essay about violence in movies

Violence in Movies and Its Effects Cause and Effect Essay

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Violence in movies has been a topic of a heated debate for many decades. Some people claim that violence in movies negatively affects people (especially adolescents), whereas others argue that violence in movies does not lead to violence in life. However, there is one thing researchers agree upon: movies only reveal trends existing in the contemporary society. It is agreed that violence in movies appear as it is a part of the human society.

Thus, the cause of violence in movies is quite clear, but its effects are still unidentified. The ongoing research provides quite controversial data on the matter. However, it is necessary to note that violence in movies does affect many people (especially adolescents) as some start seeking for more violence in media or real-life, some become ‘inspired’ by the films or may feel depressed for a while.

In the first place, it is necessary to note that adolescents are the most vulnerable group. Reportedly, adolescents tend to seek for violent imagery more than adults do (Kirsh 90). A number of surveys show that “individuals who are high in sensation seeking find violence in television and film more appealing than do their low sensation-seeking counterparts” (Kirsh 90).

These adolescents prefer watching films with more violence. This need is yet to be explained. However, researchers agree that adolescents tend to be more aggressive than adults. In other words, researchers note that adolescence is the period of the human life that is associated with most aggression.

Notably, watching violence on TV can become insufficient for some adolescents who will start seeking for it in real life. Apart from watching violent scenes, some adolescents can become eager to participate in such scenes (and video games will not be enough). Some may even wish to initiate violent episodes to get new experiences.

At this point it is necessary to mention another possible effect of violence in movies. Researchers claim that violence in media can affect adolescents’ self-efficacy. In other words, young people can feel more confident when they associate themselves with certain characters created by filmmakers (Kirsh 102). Thus, watching superheroes or ‘tough guys’ coping with difficulties can positively affect adolescents’ self-efficacy. Apart from this, sometimes these adolescents can feel like exercising their power and initiate some violent episodes.

Watching films containing violence can provide young people with ideas how to exercise their power. Some films can be regarded as a guide full of tips. Adolescents can try to repeat actions and ‘amusements’ revealed in a film. More so, Simmons provides a detailed analysis of reception of two films which contained a lot of violent scenes and notes that those films (like many other movies) tell a story of young men who were involved in a number of violent episodes and remained unpunished.

The author notes that people believed that the major message of the film was as follows: “If there were enough hoodlums and they behaved in a menacing way, they could get away with it” (qtd. in Simmons 385). Therefore, adolescents may wish to try things they see in movies. Of course, only some adolescents can seek for violence in real life.

Some adolescents may detest violence and feel depressed when they watch it. Thus, violent scenes may haunt adolescents in their dreams, which can lead to certain anxiety or even depression. Unfortunately, now people are exposed to violence on TV.

Notably, Simmons notes that violence has become an indispensible part of movies since the middle of the twentieth century when people understood that violence in movies brought money (390). Vast majority of films contain violent scenes. Sometimes it is simply impossible to be sure the film is violence-free, even if its genre is defined as a romantic comedy.

Thus, the group of adolescents who are less sensation-seeking may feel anxious about violent scenes, but they will hardly escape from watching a violent scene even if they stop watching action movies. Besides, victimized adolescents can also feel uneasy watching violent scenes as they may associate themselves with the victims in the films. These scenes can bring back memories of events which adolescents try to forget. Admittedly, this can contribute to their anxiety and depressive symptoms, which are common for adolescents.

To sum up, even though many people argue that violence in films has no effect on people, it is clear that violent scenes do affect some groups, e.g. adolescents. Violence in movies can make adolescents more aggressive and make them seek for more violence. Violent scenes can also be regarded as certain kind of guide to follow in real life as some adolescents will feel like trying some ‘tricks’ shown.

Finally, violence in films can contribute to development of anxiety or depressive symptoms in adolescents. Of course, violence is a part of the human society and will inevitably be revealed in movies. However, filmmakers should be more thoughtful when incorporating violence into their films. They should try to seek for other tools to reveal their ideas and they should cut down the amount of violence in movies.

Works Cited

Kirsh, Steven J. Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2006. Print.

Simmons, J. “Violent Youth: The Censoring and Public Reception of “The Wild One” and “The Blackboard Jungle”.” Film History 20.3 (2008): 381-391. Print.

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Expert Commentary

Violent media and real-world behavior: Historical data and recent trends

2015 study from Stetson University published in Journal of Communications that explores violence in movies and video games and rates of societal violence over the same period.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Devon Maylie, The Journalist's Resource February 18, 2015

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/criminal-justice/violent-media-real-world-behavior-historical-data-recent-trends/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

The relationship between violent media and real-world violence has been the subject of extensive debate and considerable academic research , yet the core question is far from answered. Do violent games and movies encourage more violence, less, or is there no effect? Complicating matters is what seems like a simultaneous rise in onscreen mayhem and the number of bloody events in our streets — according to a 2014 report from the FBI, between 2007 and 2013 there were an average of 16.4 active-shooter incidents in the U.S. every year, more than 150% higher than the annual rate between 2000 and 2006.

But as has long been observed, any correlation is not necessarily causation . While Adam Lanza and James Holmes — respectively, the perpetrators of the Newtown and Aurora mass shootings — both played violent video games , so do millions of law-abiding Americans. A 2014 study in Psychology of Popular Media Culture found no evidence of an association between violent crime and video game sales and the release dates of popular violent video games. “Unexpectedly, many of the results were suggestive of a decrease in violent crime in response to violent video games,” write the researchers, based at Villanova and Rutgers. A 2015 study from the University of Toledo showed that playing violent video games could desensitize children and youth to violence, but didn’t establish a definitive connection with real-world behavior, positive or negative.

A 2014 study in Journal of Communication , “Does Media Violence Predict Societal Violence? It Depends on What You Look at and When,” builds on prior research to look closer at media portrayals of violence and rates of violent behavior. The research, by Christopher J. Ferguson of Stetson University, had two parts: The first measured the frequency and graphicness of violence in movies between 1920 and 2005 and compared it to homicide rates, median household income, policing, population density, youth population and GDP over the same period. The second part looked at the correlation between the consumption of violent video games and youth behavior from 1996 to 2011.

The study’s findings include:

Overall, no evidence was found to support the conclusion that media violence and societal violence are meaningfully correlated.
Across the 20th century the frequency of movie violence followed a rough U-pattern: It was common in the 1920s, then declined before rising again in the latter part of the 20th century. This appears to correspond to the period of the Motion Picture Production Code (known as the Hays Code), in force from 1930 to the late 1960s.

Movie violence and homicide rates (C.J. Ferguson)

The frequency of movie violence and murder rates were correlated in the mid-20th century, but not earlier or later in the period studied. “By the latter 20th century … movie violence [was] associated with reduced societal violence in the form of homicides. Further, the correlation between movie and societal violence was reduced when policing or real GDP were controlled.”
The graphicness of movie violence shows an increasing pattern across the 20th century, particularly beginning in the 1950s, but did not correlate with societal violence.
The second part of the study found that for the years 1996 to 2011, the consumption of violent video games was inversely related to youth violence.
Youth violence decreased during the 15-year study period despite high levels of media violence in society. However, the study period is relatively short, the researcher cautioned, and therefore results could be imperfect.

