Children Viewing Violence 1

Media Violence and Children

Media violence and broader ‘Moral panics’

Debates about media impactConnections to real-life eventsA form of electronic child abuseMedia as a convenient scapegoat?

Proposal to regulate media vs. Other significant causes (family breakdown)

Anxiety → Censorship (stricter control)

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Media Panics?

Long history of media panics and collapse of social order: Continuing concern about over-stimulation, sensuality, and sensationalismContradictory notions

The child as innocent and vulnerableThe bearer of original sin (natural not in positive sense; negative drives)

Political purposes

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Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code)

Formulated and adopted by The Association of Motion Picture Producers, Inc. and The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. in 1930 (inside censorship instead of outside)General Principles

1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin. 2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented. 3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

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Media Panics?

Inconclusive evidence on alleged media violence increase; but it is clear that more graphic and spectacular on screen

Realistic gunfireScenes of consequence of injury

Why do children choose to expose themselves to that?Audience generally prefer programs without violence (some critics suggest).Global marketing: Violence as a dramatic ingredient requires no translation and instantly comprehensibleMedia violence as symptomatic of changes in the Zeitgeist (Anxiety produced by changing roles, insecurity…)Return of repressed paganism (attempt to re-connect to nature)Implicit assumption: Violence is a singular phenomenon

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The Limits of ‘Effects’Research on children’s relationship with media

Dominated by particularly reductive understanding of its effectsCentral preoccupation: media able to produce aggressive behaviorChildren defined in terms of what they ‘lack’

Inability to conform to adult normsInability to distinguish between fiction and realitySimply too immature

Violence abstracted from contexts in lab experiments and surveysCorrelations seen as causalityTheoretical and methodological shortcomings

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The Limits of ‘Effects’

Failed central hypothesisMedia violence makes people more aggressive than they would otherwise have beenIt causes them to commit violent acts they would not otherwise have committed

Sociological research: multifactorial causesAsking simplistic questions about complicated social issues

Media have no effects? We can’t prove it → better to err on the side of safety

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Talking ‘Violence’

What audience defined as violentSignificant variationGender, country, age; context, drama types…

Children do not perceive cartoons as violent; but regularly top on lists for researchersViolence in the media: A more complex question

Children and parents both define violence as ‘bad influence’ on those other than themselvesSocial desirability bias

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Talking ‘Violence’

Parents see their own children’s imitation as play; Other people’s children might committed copycat violence; inadequate parenting ignored

Parents’ central concernNot that they become aggressive

But emotionally upset or disturbed

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Reading Effects

Precisely what kind of effectsBehavior effects

Emotional effects

Ideological or attitudinal effects

Connections complex and diverse; harmful or beneficial

Positive vs. Negative EffectsPositive and negative responses at the same time; far from straightforward

Fear of crime vs. Citizen prerequisite

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Reading Effects

Fact and FictionDevelopment of coping strategy from fictional material; carried over to real life

Become generic knowledge (media literacy)-coping with media experience

Harder to cope with in non-fictional material

Not always clear-cut

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Why do children (people) watch?

Pathological conception of viewersImmaturity, lack of intelligence, personality defects

Potential appealThrill, poetry or beauty, countercultural, testing one’s own responsesFew have been acknowledged

Horror as exampleTo understand and deal with life anxiety in comparatively safe arenaSuspension of disbelief: Imagination might be real

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Why do children watch?

Taking on victim’s position rather than monster’sSadism and MasochismPleasure, enjoyment of repeated viewing (enable to see through)Pleasure inextricably tied up with painTransgression and disruption

Violation of social, sexual, physical taboosPolitically progressive or psychically therapeutic

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Changing Sites of Regulation

Technological advances vs. Control of illegal materials (--still obtained by under age children)Responsibility inevitably shifted to parentsBanning of forbidden fruits gives attractions !?Media violence issues → ultimately many diverse but fundamental anxieties:

Decline of family and religionChanging nature of literacy and culturalPace of technological change