and the child becomes “desensitized.” The child can then think about and plan proactive aggressive acts without experiencing negative affect [ 4 ].

Enactive learning

One more theoretical point is important. Observational learning and desensitization do not occur independently of other learning processes. Children are constantly being conditioned and reinforced to behave in certain ways, and this learning may occur during media interactions. For example, because players of violent video games are not just observers but also “active” participants in violent actions, and are generally reinforced for using violence to gain desired goals, the effects on stimulating long-term increases in violent behavior should be even greater for video games than for TV, movies, or internet displays of violence. At the same time, because some video games are played together by social groups (e.g., multi-person games) and because individual games may often be played together by peers, more complex social conditioning processes may be involved that have not yet been empirically examined. These effects, including effects of selection and involvement, need to be explored.

The Key Empirical Studies

Given this theoretical back ground, let us now examine the empirical research that indicates that childhood exposure to media violence has both short term and long term effects in stimulating aggression and violence in the viewer. Most of this research is on TV, movies, and video games, but from the theory above one can see that the same effects should occur for violence portrayed on various internet sites (e.g., multi-person game sites, video posting sites, chat rooms) and on handheld cell phones or computers.

Violence in Television, Films, and Video Games

The fact that most research on the impact of media violence on aggressive behavior has focused on violence in fictional television and film and video games is not surprising given the prominence of violent content in these media and the prominence of these media in children’s lives.

Children in the United States spend an average of between three and four hours per day viewing television [ 14 ], and the best studies have shown that over 60% of programs contain some violence, and about 40% of those contain heavy violence [ 15 ]. Children are also spending an increasingly large amount of time playing video games, most of which contain violence. Video game units are now present in 83% of homes with children [ 16 ]. In 2004, children spent 49 minutes per day playing video, and on any given day, 52% of children ages 8–18 years play a video game games [ 16 ]. Video game use peaks during middle childhood with an average of 65 minutes per day for 8–10 year-olds, and declines to 33 minutes per day for 15–18 year-olds [ 16 ]. And most of these games are violent; 94% of games rated (by the video game industry) as appropriate for teens are described as containing violence, and ratings by independent researchers suggest that the real percentage may be even higher [ 17 ]. No published study has quantified the violence in games rated ‘M’ for mature—presumably, these are even more likely to be violent.

Meta-analyses that average the effects observed in many studies provide the best overall estimates of the effects of media violence. Two particularly notable meta-analyses are those of Paik and Comstock [ 18 ] and Anderson and Bushman [ 19 ]. The Paik and Comstock meta-analysis focused on violent TV and films while the Anderson and Bushman meta-analysis focused on violent video games.

Paik and Comstock [ 18 ] examined effect sizes from 217 studies published between 1957 and 1990. For the randomized experiments they reviewed, Paik and Comstock found an average effect size ( r =.38, N=432 independent tests of hypotheses) which is moderate to large compared to other public health effects. When the analysis was limited to experiments on physical violence against a person, the average r was still .32 (N=71 independent tests). This meta-analysis also examined cross-sectional and longitudinal field surveys published between 1957 and 1990. For these studies the authors found an average r of .19 (N=410 independent tests). When only studies were used for which the dependent measure was actual physical aggression against another person (N=200), the effect size remained unchanged. Finally, the average correlation of media violence exposure with engaging in criminal violence was .13.

Anderson and Bushman [ 19 ] conducted the key meta-analyses on the effects of violent video games. Their meta-analyses revealed effect sizes for violent video games ranging from .15 to .30. Specifically, playing violent video games was related to increases in aggressive behavior ( r = .27), aggressive affect ( r =.19), aggressive cognitions (i.e., aggressive thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes), ( r =.27), and physiological arousal ( r = .22) and was related to decreases in prosocial (helping) behavior ( r = −.27). Furthermore, when studies were coded for the quality of their methodology, the best studies yielded larger effect sizes than the “not-best” studies.

One criticism sometimes leveled at meta-analyses is based on the “file drawer effect.” This refers to the fact that studies with “non-significant” results are less likely to be published and to appear in meta-analyses. However, one can correct for this problem by estimating how many “null-effect” studies it would take to change the results of the meta-analysis. This has been done with the above meta-analyses, and the numbers are very large. For example, Paik and Comstock [ 18 ] show that over 500,000 cases of null effects would have to exist in file drawers to change their overall conclusion of a significant positive relation between exposure to media violence and aggression.