“Results from the two studies suggest that socialization models of media violence may be inadequate to our understanding of the interaction between media and consumer behavior at least in regard to serious violence,” Ferguson concludes. “Adoption of a limited-effects model in which user motivations rather than content drive media experiences may help us understand how media can have influences, yet those influences result in only limited aggregate net impact in society.” Given that effects on individual users may differ widely, Ferguson suggests that policy discussion should be more focused on “more pressing” issues that influence violence in society such as poverty or mental health.

Related research: A 2015 research roundup, “The Contested Field of Violent Video Games,” gives an overview of recent scholarship on video games and societal violence, including ones that support a link and others that refute it. Also of interest is a 2014 research roundup, “Mass Murder, Shooting Sprees and Rampage Violence.”

Keywords: video games, violence, aggression, desensitization, empathy, technology, youth, cognition, guns, crime, entertainment

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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.

Quentin Tarantino’s Ultimate Statement on Movie Violence

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , the director’s ninth film, rates as his least bloody—and when mayhem erupts, it’s to draw a line between fiction and reality.

Leonardo DiCaprio in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

This article contains major spoilers for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood .

For his ninth and supposedly penultimate film, Quentin Tarantino gave up violence. In a way. To a point. The ever-polarizing writer-director is famed for his stylish and shocking scenes of brutality, which he’s used for cartoonish thrills ( Kill Bill ’s 89-person sword fight) , queasy comedy ( Pulp Fiction ’s accidental face-shooting ), and morally weighted horror ( Django Unchained ’s showcase of slaveholders’ cruelty ). But across most of its very charming and very languid run time, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood almost entirely forgoes gruesome outbursts in favor of chitchat, driving, and back-lot shenanigans. Two hours into the saga, some fan, sitting in some theater out there, is surely ready to accuse Tarantino of going soft this time.

Then comes the end of the movie, and the end of the movie’s relative peacefulness. Three Charles Manson followers—who, in reality, went on to kill five people, including the actress Sharon Tate—break in to the home of the washed-up actor Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). These would-be slaughterers end up being slaughtered by Dalton and his stuntman, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who employ an attack dog, a flamethrower, and a myriad of household objects that get slammed into faces. This flip of history triggered cackles of glee in my theater. It has also inspired wide speculation about Tarantino’s intent. What is the point of this ornate, ahistorical violence?

The answer might be that Tarantino is out to absolve Hollywood, and himself, from grotesqueries, excesses, insensitivities, and lapses. The undeniable magic of the movie, but also a nagging sense of strain and misdirection throughout, comes from its telling of a seductive lie: that the boundary between what happens in fiction and nonfiction is impermeable.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ’s take on violence is evident not only in its splatter-caked climax but also through its few other, and milder, showdowns. Relatively early in the film, Booth gets challenged to an on-set duel by Bruce Lee (Mike Moh). By this point, viewers know a few things about Booth that make him seem dangerous: He’s a war veteran; he can leap great distances with ease; and he may have killed his wife, as revealed in a jarringly comic way moments earlier in the movie. Lee, of course, is the kung fu star who remains a legend today. When Booth laughs at Lee’s boasts about his supposedly lethal fists, Lee proposes a three-round brawl. (Lee’s family has objected to the portrayal of the star as “a mockery.”)

Tarantino’s longtime viewers might get excited at this point: Here, it would seem, comes a choreographed fistfight in the lineage of Kill Bill ’s martial-arts bonanzas. What actually unfolds are two lightning rounds—Lee kicks Booth, and Booth slams Lee into a car door—that, while so quick they can barely be considered action scenes, demonstrate Tarantino’s knack for getting laughs from mayhem. But then the fight is broken up by Janet (Zoë Bell), a producer who already dislikes Booth because of the murder allegations against him. She yells about the practical implications of the macho showdown: Her TV show’s star was put in danger, and her car was damaged. This isn’t a movie, her reaction implies; it’s real life, and actions have consequences.

The second “fight scene” of the movie culminates Booth’s long and chilling visit to Spahn Ranch, the movie set where Booth once worked, which is now populated by spaced-out and suspicious women and girls. After going inside and talking with the ranch owner, who’s lost his vision and seems hazy about what’s happening on his property, Booth emerges to find that a knife has been stuck into his car’s tire. One of the only men living with the hippie women, Clem, stands nearby, proud to have done the deed.

In real history, Steve “Clem” Grogan was a Manson-family member who assisted in the murder of a Hollywood stuntman who worked at Spahn Ranch. In Tarantino’s reimagining, a stuntman gets the better of him. Booth asks Clem to change his car tire, and when Clem refuses, Booth whales on him—hard, fast, drawing blood. Most of the women of the ranch watch the beating with silent concern. One of them gets on a horse and goes to fetch Tex, the other man who lives with them, so that he’ll do something about Booth. But by the time Tex arrives on the scene, Booth is driving away. A nastier confrontation has been narrowly missed.

Most of the rest of the movie concerns itself with scenes of Hollywood professionals pondering their craft and eating at Mexican restaurants. The story, such as there is one, doesn’t involve life-and-death situations. But there is violence to be seen—in the movies-and-TV-shows-within-a-movie that Tarantino splices in. In the black-and-white serial Bounty Law , Dalton stars as a gunslinger who routinely ignores the “or alive” part of “dead or alive” on Wanted posters. One of Dalton’s breakout roles is in a Western that touts the racist catchphrase “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Another is in a World War II film—visually reminiscent of Tarantino’s own Inglourious Basterds —in which Dalton’s character takes a massive flamethrower to a room of Nazis.

So much for a simpler, more peaceful time in pop culture. The entertainments of the cinematic golden age that Once Upon a Time portrays, Tarantino seems to argue, weren’t less brutal than today’s action fare, which is often maligned as gratuitous. But the director isn’t simply making the claim that fictional beating and killing have long been in vogue. He’s giving his answer to the question of how onscreen violence relates to actual violence.

That question has long annoyed him . Here he is in 1994: “If you ask me how I feel about violence in real life, well, I have a lot of feelings about it. It’s one of the worst aspects of America. In movies, violence is cool. I like it.” Here he is again in 1994: “Real-life violence is real-life violence. Movies are movies.” And here he is during a 2013 tantrum caused by an interviewer asking a variant of the aforementioned question: “I’ve said everything I’ve had to say about it. If anyone cares what I have to say about it, they can Google me. And they can look for 20 years what I have to say about it. I haven’t changed my opinion one iota.” With his latest film, he’s stating his opinion, once again, and it’s indeed what he’s said all along—and as facile as it’s always been.

Repeatedly, Once Upon a Time seems to marvel at the disconnect between onscreen mayhem and the rather ordinary people who film it. At one point, Booth and Dalton watch an episode of the TV show F.B.I. in which Dalton’s evil character guns down a soldier. Dalton remarks that the corpse on-screen is played by a really good, decent guy. At another point in the film, we watch Dalton act in the TV Western Lancer . He’s (again) playing the villain, and during his monologue he throws a little girl down on the floor. After the director yells “Cut!” he asks whether she was okay with his improvisation. She’s fine—she’s wearing kneepads under her dress. Moreover, she tells Dalton that he just did the best acting she’s ever seen.

