University of Tunis El Manar

Academic year: 2016/2017

Module: Media and Cultural Studies

Media and social violence

Sana Hamrouni
Safa Melki

Media and social violence

This presentation seeks to explore how violence and media coverage of violence can effect
individuals behavior and society as a whole. Indeed, its been argued that media violence is
one of the causal factors of real life violence and aggression.
I.

HOW MEDIA COVERS VIOLENCE:

Crime:
How media covers crime is important because it can influence public policy decisions and
public opinion.
One study found violent crime constituted one-third of all local television news programming
(Klite and Bardwell, 1997, 102).
This compel us to question how media decides which crimes are newsworthy and which are
not.
In her article covering crime how the media covers violence (2005) Jessica McBride
enumerates the several factors by which the media decide which violent crimes to report.
The newsworthiness of crime is determined by:
Race: Researchers have consistently found that the news media are more likely to cover
homicide cases involving black suspects and/or white victims, particularly when they occur in
combination with one another. ( McBride,2005 :32)
Public groups argue that those who exceedingly cover crimes involving minorities foster
racial stereotypes by over-dramatizing crimes involving white victims and suspects, while
ignoring minority victims and leaving them both faceless and nameless. 31(COVERING
CRIME HOW THE MEDIA COVERS VIOLENCE JESSICA MCBRIDE)
A new study by Color of Change found that, while 51% of the people arrested for violent
crime in New York City are black, 75% of the news reports about such arrests highlighted
black alleged perpetrators. Racial Bias
Gender: Cases involving female suspects and victims received greater coverage than those
without them. ( McBride32)
A three-month, one week multivariate quantitative analysis into Milwaukee television and
newspaper homicide coverage showed that homicides involving females received more
coverage. []In essence, gender may have overshadowed race in decisionmaking. ( 33)
Homicides with multiple victims. Events that have occurred multiple times, for example a
number of assaults or break-ins that are centred in a small geographic area.

Statistical unusualness: The media is most likely to focus on stories that highlight the unique,
the sensational, the extreme, and those that have the potential to impact the greatest number of
people
Homicides committed by young offenders.
Along with media coverage of actual individual violent crimes, the media is also a site where
hundreds of tv programs including movies and tv series expose violent content.
TV violence: is widespread across the television landscape. , 60% of approximately 10,000
programs sampled for the National Television Violence Study contained violent material. That
study identified an average of 6,000 violent interactions in a single week of programming
across the 23 channels that were examined, including both broadcast and cable networks.
Media in this sense are a means by which individuals are exposed to a continuous stream of
violent content. As w.James Potter argues: The media shoud be regarded as a major cause of
public health problem. Indeed, exposure to violence in the media has numerous effects
among which is learning how to behave aggressively, fear, desensitization to violence etc
II/ Effects to exposure to Media violence
1/ Behavioral effects theories:
The exposure to media violence plays an important role in the etiology of violent behavior.
There appears to be a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior.
Crucial to the study of media violence effect is the learning theory or behaviorism.
Behaviorism (also called learning theory) refers to a psychological approach which
emphasizes scientific and objective methods of investigation.
The behaviorist movement began in 1913 when John Watson wrote an article entitled
'Psychology as the behaviorist views it', which set out a number of underlying assumptions
regarding methodology and behavioral analysis:
It focuses on two key components
All behavior is learnt from the environment.
Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior.
Media effect individuals behavior. For example to media violence may lead to
Imitation of violence: aggression through imitation
Early studies of the relationship between the media and violence focused on conducting
experiments in laboratories, Albret Bandura (1925-1952 psychologist) carried out an
experiment on young children known as The Bobo Doll experiment. This experiment is

conducted as part of his Social Learning Theory (1977) to investigate if social behaviors
(i.e. aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation.
This study is entitled Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models.
Children were exposed to aggressive and nonaggressive adult models and were then tested
amount of imitative learning. Subjects exposed to aggressive models would reproduce
arousal.
Children who observed the aggressive model made far more imitative aggressive
responses than those who were in the non-aggressive or control groups
Children learn behavioral responses by observing others or through direct experiences. For
instance parents, peers on the playground,siblings,fictional characters on televisions and in
movies. (L.Carnagey, Anderson: 91)
Children learn social behavior such as aggression through the process of observation learning
through watching the behavior of another person
That this study has important implications for the effects of media violence on children in the
sense that violent media content could lead to imitation. For instance of a 15-year longitudinal
study of 329 youth published in the March issue of Developmental Psychology, a journal of
the American Psychological Association (APA). Children's viewing of violent TV shows,
their identification with aggressive same-sex TV characters, and their perceptions that TV
violence is realistic are all linked to later aggression as young adults, for both males and
females.
Childhood Exposure to Media Violence Predicts Young Adult Aggressive
Behavior, According to a New 15-Year Study
In light of the aforementioned, media violent content may have serious social implications
even committing murder.
Andrew Conley The 17-year-old teenager strangled his younger brother has said he was
inspired by the TV series Dexter.
2/ Desensitization theory:
In psychology, desensitization is defined as the diminished emotional responsiveness to a
negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure to it.
The prolonged and repeated exposure to violence in the media may reduce or habituate the
initial psychological impact until violent images do not elicit these negative responses.
Eventually the observer may become emotionally and cognitively desensitized to media
violence.

Desensitization may arise from different sources of media including TV, video games and
movies.
The prolonged exposure to media violence may have an effect on young people over the
course of their childhood and result in their becoming desensitized to violence.
In short term, viewers of repeated violence can show a lack of arousal and emotional
response through habituation to the stimuli. (Potter, 2001:33)
Desensitization is measured through attitudinal measures
Desensitization can be dangerous as the viewers see violence as a normal problem solving
device. It may lead to the adherence to a weaker moral codes and anti-social behavior.
According to w James potter desensitization is influenced by different factors
Viewer factors: people who are exposed to constant and larger amounts of violence in
the media are more likely to experience immediate desensitization. (potter,2001:31)
Portrayal Factors: two contextual variables: Graphicness and humor
The exposure to graphic violence leads to a strong physiological responses especially
with children.
Psychologists believe that the more violence you watch the less aroused you will get.
Becoming less sensitive from violence in the media raises some concerns. If we
become jaded to news of war and violence then these stories will not seem to bother us
anymore. Even if we never like violence or behave violently, it doesnt seem that
serious.
A major concern with desensitization theory has to do with women and sexual
violence. Many students after watching a horror film showed less concern for victims
of rape.

Works cited:
"Longitudinal Relations Between Children's Exposure to TV Violence and Their
Aggressive and Violent Behavior in Young Adulthood: 1977 - 1992," he University of
Michigan; Developmental Psychology, Vol. 39, No. 2.
L. Carnagey Nicholas, A. Anderson, Grave . Theory in the Study of Media Violence:
The General Aggression Model A. Gentile , Douglas Snd edt. Media violence and
children: 2014
McBride, Jessica . covering crime how the media covers violence.2005
Potter, W. J. (1999). On Media Violence. Is Television harmful to children CA: Sage
Publications, Inc.
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/04/09/racial-bias-and-media-coverage-ofviolent-crime/
http://www.apa.org/about/gr/pi/advocacy/2008/kunkel-tv.aspx
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2003/03/media-violence.aspx