While meta-analyses are good of obtaining a summary view of what the research shows, a better understanding of the research can be obtained by examining a few key specific studies in more detail.

Experiments

Generally, experiments have demonstrated that exposing people, especially children and youth, to violent behavior on film and TV increases the likelihood that they will behave aggressively immediately afterwards. In the typical paradigm, randomly selected individuals are shown either a violent or non-violent short film or TV program or play a violent or non-violent video game and are then observed as they have the opportunity to aggress. For children, this generally means playing with other children in situations that might stimulate conflict; for adults, it generally means participating in a competitive activity in which winning seems to involve inflicting pain on another person.

Children in such experiments who see the violent film clip or play the violent game typically behave more aggressively immediately afterwards than those viewing or playing nonviolence (20, 21, 22). For example, Josephson (22) randomly assigned 396 seven- to nine-year-old boys to watch either a violent or a nonviolent film before they played a game of floor hockey in school. Observers who did not know what movie any boy had seen recorded the number of times each boy physically attacked another boy during the game. Physical attack was defined to include hitting, elbowing, or shoving another player to the floor, as well as tripping, kneeing, and other assaultive behaviors that would be penalized in hockey. For some children, the referees carried a walkie-talkie, a specific cue that had appeared in the violent film that was expected to remind the boys of the movie they had seen earlier. For boys rated by their teacher as frequently aggressive, the combination of seeing a violent film and seeing the movie-associated cue stimulated significantly more assaultive behavior than any other combination of film and cue. Parallel results have been found in randomized experiments for preschoolers who physically attack each other more often after watching violent videos [ 21 ] and for older delinquent adolescents who get into more fights on days they see more violent films [ 23 ].

In a randomized experiment with violent video games, Irwin & Gross [ 24 ] assessed physical aggression (e.g., hitting, shoving, pinching, kicking) between boys who had just played either a violent or a nonviolent video game. Those who had played the violent video game were more physically aggressive toward peers. Other randomized experiments have measured college students’ propensity to be physically aggressive after they had played (or not played) a violent video game. For example, Bartholow &Anderson [ 25 ] found that male and female college students who had played a violent game subsequently delivered more than two and a half times as many high-intensity punishments to a peer as those who played a nonviolent video game. Other experiments have shown that it is the violence in video games, not the excitement that playing them provokes, that produces the increase in aggression [ 26 ].

In summary, experiments unambiguously show that viewing violent videos, films, cartoons, or TV dramas or playing violent video games “cause” the risk to go up that the observing child will behave seriously aggressively toward others immediately afterwards. This is true of preschoolers, elementary school children, high school children, college students, and adults. Those who watch the violent clips tend to behave more aggressively than those who view non-violent clips, and they adopt beliefs that are more “accepting” of violence [ 27 ].

One more quasi-experiment frequently cited by game manufacturers should be mentioned here. Williams and Skoric [ 28 ] have published the results of a dissertation study of cooperative online game playing by adults in which they report no significant long-term effects of playing a violent game on the adult’s behavior. However, the low statistical power of the study, the numerous methodological flaws (self-selection of a biased sample, lack of an adequate control group, the lack of adequate behavioral measures) make the validity of the study highly questionable. Furthermore, the participants were adults for whom there would be little theoretical reason to expect long-term effects.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies

Empirical cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of youth behaving and watching or playing violent media in their natural environments do not test causation as well as experiments do, but they provide strong evidence that the causal processes demonstrated in experiments generalize to violence observed in the real world and have significant effects on real world violent behavior. As reported in the discussion of meta-analyses above, the great majority of competently done one-shot survey studies have shown that children who watch more media violence day in and day out behave more aggressively day in and day out [ 18 ]. The relationship is less strong than that observed in laboratory experiments, but it is nonetheless large enough to be socially significant; the correlations obtained are usually are between .15 and .30. Moreover, the relation is highly replicable even across researchers who disagree about the reasons for the relationship [e.g., 29 ] and across countries [ 30 , 31 ].