Within the world of the movie, characters do note just how violent Hollywood’s products are. Pussycat, a hippie hitchhiker, tells Booth that while fake people get killed on-screen, real people die in Vietnam every day. Later, as the Manson squad sets out to commit its would-be-notorious crimes, the members psych themselves up by criticizing the entertainment industry. Their own generation, Sadie Atkins (Mikey Madison) says, was introduced to murder through TV shows such as Bounty Law . Hence, it was Dalton who trained them to commit atrocities like the one they plan to commit that night. She yells, “My idea is to kill the people who taught us to kill!”

Oddly, the film could almost be read as taking Atkins’s stance. Once Upon a Time has been widely interpreted as an elegy for a beloved cinematic era that ended with the cultural shifts of the late ’60s, which were embodied by Manson’s curdled, deranged hippiedom. But it could be argued—and, indeed, is argued by Atkins in the film—that the film industry’s bloodthirstiness corrupted a generation that then murdered its idols. Old Hollywood, in Atkins’s reading, created the Mansons, seeding its own destruction.

Except … Tarantino makes Atkins and the other Mansons out to be buffoons. Atkins’s spiel about killing “the people who taught us to kill” is incoherent and plays as an attempt to justify the unjustifiable. Her squad’s approach up Cielo Drive can be described only as “bumbling.” When their bloody downfall arrives, it feels righteous and deserved, not to mention amusing. Why did these kids set out to do, as Tex put it, “devil shit”? The movie doesn’t venture a guess, and Tarantino doesn’t have a theory. “How [Manson] was able to get these girls and young boys to submit to him just seems unfathomable,” Tarantino said recently . “I studied a lot about it, and the more you learn about it and the more information you get, it doesn’t make it any clearer.”

So there’s no indication that Tarantino actually thinks violent movies make people violent. Rather, he seems to hold to what he said to the Orlando Sentinel in 2004: “In real life, when violence enters our world … it kind of just rears its ugly head and we are not prepared for it … It comes out of nowhere!” Once Upon a Time ’s “real” calamities—the death of Booth’s wife, the conflict in Vietnam, the many horrors committed by the Manson family—lurk on the edge, undepicted and uninvestigated. Dalton and his peers live in a bubble, and their job is to create other bubbles. If those bubbles happen to include distorted reflections of the globe’s actual violence, as the uproarious end of the movie would seem to prove, that stuff can be entertaining.

By insisting that filmic violence and real violence are so separate, though, Tarantino is working from an incoherent justification of his own. The notion that movies are just movies, that what happens on-screen really only ever amounts to harmless fun, might explain his much-noted cavalier treatment of race and gender . It also would seem to contradict the director’s own ambitions. Hollywood’s products may not have killed Sharon Tate, but they surely did shape society on a level deeper than momentary amusement. After all, Tarantino’s movies often seek to do just that. Or is it wrong to look for commentary on the Civil War in Django Unchained , or on family and womanhood in Kill Bill , or on genocide in Inglourious Basterds , and so on?

The director does unambiguously reserve one special power for movie violence: to comfort in the face of true nightmares. Tarantino has said that he hesitated for years about going ahead with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , because the real-world Manson murders were too heinous to contemplate. To deal with that problem, it appears, he rewrote history as a fairy tale, just as he did with Hitler , and just as he did with slaveowners . In the movie’s final scenes, the lovably humdrum and lived-in 1969 Los Angeles of the previous two hours becomes something more surreal—call it an acid trip, a fantasy, or an action movie. With licks of flames inspiring LOLs and awe, a real horror is temporarily supplanted by a spectacle of good beating bad. Then the lights come on and the viewers have to cope, on their own, with the world they live in.

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Does Media Violence Lead to the Real Thing?

By Vasilis K. Pozios Praveen R. Kambam and H. Eric Bender

Aug. 23, 2013

EARLIER this summer the actor Jim Carrey, a star of the new superhero movie “Kick-Ass 2,” tweeted that he was distancing himself from the film because, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, “in all good conscience I cannot support” the movie’s extensive and graphically violent scenes.

Mark Millar, a creator of the “Kick-Ass” comic book series and one of the movie’s executive producers, responded that he has “never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more boy wizards in real life.”

While Mr. Carrey’s point of view has its adherents, most people reflexively agree with Mr. Millar. After all, the logic goes, millions of Americans see violent imagery in films and on TV every day, but vanishingly few become killers.

But a growing body of research indicates that this reasoning may be off base. Exposure to violent imagery does not preordain violence, but it is a risk factor. We would never say: “I’ve smoked cigarettes for a long time, and I don’t have lung cancer. Therefore there’s no link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer.” So why use such flawed reasoning when it comes to media violence?

There is now consensus that exposure to media violence is linked to actual violent behavior — a link found by many scholars to be on par with the correlation of exposure to secondhand smoke and the risk of lung cancer. In a meta-analysis of 217 studies published between 1957 and 1990, the psychologists George Comstock and Haejung Paik found that the short-term effect of exposure to media violence on actual physical violence against a person was moderate to large in strength.

Mr. Comstock and Ms. Paik also conducted a meta-analysis of studies that looked at the correlation between habitual viewing of violent media and aggressive behavior at a point in time. They found 200 studies showing a moderate, positive relationship between watching television violence and physical aggression against another person.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Violence and Cinema

Introduction, general overviews.

Anthologies
The Aesthetics of Violence
Narrative Structure and Violence
Violence Done to Women on Screen
Violent Women on Screen
Documentary Film and Violence
Race and Violence
Masculinity and Violence
Ultraviolence
Violence and the Apocalypse
Representations of Torture
Aesthetics of Combat
Violence and the Spectator
Theorizing Violence and its Role in Society
The Western
The Gangster Film

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Violence and Cinema by Hilary Neroni LAST REVIEWED: 24 July 2012 LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2012 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0148

Originally, studies on violence in the cinema were connected to particular genres or filmmakers. This scholarship often investigated the patterns and tropes of violence as it was identified with genres, such as the western, the gangster film, and horror—or filmmakers such as Sam Peckinpah or Arthur Penn. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, there was a wave of new scholarship on violence in the cinema that often focused on how the form of violence created meaning. And since then, there has been steady publication of new scholarship every year investigating violence in the cinema. This bibliography is organized to represent the different paths of investigation that scholars have taken. A certain segment of the scholarship is still concerned with figuring out the relationship of violent spectacle to the narrative structure, while others investigate how violence impacts racial or gender identities. Still other scholarship considers the aesthetic qualities of violence in “ultraviolence,” specifically depicted in war films and apocalyptic films. Recent scholarship has also been addressing the rise in a new abundance of torture scenes in film often linking them to post-9/11 fears and issues. This contemporary scholarship has also led to some reinvestigations of genre, the Production Code, and various filmmakers associated with violence, all interpreted through this new lens concerning the aesthetics and structural impact of violence itself.

There are several works that help to situate some of the scholarship on violence. Kendrick 2009 gives an overview of the field, as well as several genres and auteurs associated with violence. Prince 2000 introduces the issues attached to ultraviolence and related scholarship as it appears in his anthology. Slocum 2001 presents a thorough overview of the issues of reception, aesthetics, and narrative structure, as well as the scholarship addressing those issues both in the field and in his anthology.

Kendrick, James. Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre . New York: Wallflower, 2009.

Part of Wallflower’s Short Cuts series, Kendrick gives an overview of the issues involved in scholarship on violence in the cinema. The book addresses problems of definition, constructs a history of filmic violence, studies violence in various genres, and develops a case study of auteurs associated with violence.

Prince, Stephen. “Graphic Violence in the Cinema: Origins, Aesthetic Design, and Social Effects.” In Screening Violence . Edited by Stephen Prince, 1–46. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Prince introduces his anthology with a historical overview of ultraviolence in cinema, a look at the debates over effects on the viewer, and an overview of the scholarship.

Slocum, J. David. “Violence and American Cinema: Notes for an Investigation.” In Violence and American Cinema . Edited by David J. Slocum, 1–36. New York: Routledge, 2001.

As an introduction to his anthology, Slocum not only gives an overview of the current trends in scholarship about violence in the cinema but also categorizes these responses to make sense of the field.

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About Cinema and Media Studies »
Meet the Editorial Board »
2001: A Space Odyssey
À bout de souffle
Accounting, Motion Picture
Advertising and Promotion
African American Cinema
African American Stars
African Cinema
AIDS in Film and Television
Akerman, Chantal
Allen, Woody
Almodóvar, Pedro
Altman, Robert
American Cinema, 1895-1915
American Cinema, 1939-1975
American Cinema, 1976 to Present
American Independent Cinema
American Independent Cinema, Producers
American Public Broadcasting
Anderson, Wes
Animals in Film and Media
Animation and the Animated Film
Arbuckle, Roscoe
Architecture and Cinema
Argentine Cinema
Aronofsky, Darren
Arzner, Dorothy
Asian Television
Astaire, Fred and Rogers, Ginger
Audiences and Moviegoing Cultures
Australian Cinema
Authorship, Television
Avant-Garde and Experimental Film
Bachchan, Amitabh
Battle of Algiers, The
Battleship Potemkin, The
Bazin, André
Bergman, Ingmar
Bernstein, Elmer
Bertolucci, Bernardo
Bigelow, Kathryn
Birth of a Nation, The
Blade Runner
Blockbusters
Bong, Joon Ho
Brakhage, Stan
Brando, Marlon
Brazilian Cinema
Breaking Bad
Bresson, Robert
British Cinema
Broadcasting, Australian
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Burnett, Charles
Buñuel, Luis
Cameron, James
Campion, Jane
Canadian Cinema
Capra, Frank
Carpenter, John
Cassavetes, John
Cavell, Stanley
Chahine, Youssef
Chan, Jackie
Chaplin, Charles
Children in Film
Chinese Cinema
Cinecittà Studios
Cinema and Media Industries, Creative Labor in
Cinema and the Visual Arts
Cinematography and Cinematographers
Citizen Kane
City in Film, The
Cocteau, Jean
Coen Brothers, The
Colonial Educational Film
Comedy, Film
Comedy, Television
Comics, Film, and Media
Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
Copland, Aaron
Coppola, Francis Ford
Copyright and Piracy
Corman, Roger
Costume and Fashion
Cronenberg, David
Cuban Cinema
Cult Cinema
Dance and Film
de Oliveira, Manoel
Dean, James
Deleuze, Gilles
Denis, Claire
Deren, Maya
Design, Art, Set, and Production
Dietrich, Marlene
Digital Media and Convergence Culture
Disney, Walt
Documentary Film
Downton Abbey
Dr. Strangelove
Dreyer, Carl Theodor
Eastern European Television
Eastwood, Clint
Eisenstein, Sergei
Elfman, Danny
Ethnographic Film
European Television
Exhibition and Distribution
Fairbanks, Douglas
Fan Studies
Fellini, Federico
Film Aesthetics
Film and Literature
Film Guilds and Unions
Film, Historical
Film Preservation and Restoration
Film Theory and Criticism, Science Fiction
Film Theory Before 1945
Film Theory, Psychoanalytic
Finance Film, The
French Cinema
Game of Thrones
Gance, Abel
Garbo, Greta
Garland, Judy
German Cinema
Gilliam, Terry
Global Television Industry
Godard, Jean-Luc
Godfather Trilogy, The
Golden Girls, The
Greek Cinema
Griffith, D.W.
Hammett, Dashiell
Haneke, Michael
Hawks, Howard
Haynes, Todd
Hepburn, Katharine
Herrmann, Bernard
Herzog, Werner
Hindi Cinema, Popular
Hitchcock, Alfred
Hollywood Studios
Holocaust Cinema
Hong Kong Cinema
Horror-Comedy
Hsiao-Hsien, Hou
Hungarian Cinema
Icelandic Cinema
Immigration and Cinema
Indigenous Media
Industrial, Educational, and Instructional Television and ...
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Iranian Cinema
Irish Cinema
Israeli Cinema
It Happened One Night
Italian Americans in Cinema and Media
Italian Cinema
Japanese Cinema
Jazz Singer, The
Jews in American Cinema and Media
Keaton, Buster
Kitano, Takeshi
Korean Cinema
Kracauer, Siegfried
Kubrick, Stanley
Lang, Fritz
Latin American Cinema
Latina/o Americans in Film and Television
Lee, Chang-dong
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Cin...
Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The
Los Angeles and Cinema
Lubitsch, Ernst
Lumet, Sidney
Lupino, Ida
Lynch, David
Marker, Chris
Martel, Lucrecia
Masculinity in Film
Media, Community
Media Ecology
Memory and the Flashback in Cinema
Metz, Christian
Mexican Cinema
Micheaux, Oscar
Ming-liang, Tsai
Minnelli, Vincente
Miyazaki, Hayao
Méliès, Georges
Modernism and Film
Monroe, Marilyn
Mészáros, Márta
Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood
Music and Cinema, Global Practices
Music, Television
Music Video
Musicals on Television
Native Americans
New Media Art
New Media Policy
New Media Theory
New York City and Cinema
New Zealand Cinema
Opera and Film
Ophuls, Max
Orphan Films
Oshima, Nagisa
Ozu, Yasujiro
Panh, Rithy
Pasolini, Pier Paolo
Passion of Joan of Arc, The
Peckinpah, Sam
Philosophy and Film
Photography and Cinema
Pickford, Mary
Planet of the Apes
Poems, Novels, and Plays About Film
Poitier, Sidney
Polanski, Roman
Polish Cinema
Politics, Hollywood and
Pop, Blues, and Jazz in Film
Pornography
Postcolonial Theory in Film
Potter, Sally
Prime Time Drama
Queer Television
Queer Theory
Radio and Sound Studies
Ray, Nicholas
Ray, Satyajit
Reality Television
Reenactment in Cinema and Media
Regulation, Television
Religion and Film
Remakes, Sequels and Prequels
Renoir, Jean
Resnais, Alain
Romanian Cinema
Romantic Comedy, American
Rossellini, Roberto
Russian Cinema
Saturday Night Live
Scandinavian Cinema
Scorsese, Martin
Scott, Ridley
Searchers, The
Sennett, Mack
Sesame Street
Shakespeare on Film
Silent Film
Simpsons, The
Singin' in the Rain
Sirk, Douglas
Soap Operas
Social Class
Social Media
Social Problem Films
Soderbergh, Steven
Sound Design, Film
Sound, Film
Spanish Cinema
Spanish-Language Television
Spielberg, Steven
Sports and Media
Stand-Up Comedians
Stop-Motion Animation
Streaming Television
Sturges, Preston
Surrealism and Film
Taiwanese Cinema
Tarantino, Quentin
Tarkovsky, Andrei
Tati, Jacques
Television Audiences
Television Celebrity
Television, History of
Television Industry, American
Theater and Film
Theory, Cognitive Film
Theory, Critical Media
Theory, Feminist Film
Theory, Film
Theory, Trauma
Touch of Evil
Transnational and Diasporic Cinema
Trinh, T. Minh-ha
Truffaut, François
Turkish Cinema
Twilight Zone, The
Varda, Agnès
Vertov, Dziga
Video and Computer Games
Video Installation
Violence and Cinema
Virtual Reality
Visconti, Luchino
Von Sternberg, Josef
Von Stroheim, Erich
von Trier, Lars
Warhol, The Films of Andy
Waters, John
Wayne, John
Weerasethakul, Apichatpong
Weir, Peter
Welles, Orson
Whedon, Joss
Wilder, Billy
Williams, John
Wiseman, Frederick
Wizard of Oz, The
Women and Film
Women and the Silent Screen
Wong, Anna May
Wong, Kar-wai
Wood, Natalie
Yang, Edward
Yimou, Zhang
Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema
Zinnemann, Fred
Zombies in Cinema and Media
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Watching violence on screens makes children more emotionally distressed