Complementing these one-time survey studies are the longitudinal real-world studies that have shown correlations over time from childhood viewing of media violence to later adolescent and adult aggressive behavior [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]; for reviews see [ 4 , 27 , 33 ]. This studies have shown that early habitual exposure to media violence in middle-childhood predicts increased aggressiveness 1 year, 3 years, 10 years, 15 years, and 22 years later in adulthood, even controlling for early aggressiveness. On the other hand, behaving aggressively in childhood is a much weaker predictor of higher subsequent viewing of violence when initial violence viewing is controlled, making it implausible that the correlation between aggression and violent media use was primarily due to aggressive children turning to watching more violence [ 31 , 32 , 33 ]. As discussed below the pattern of results suggests that the strongest contribution to the correlation is the stimulation of aggression from exposure to media violence but that those behaving aggressively may also have a tendency to turn to watching more violence, leading to a downward spiral effect [ 13 ].

An example is illustrative. In a study of children interviewed each year for three years as they moved through middle childhood, Huesmann et al. [ 31 ] found increasing rates of aggression for both boys and girls who watched more television violence even with controls for initial aggressiveness and many other background factors. Children who identified with the portrayed aggressor and those who perceived the violence as realistic were especially likely to show these observational learning effects. A 15-year follow-up of these children [ 33 ] demonstrated that those who habitually watched more TV violence in their middle-childhood years grew up to be more aggressive young adults. For example, among children who were in the upper quartile on violence viewing in middle childhood, 11% of the males had been convicted of a crime (compared with 3% for other males), 42% had “pushed, grabbed, or shoved their spouse” in the past year (compared with 22% of other males), and 69% had “shoved a person” when made angry in the past year (compared with 50% of other males). For females, 39% of the high-violence-viewers had “thrown something at their spouse” in the past year (compared with 17% of the other females), and 17% had “punched, beaten, or choked” another adult when angry in the past year (compared with 4% of the other females). These effects were not attributable to any of a large set of child and parent characteristics including demographic factors, intelligence, parenting practices. Overall, for both males and females the effect of middle-childhood violence viewing on young adult aggression was significant even when controlling for their initial aggression. In contrast, the effect of middle-childhood aggression on adult violence viewing when controlling for initial violence viewing was not-significant, though it was positive.

Moderators of Media Violence Effects

Obviously, not all observers of violence are affected equally by what they observe at all times. Research has shown that the effects of media violence on children are moderated by situational characteristics of the presentation including how well it attracts and sustains attention, personal characteristics of the viewer including their aggressive predispositions, and characteristics of the physical and human context in which the children are exposed to violence.

In terms of plot characteristics, portraying violence as justified and showing rewards (or at least not showing punishments) for violence increase the effects that media violence has in stimulating aggression, particularly in the long run [ 27 , 36 , 37 ]. As for viewer characteristics that depend on perceptions of the plot, those viewers who perceive the violence as telling about life more like it really is and who identify more with the perpetrator of the violence are also stimulated more toward violent behavior in the long run [ 27 , 30 , 33 , 38 ]. Taken together these facts mean that violent acts by charismatic heroes, that appear justified and are rewarded, are the violent acts most likely to increase viewer’s aggression.

A number of researchers have suggested that, independently of the plot, viewers or game players who are already aggressive should be the only one’s affected. This is certainly not true. While the already aggressive child who watches or plays a lot of violent media may become the most aggressive young adult, the research shows that even initially unaggressive children are made more aggressive by viewing media violence [ 27 , 32 , 33 ]. Long term effects due appear to be stronger for younger children [ 3 , 14 ], but short term affects appear, if anything, stronger for older children [ 3 ] perhaps because one needs to have already learned aggressive scripts to have them primed by violent displays. While the effects appeared weaker for female 40 years ago [ 32 ], they appear equally strong today [ 33 ]. Finally, having a high IQ does not seem to protect a child against being influenced [ 27 ].

Mediators of Media Violence Effects

Most researchers believe that the long term effects of media violence depend on social cognitions that control social behavior being changed for the long run. More research needs to completed to identify all the mediators, but it seems clear that they include normative beliefs about what kinds of social behaviors are OK [ 4 , 13 , 27 ], world schemas that lead to hostile or non-hostile attributions about others intentions [ 4 , 12 , 27 ], and social scripts that automatically control social behavior once they are well learned [ 4 , 11 , 27 ].