Researcher at Concordia's PERFORM center and Assistant Professor of Psychology, Université Sainte-Anne

Disclosure statement

Caroline Fitzpatrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Children today can access media through both traditional devices, like televisions, and portable devices like laptops and tablets.

With more access, children are more likely to be exposed to violent content – like real-life or cartoons where force is being used and harm is being done to a person or character. Studies show that 37% of media aimed at children have scenes of physical or verbal violence. What’s more, 90% of movies, 68% of video games, 60% of TV shows, and 15% of music videos have some form of violence. In some cases, it’s rising – the amount of violence in mainstream movies has been growing steadily over the past 50 years.

Evidence shows that this can be detrimental to young children. Around the ages of three and four children begin to develop perceptions and expectations about the world around them. These views are strongly influenced by their daily experiences. If children are often exposed to scenes of violence, they may develop a view of the world as a more dangerous place than it actually is.

To investigate this further, and predict the types of mental health outcomes this has, my colleagues and I examined the potential long-term risks associated with exposure to violent media on children’s development. We found that those exposed to violence become more antisocial and emotionally distressed.

Exposed to violence

Through parent reports, we measured children’s exposure to violent movies and programmes in 1,800 preschool aged children between the ages of three and four. Four years later, second grade teachers rated the same childrens’ classroom behaviour using a social behaviour questionnaire – which covers behaviour such as physical aggression, inattentiveness and emotional distress over the course of the school year. Teachers were unaware of which children had been exposed to violent media.

To rule out the impact of the home environment on the development of these behaviours, we controlled for the contribution of early childhood aggression, parenting quality, maternal education, parent antisocial behaviour and family structure.

According to our results, teachers rated exposed children as more antisocial. Antisocial behaviours include; a lack of remorse, lying, insensitivity to the emotions of others, and manipulating others.

Our results also reveal significant associations between exposure to violent media and classroom attention problems. Furthermore, exposed children were reported to show more signs of emotional distress; in terms of sadness and a lack of enthusiasm.

The results were similar for boys and girls.

Child development

The content of media to which young children are exposed is closely related to child outcomes.

Age-appropriate programmes – like sesame street for kindergarteners– which aim to help children understand words or ideas, are known to help them develop language and mental skills.

New technology can be useful too. Video chat technologies – like Skype or Facetime – which give children an interactive, two-way live exchange with adults facilitate language learning.

On the other hand, violent films and video games often feature attractive protagonists that engage in a disproportionate number of aggressive actions. Children exposed to this type of content can develop a deformed perception of violence and its actual frequency in real life.

Eventually, this can give rise to the impression that the world is an overly dangerous place filled with ill-intentioned people. People that have such a worldview are more likely to interpret an ambiguous or accidental gesture as hostile or as a personal attack.

There are steps that parents can take. By modelling, positive non-violent behaviour – like using respectful communication to solve problems rather than aggression – and having conversations about the violent images their children are exposed to, parents can reduce the negative effects of violent media on their child’s development.

Parents should also keep bedrooms free from screens, closely monitoring children’s media usage, and shutting off the internet at night.

Mental health
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Violent Movies and Severe Acts of Violence: Sensationalism versus Science

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Patrick M. Markey, Juliana E. French, Charlotte N. Markey, Violent Movies and Severe Acts of Violence: Sensationalism versus Science, Human Communication Research , Volume 41, Issue 2, 1 April 2015, Pages 155–173, https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12046

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Violent media has often been blamed for severe violent acts. Following recent findings that violence in movies has increased substantially over the last few decades, this research examined whether such increases were related to trends in severe acts of violence. Annual rates of movie violence and gun violence in movies were compared to homicide and aggravated assault rates between the years of 1960 and 2012. Time series analyses found that violent films were negatively, although nonsignificantly, related to homicides and aggravated assaults. These nonsignificant negative relations remained present even after controlling for various extraneous variables. Results suggest that caution is warranted when generalizing violent media research, conducted primarily in laboratories and via questionnaires, to societal trends in violent behavior.

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Violence in the Media and Entertainment (Position Paper)

The prevalence and impact of violence portrayed in media and entertainment have long been a topic of debate in the United States. In 1972, the U.S. surgeon general issued a special report on the large and growing body of evidence on the public health effects of media violence. 1 At the time, the report was largely focused on television as the prevailing form of media and entertainment in the United States. However, even as the landscape of media has changed throughout the intervening decades to include other forms of digital media and entertainment, the near-ubiquitous portrayals of violence in various forms of media have remained a topic of intense scrutiny.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.” 2 Violence occurs at an alarming rate in the United States. 3 Among Americans aged 15 to 34 years, two of the top three causes of death are homicide and suicide, and many of these deaths involve firearms. 4,5 In a given year, more U.S. children will die from gun violence than will die from cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, HIV/AIDS, and opioids combined. 6 According to the Children’s Defense Fund, “U.S. children and teens are 15 times more likely to die from gunfire than their peers in 31 other high-income countries combined.” 7 In fact, the overall rate of firearm-related death or injury in the United States is higher than the rate in most other industrialized countries. 8 There were 39,740 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2018, which averages to approximately 109 people dying each day from homicides, suicides, and unintentional deaths involving firearms. 5 Further, the number of nonfatal injuries due to firearms is more than double the number of deaths. 9

While multiple factors can lead to violent actions, a growing body of literature shows a strong association between the perpetration of violence and exposure to violence in media, digital media, and entertainment. This is a serious public health issue that should concern all family physicians, particularly as it affects young patients and their parents or guardians. Children, adolescents, and young adults consume digital media from a variety of sources, many of which are mobile, are accessible 24 hours a day, and offer both passive and active engagement. Many of these media platforms feature entertainment that contains significant doses of violence and portrays sexual and interpersonal aggression.

Multiple studies have shown either a strong association or a suspicion or suggestion of causality between exposure to violence in media and aggressive or violent thoughts, emotions, and behavior in those exposed. 10 It is incumbent on family physicians to recognize the intersectionality of risk factors for exposure to violence in media, digital media, and entertainment, particularly for vulnerable populations. For example, some studies have shown that independent risk factors for exposure to extremely violent movies include male gender, racial or ethnic minority status, low socioeconomic status, and poor school performance. 11

Call to Action

Family physicians have a unique opportunity to encourage safer use of digital media by working closely with patients and their parents or guardians during well-child and well-adolescent visits. They can connect patients and parents or guardians to resources to promote healthier habits, such as creating a family technology use plan that considers the quality and quantity of media being consumed at home. Family physicians can also engage in local, state, and national advocacy to highlight ongoing concerns regarding violence in media, digital media, and entertainment and support continued research in this field.

Physician Level

● Promote a family technology use plan. This allows parents and guardians to consider the quality and quantity of digital media that is consumed at home and establish guidelines for age-appropriate media exposure. 12 Parental use of digital media has been shown to influence media use behaviors in children. 13

● Increase personal knowledge of the types of digital media being consumed in households, particularly among children and adolescents.

● Encourage patients, children, families, and caregivers to participate in media education and media literacy programs.

● Encourage parents or guardians to monitor content and not to rely solely on media ratings or advisory labels. Parental monitoring has been shown to have protective effects on several academic, social, and physical outcomes for children, including aggressive behaviors. 14

● Advise adults to consume digital media with their children and help them process media violence. Recording programs in advance makes it possible to pause for discussion or processing.

● Consider asking questions regarding media use during well-child and well-adolescent visits, such as:

How much entertainment media does the child or teen consume each day?
Does the child or teen have a television or digital media access in their bedroom?

● Consider asking patients and parents or guardians about exposure to violence in digital media. If you identify heavy exposure (i.e., more than two hours daily), take additional history of aggressive behaviors, sleep problems, fears, and depression. Be ready to discuss the health risks associated with consumption of violent media.

● Work with patients and parents or guardians to create a list of healthy alternatives to consumption of violent media.

● Counsel parents or guardians and caregivers of children younger than two years of age to limit their child's screen time to no more than two hours a day. Discourage routine digital media exposure.

● Encourage use of technology that restricts certain content and turns off the device after a certain amount of time.

Practice Level

● Create a nonjudgmental and culturally proficient environment in which patients and parents or guardians can ask questions and express concerns.

● Provide and/or promote nonviolent media choices in outpatient waiting rooms and inpatient settings.

● Display promotional information for community media literacy education opportunities.

Education Level

● Become familiar with research on trends in media use and the effects of media violence on individuals.

● Align medical education and residency program training to deliver evidence-based information on the potential health effects of consumption of violent media.

● Expand current continuing medical education (CME) offerings to include evidence-based information on best practices to promote media education and healthy media consumption.

● Support the development of media literacy education programs that focus on understanding the divide between real and fictionalized violence on television, in movies, and in other forms of digital media, as well as the responsibility, complexity, and consequences of real-life violence. Media literacy programs have been shown to be effective in limiting the negative effects of media and exploring potential positive social uses of media. 14,15,16

Advocacy Level

● Partner with medical organizations, government entities, and educators to advocate to keep this issue on the public health agenda.

● Partner with families and community-based organizations to demand that media producers limit the amount and type of violence portrayed in mass media.

● Advocate for research funding to continue studying this topic.

● Advocate for enhancements to media rating systems to help parents or guardians and caregivers guide children to make healthy media choices.

Media Violence in the United States

The term “digital media” refers to all types of electronic data, including text, databases, images, audio, and video; it may also refer to the electronic devices that store the data and to the communications methods that transmit the data. 17 Examples include streaming video, messaging and social networking platforms, video games, television, music, music videos, and social media. The expansion of media to include more and more forms of digital media has made it easier to access and be exposed to portrayals of violence. The advent of the internet has further expanded the reach and impact of digital media by encouraging interactivity and group forming through media such as online gaming, virtual reality, digital art, and social media. 18

As the cost of televisions and other screen media devices has continued to drop in recent years, screen media, streaming media, and other digital media have become more accessible than ever. In the United States, 84% of households contain at least one smartphone, with the median U.S. household containing five connected devices (e.g., smartphone, laptop or desktop computer, streaming media device) and one in five households containing 10 or more of these devices. 19

For decades, watching television was the most common form of daily media consumption, but that changed in 2019, with time on the internet exceeding time spent watching television. 20 Research suggests that young people in the United States spend more time interacting with various digital media than in any other activity except sleeping, with a typical 8- to 18-year-old using some form of media for an average of 50 hours per week or more. 21 On average, U.S. teens spend more than seven hours per day consuming a variety of entertainment screen media (e.g., smartphone, social media, gaming, music) and 8- to 12-year-olds spend more than four hours per day. 22

Studies demonstrating an association between exposure to violence in the media and real-life aggression and violence began appearing in the 1950s. Since then, various government agencies and organizations have examined the relationship, reporting their findings in publications including the surgeon general’s 1972 report, a 1982 National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) review, and a joint statement on the impact of entertainment violence on children issued following a 2000 congressional summit. 1,23,24 In 2000, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report noting that media violence is a risk factor in shootings in school. 25 A 2003 review identified media violence as a significant causal factor in aggression and violence. 26 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a 2007 report on violent programming on television and noted that there is “strong evidence” that exposure to violence through media can increase aggressive behavior in children. 27

These reports and others are based on a body of literature that includes more than 2,000 scientific papers, studies, and reviews demonstrating the various effects that exposure to media violence can have on children and adolescents. These include increases in aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, bullying, fear, depression, nightmares, and sleep disturbances. 28,29,30 Some studies found the strength of association between consumption of violent media and these behaviors to be nearly as strong as the association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, and stronger than the well-established associations between calcium intake and bone mass, lead ingestion and IQ, and failure to use condoms and acquisition of HIV. 31

Seventy-one percent of 8- to 18-year-olds have a television in their bedroom. 21 In addition, 50% of individuals in this age group access television content online and/or on mobile platforms during a typical day. 21 Researchers have found that 8- to 12-year-olds watch television programming for an average of 1 hour and 23 minutes per day and 13- to 18-year-olds watch for an average of 1 hour and 45 minutes per day, with approximately 19 minutes and 38 minutes of this time, respectively, spent viewing television content on other devices (e.g., computer, smartphone, tablet, MP3 player). 22

An average American youth will witness 200,000 violent acts on television before age 18. 32 Weapons appear on prime-time television an average of nine times each hour. 33 The violence depicted in television content is often considerable, even in programs not advertised as violent, and children’s shows are particularly violent. Watching Saturday morning cartoons used to be a common aspect of American life. Now, children can access cartoons on demand. Studies analyzing the content of popular cartoons noted that they contain 20 to 25 violent acts per hour, which is about five times as many as prime-time programs. 34 Overall, 46% of television violence occurs in cartoons. 35,36,37 Additionally, these programs are more likely to juxtapose violence with humor (67%) and less likely to show the long-term consequences of violence (5%). 34,35,36 Although some claim that cartoon violence is not as “real,” and therefore not as damaging, it has been shown to increase the likelihood of aggressive, antisocial behavior in youth. 38 This association makes sense in light of children’s developmental difficulty discerning the real from the fantastic. 39