This review marshals evidence that compelling points to the conclusion that media violence increases the risk significantly that a viewer or game player will behave more violently in the short run and in the long run. Randomized experiments demonstrate conclusively that exposure to media violence immediately increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior for children and adults in the short run. The most important underlying process for this effect is probably priming though mimicry and increased arousal also play important roles. The evidence from longitudinal field studies is also compelling that children’s exposure to violent electronic media including violent games leads to long-term increases in their risk for behaving aggressively and violently. These long-term effects are a consequence of the powerful observational learning and desensitization processes that neuroscientists and psychologists now understand occur automatically in the human child. Children automatically acquire scripts for the behaviors they observe around them in real life or in the media along with emotional reactions and social cognitions that support those behaviors. Social comparison processes also lead children to seek out others who behave similarly aggressively in the media or in real life leading to a downward spiral process that increases risk for violent behavior.

One valid remaining question is whether the size of this effect is large enough that one should consider it to be a public health threat. The answer seems to be “yes.” Two calculations support this conclusion. First, according to the best meta-analyses [ 18 , 19 ] the long term size of the effect of exposure to media violence in childhood on later aggressive or violent behavior is about equivalent to a correlation of .20 to .30. While some might argue that this explains only 4% to 9% of the individual variation in aggressive behavior, as several scholars have pointed out [ 39 , 40 ], percent variance explained is not a good statistic to use when predicting low probability events with high social costs. For example, a correlation of 0.3 with aggression translates into a change in the odds of aggression from 50/50 to 65/35 -- not a trivial change when one is dealing with life threatening behavior[ 40 ].

Secondly, the effect size of media violence is the same or larger than the effect size of many other recognized threats to public health. In Figure 1 from Bushman and Huesmann [ 41 ], the effect sizes for many common threats to public health are compared with the effect that media violence has on aggression. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is nihms34898f1.jpg

The Relative Strength of Known Public Health Threats.

In summary, exposure to electronic media violence increases the risk of children and adults behaving aggressively in the short-run and of children behaving aggressively in the long-run. It increases the risk significantly, and it increases it as much as many other factors that are considered public health threats. As with many other public health threats, not every child who is exposed to this threat will acquire the affliction of violent behavior, and many will acquire the affliction who are not exposed to the threat. However, that does not diminish the need to address the threat.

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

IMAGES

Is violence media good?
45 Perfect Thesis Statement Templates (+ Examples) ᐅ TemplateLab
25 Thesis Statement Examples (2024)
Effects Of Media Violence on Aggression Free Essay Example
Media violence essay
Policy Statement on Media Violence

VIDEO

QUALITIES OF GOOD THESIS EXAMINERS
Craft Your Perfect Thesis Statement
A Good Thesis Statement Organizes Your Essay
PHD AND MPHIL THESES: DIFFERENCE (A LECTURE IN URDU/اردو میں لیکچر)
How to write a good senior thesis?
Domestic Violence: How 5 Simple Words Brought Me Back to Life

COMMENTS

88 Media Violence Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
Effects of Violence Media on Aggression. In case a child is exposed to continuous violent media, chances are high that such a child would develop a deviant behavior, which might lead to the development of aggressive behavior. The Main Cause of Increasing Violent Behavior Among Youths Is Violence in the Media.
Media Violence Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
Media Violence A Study on Youth Exposure to Media Violence In a 2005 study by Kronenberger et al., researchers enter into the oft-discussed subject of media violence and its impact on youth behaviors and tendencies. Published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, the article makes its focus the degree to which media violence exposure may impede both cognitive and behavioral abilities.
The influence of violent media on children and adolescents: a public
16. The aim of this review is to consider research evidence on the effects of violent media on children and adolescents from a public-health perspective. WHO has emphasised the necessity of adopting a public-health approach to the prevention of violence and the reduction of mortality and morbidity in societies. 17.
Media Violence Does media violence cause violent behavior-2
In contrast, others argue that the entire debate about media violence has been mismanaged, with mixed results, to claim that it does cause violence. Some may say that it has long- and short-term negative effects on young children's and teenagers' social life, while others argue that not all effects are negative.
Thesis Statement Flashcards
Taking care of older pets can be challenging. Participating in volunteer work is essential to the development of strong character. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Media violence is harmful to society., The death penalty is wrong., School uniforms provide many benefits to students, parents and educators. and more.
Violence, Media Effects, and Criminology
Media Exposure and Copycat Crimes. While many scholars do seem to agree that there is evidence that media violence—whether that of film, TV, or video games—increases aggression, they disagree about its impact on violent or criminal behavior (Ferguson, 2014; Gunter, 2008; Helfgott, 2015; Reiner, 2002; Savage, 2008).Nonetheless, it is violent incidents that most often prompt speculation that ...
How Violent Media Can Impact Your Mental Health
Today, the violence shown on the news media may especially impact people's mental health. New technology means that violent events, including terrorist attacks, school shootings, and natural disasters, can be filmed and reported on immediately, and media consumers all over the world will be exposed to these events almost instantly via social ...
Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior
Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior Essay. Exclusively available on IvyPanda®. It is said that television and media brought about new problems that are evident in the modern day and age. Mostly, these influences are harmful in relation to violence and people's general behavior, which is characterized as careless, destructive and ...
The Impact of Media Violence on Adolescent Behavior
While media violence is often singled out as a cause of violent behavior, it is crucial to recognize that violence arises from a web of interconnected elements, including genetics, upbringing, social environment, mental health, and personal experiences. The genetic component of behavior cannot be overlooked. Some individuals may have a genetic ...
Thesis Statement On Media Violence
Thesis Statement: Media violence encourages real violence ... In "Violent Media Is Good for Kids", written by Gerard Jones, the author argues that violent entertainments have positive effects on children's lives beyond their violence and juvenility. In his article, Jones uses a cause and result relationship between violent media and their ...
How to Write a Thesis Statement
Step 2: Write your initial answer. After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process. The internet has had more of a positive than a negative effect on education.
Gun Control Thesis Statement: [Essay Example], 1300 words
B. Restate thesis statement It is clear that stricter regulations on firearms are necessary to address the epidemic of gun violence in the United States and create a safer society for all. By balancing the right to bear arms with the need for public safety, we can work towards implementing comprehensive gun control measures that benefit ...
What do We Know About Media Violence?
More than a decade later, the debate of whether media violence causes violence continues. In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a policy statement in the online issue of their journal entitled "Virtual Violence," which found that "exposure to media violence is becoming an inescapable component of children's lives."
Essay on Media and Violence
Published: 2021/11/16. Number of words: 1311. Introduction. Research studies indicate that media causes violence and plays a role in desensitization, aggressive behavior, fear of harm, and nightmares. Examples of media platforms include movies, video games, television, and music. Violence in media has also been associated with health concerns.
Thesis Statement on Gun Violence
Conclusion. In conclusion, gun violence is a pressing issue that requires immediate attention and action. By addressing the causes of gun violence and implementing solutions that focus on strengthening gun laws, investing in mental health resources, and addressing root causes of violence, we can work towards reducing gun violence in our society.
Media Violence Effects on Children, Adolescents and Young Adults
The main ways that media violence exposure increases aggression in the short term are: Direct imitation of the observed behavior. Observational learning of attitudes, beliefs and expected benefits of aggression. Increased excitation. Priming of aggression-related ways of thinking and feeling.
The Effects of Media Violence on People Argumentative Essay
Get a custom essay on The Effects of Media Violence on People. On the contrary, there is substantial evidence that violent, belligerent, and emotionally delinquent environments lead to aggressive behavior more than watching violent films does. This may be a contentious issue with numerous people linking violent media to aggressive behavior.
PDF Is the Influence of Media Violence Exposure on Adolescent
Media violence is typically defined as visual. portrayals of acts of aggression by a human or human-like character against another. (Huesmann, 2007), with the intent of causing physical or emotional pain (Berkowitz, 1993). While a large body of research has identified a positive association between media.
Media Violence Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas
10 essay samples found. Media violence refers to representations of violent acts and situations in media outlets like television, films, and video games. Essays could explore the possible correlation between media violence and real-world aggression, the societal implications of media violence, or the effectiveness of regulations and censorship.
The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research
For better or worse the mass media are having an enormous impact on our children's values, beliefs, and behaviors. Unfortunately, the consequences of one particular common element of the electronic mass media has a particularly detrimental effect on children's well being. Research evidence has accumulated over the past half-century that ...
Violent video games and aggressive behavior: mortality salience and the
Research indicates that one of the most popular forms of media, violent video games can. increase aggressive behavior and cognitions (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). Prior. research has examined the effects of these media using the General Aggression Model. (GAM; Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Bushman & Anderson, 2002). The current study.