Video Games

Nearly all American teens—97% of males and 83% of females—play video games. 40 Eighty percent of teens play at least three hours of video games per week on a game console, with 25% of teens playing 11 hours or more per week. 41 Additional exposure occurs among teens who identify as fans of competitive video gaming, or esports; among 14- to 21-year-olds, nearly as many identified themselves as esports fans as professional football fans. 42

Many video games contain violent content, and studies have shown a significant association between violent video game exposure and increased aggression, increased desensitization to violence, and decreased empathy. 43 Video games that involve assuming the roles of aggressors or soldiers offer players the opportunity to be “virtual perpetrators.” These games also reward players for successfully carrying out violent behavior. Studies have shown that the general effects of violence may be more profound when children play these interactive games than when they are exposed to violence in a more passive manner, such as when watching television. 44,45

Music plays a central role in the lives of many adolescents and young adults, helping them sort through their emotions, identify with peer groups, and develop a sense of self. Forty-seven percent of 8- to 12-year-olds listen to music every day, with an average of 43 minutes of listening time per day, and 82% of 13- to 18-year-olds listen to music every day, with an average of slightly more than two hours of listening time per day. 22

There have been fewer studies of the effects of violent portrayals in music than studies of violence in other forms of media. One study found a correlation between violent lyrics and aggressive thoughts and emotions, but not actions. 46 Additional studies have shown that individuals who prefer heavy metal or rap music are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, have lower grades in elementary school and during adolescence, and have a history of counseling in elementary school for academic problems, compared with peers who prefer other types of music. 47

Music videos have been sources of violent content for decades. Content analysis has shown that more than 80% of the violence in music videos is perpetrated by attractive role models and that music videos mainly depict acts of violence against women and people in minority groups. 48 In many music videos, violent scenes are of a sexual nature. In addition, artistic choices and editing may juxtapose violence with images such as beautiful scenery, potentially linking violence to pleasurable experiences. 49 Several studies that focused on violence in rap music found that this genre contains more violent content than other genres. They also found that viewers of rap music videos were more likely to accept the use of violence, to accept violence against women, and to commit violent or aggressive acts themselves. 49

Several researchers have described an increase in violent content in movies, despite a national rating system. For example, studies have found that 91% of movies on television contain violence, including extreme violence. 11,36 Although film ratings and advisory labels can help parents decide on movies to avoid, certain labels, such as “parental discretion advised” and the R rating, have been shown to attract children, especially boys. 33,35,36 In 2003, 10 million adolescents aged 10 to 14 years, including 1 million 10-year-olds, had been exposed to that year’s most popular R-rated film. 11 One study found that between 2012 and 2017, there were twice as many negative themes—most commonly associated with violence—as positive themes depicted in the 25 top-grossing R-rated films. 50 Researchers have also noted that the amount of gun violence in top-grossing PG-13 films has more than tripled since the introduction of the rating in 1985. 51 In 2012, PG-13 films actually contained more gun violence than R-rated films. 52 Further, violence is even present in movies that are not considered to be violent, such as animated films. 53

1. Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior. Television and growing up: the impact of televised violence. Report to the Surgeon General, United States Public Health Service. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1972. DHEW publication no. HSM 72-9090. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/ext/document/101584932X543/PDF/101584932X543.pdf

2. World Health Organization. Definition and typology of violence. Accessed July 19, 2020.

3. American Academy of Family Physicians. Violence (reviewed and approved 2014). Accessed October 16, 2020. https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/violence-position-paper.html

4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 10 leading causes of death by age group, United States -- 2018. Accessed July 19, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2018_1100w850h.jpg

5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Firearm violence prevention. Accessed October 20, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/fastfact.html

6. Children’s Defense Fund. Protect children, not guns 2019. Accessed July 31, 2020. https://www.childrensdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Protect-Children-Not-Guns-2019.pdf

7. Children’s Defense Fund. The state of America’s children 2020. Accessed July 19, 2020. https://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/resources/soac-2020-overview

8. Gramlich J. What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. Pew Research Center; 2019. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

9. Fowler KA, Dahlberg LL, Haileyesus T, et al. Firearm injuries in the United States. Prev Med . 2015;79:5-14.

10. Huesmann LR. The impact of electronic media violence: scientific theory and research. J Adolesc Health . 2007;41(6 Suppl 1):S6-S13.

11. Worth KA, et al. Exposure of US adolescents to extremely violent movies. Pediatrics . 2008;(122)2:306-312.

12. American Academy of Pediatrics. Family media plan. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/media/Pages/default.aspx

13. Jago R, Sebire SJ, Edwards MJ, et al. Parental TV viewing, parental self-efficacy, media equipment and TV viewing among preschool children. Eur J Pediatr . 2013;172(11):1543-1545.

14. Gentile DA, Reimer RA, Nathanson AI, et al. Protective effects of parental monitoring of children's media use: a prospective study, JAMA Pediatr. 2014;(168)5:479-484. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/1852609

15. American Academy Pediatrics Committee on Public Education. Media education. Pediatrics . 1999;104(2):341-343.

16. Brown JA. Television “Critical Viewing Skills” Education: Major Media Literacy Projects in the United States and Selected Countries. Routledge; 1991.

17. PC Magazine Encyclopedia. Digital media. Accessed October 20, 2020. https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/digital-media

18. Smith R. What is digital media? Centre for Digital Media; 2013. Accessed August 22, 2020. https://thecdm.ca/news/what-is-digital-media

19. Pew Research Center. A third of Americans live in a household with three or more smartphones. May 25, 2017. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/25/a-third-of-americans-live-in-a-household-with-three-or-more-smartphones/

20. Dolliver M. U.S. time spent with media 2019. eMarketer; 2019. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-time-spent-with-media-2019

21. Rideout VJ, Foehr UG, Roberts DF. Generation M 2 : media in the lives of 8- to 18-year-olds. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation; 2010. Accessed July 19, 2020. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED527859.pdf

22. Rideout V, Robb MB. The Common Sense census: media use by tweens and teens, 2019. Common Sense Media; 2019. Accessed October 16, 2020.

23. National Institute of Mental Health. Television and behavior: ten years of scientific progress and implications for the eighties. Vol. I: summary report. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1982. DHHS publication no. ADM 82-1195. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED222186.pdf

24. American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, et al. Joint statement on the impact of entertainment violence on children. Congressional Public Health Summit. 2000.

25. O’Toole ME. The school shooter: a threat assessment perspective. Federal Bureau of Investigation; 1999. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publications-school-shooter-school-shooter/view

26. Anderson CA, Berkowitz L, Donnerstein E, et al. The influence of media violence on youth. Psychol Sci Public Interest . 2003(4)3:81-110.

27. Federal Communications Commission. Violent television programming and its impact on children. 2007. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://www.fcc.gov/document/violent-television-programming-and-its-impact-children

28. Gentile DA. Media Violence and Children: A Complete Guide for Parents and Professionals . 2 nd ed. Praeger; 2014.

29. Coker TR, Elliott MN, Schwebel DC, et al. Media violence exposure and physical aggression in fifth-grade children. Acad Pediatr . 2015;15(1):82-88.

30. Ybarra ML, Diener-West M, Markow D. Linkages between internet and other media violence with seriously violent behavior by youth. Pediatrics . 2008;(122)5:929-937.

31. Singer DG, Singer JL, eds. Handbook of Children and the Media . 2 nd ed. Sage Publications, Inc.; 2011.

32. American Psychological Association. Violence & youth: psychology’s response. Vol. I: summary report of the American Psychological Association Commission on Violence and Youth. 1993. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://www.apa.org/pi/prevent-violence/resources/violence-youth.pdf

33. Strasburger VC, Donnerstein E. Children, adolescents, and the media in the 21 st century. Adolesc Med . 2000;11(1):51-68.

34. American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Communications. Media violence. Pediatrics . 1995(6):949-951.

35. Seawell M, ed. National Television Violence Study. Volume 1. Sage Publications, Inc.; 1996.

36. Federman J, ed. National Television Violence Study. Volume 2. Sage Publications, Inc.; 1997.

37. Seawell M, ed. National Television Violence Study. Volume 3. Sage Publications, Inc.; 1998.

38. Leung LR, Fagan JE, Cho H. Children and television. Am Fam Physician . 1994;50:909-912, 915-918.

39. Huesmann LR, Eron LD, Klein R, et al. Mitigating the imitation of aggressive behaviors by changing children’s attitudes about media violence. J Pers Soc Psychol . 1983;44(5):899-910.

40. Pew Research Center. Teens, social media & technology 2018. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2018/05/PI_2018.05.31_TeensTech_FINAL.pdf

41. PricewaterhouseCoopers. The evolution of video gaming and content consumption. 2012. Accessed October 20, 2020. https://www.pwc.com/sg/en/tice/assets/ticenews201206/evolutionvideogame201206.pdf

42. UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion. 2017 sports poll release – esports and competitive video gaming. Accessed October 19, 2020. https://www.uml.edu/docs/esports-highlights_tcm18-288117.pdf

43. Calvert SL, Appelbaum M, Dodge KA, et al. The American Psychological Association Task Force assessment of violent video games: science in the service of public interest. Am Psychol . 2017;72(2):126-143.

44. Hollingdale J, Greitemeyer T. The effect of online violence video games on levels of aggression. PLoS ONE . 2014;9(11):e111790.

45. Anderson, CA, Gentile DA, Buckley KE. Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents . Oxford University Press; 2007.

46. Anderson CA, Carangey NL, Eubanks J. Exposure to violent media: the effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings. J Pers Soc Psychol . 2003;(84)5:960-971.

47. American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media. Impact of music, music lyrics, and music videos on children and youth. Pediatrics . 2009;124(5):1488-1494.

48. Rich M, Woods ER, Goodman E, et al. Aggressors or victims: gender and race in music video violence. Pediatrics . 1998;101(4 Pt 1):669-674.

49. Ashby SL, Rich M. Video killed the radio star: the effects of music videos on adolescent health. Adolesc Med Clin . 2005;(16)2:371-393.

50. Watts A, Loloi J, Lessner K, et al. Themes depicted in top-grossing rated-R films released from 2012 to 2017. Cureus . 2020;12(2):e6844.

51. Romer D, Jamieson PE, Bushman BJ, et al. Parental desensitization to violence and sex in movies. Pediatrics . 2014;(134)5:877-884.

52. Bushman BJ, Jamieson PE, Weitz I, et al. Gun violence trends in movies. Pediatrics . 2013;132(6):1014-1018.

53. Kirsh SJ. Cartoon violence and aggression in youth. Aggression and Violent Behavior . 2006;11:547-557.

(2004) (January 2022 COD)

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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.

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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.

Violence in the media: Psychologists study potential harmful effects

Early research on the effects of viewing violence on television—especially among children—found a desensitizing effect and the potential for aggression. Is the same true for those who play violent video games?

Video Games
Physical Abuse and Violence

Television and video violence

Virtually since the dawn of television, parents, teachers, legislators, and mental health professionals have wanted to understand the impact of television programs, particularly on children. Of special concern has been the portrayal of violence, particularly given psychologist Albert Bandura’s work in the 1970s on social learning and the tendency of children to imitate what they see.

As a result of 15 years of “consistently disturbing” findings about the violent content of children’s programs, the Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior was formed in 1969 to assess the impact of violence on the attitudes, values, and behavior of viewers. The resulting report and a follow-up report in 1982 by the National Institute of Mental Health identified these major effects of seeing violence on television:

Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others.
Children may be more fearful of the world around them.
Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.

Research by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron, and others starting in the 1980s found that children who watched many hours of violence on television when they were in elementary school tended to show higher levels of aggressive behavior when they became teenagers. By observing these participants into adulthood, Huesmann and Eron found that the ones who’d watched a lot of TV violence when they were 8 years old were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults.

Interestingly, being aggressive as a child did not predict watching more violent TV as a teenager, suggesting that TV watching could be a cause rather than a consequence of aggressive behavior. However, later research by psychologists Douglas Gentile and Brad Bushman, among others, suggested that exposure to media violence is just one of several factors that can contribute to aggressive behavior.

Other research has found that exposure to media violence can desensitize people to violence in the real world and that, for some people, watching violence in the media becomes enjoyable and does not result in the anxious arousal that would be expected from seeing such imagery.

Video game violence

The advent of video games raised new questions about the potential impact of media violence, since the video game player is an active participant rather than merely a viewer. 97% of adolescents age 12–17 play video games—on a computer, on consoles such as the Wii, Playstation, and Xbox, or on portable devices such as Gameboys, smartphones, and tablets. A Pew Research Center survey in 2008 found that half of all teens reported playing a video game “yesterday,” and those who played every day typically did so for an hour or more.

Many of the most popular video games, such as “Call of Duty” and “Grand Theft Auto,” are violent; however, as video game technology is relatively new, there are fewer empirical studies of video game violence than other forms of media violence. Still, several meta-analytic reviews have reported negative effects of exposure to violence in video games.

A 2010 review by psychologist Craig A. Anderson and others concluded that “the evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior.” Anderson’s earlier research showed that playing violent video games can increase a person’s aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior both in laboratory settings and in daily life. “One major conclusion from this and other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters,” says Anderson.

Other researchers, including psychologist Christopher J. Ferguson, have challenged the position that video game violence harms children. While his own 2009 meta-analytic review reported results similar to Anderson’s, Ferguson contends that laboratory results have not translated into real world, meaningful effects. He also claims that much of the research into video game violence has failed to control for other variables such as mental health and family life, which may have impacted the results. His work has found that children who are already at risk may be more likely to choose to play violent video games. According to Ferguson, these other risk factors, as opposed to the games, cause aggressive and violent behavior.

APA launched an analysis in 2013 of peer-reviewed research on the impact of media violence and is reviewing its policy statements in the area.

Anderson, C.A., Ihori, Nobuko, Bushman, B.J., Rothstein, H.R., Shibuya, A., Swing, E.L., Sakamoto, A., & Saleem, M. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries: A Meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin , Vol. 126, No. 2.

Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N. L. & Eubanks, J. (2003). Exposure to violent media: The effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psycholog y, Vol. 84, No. 5.

Anderson, C. A., & Dill, K. E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 78, No. 4.

Ferguson, C.J. (2011). Video games and youth violence: A Prospective analysis in adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence , Vol. 40, No. 4.

Gentile, D.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2012). Reassessing media violence effects using a risk and resilience approach to understanding aggression. Psychology of Popular Media Culture , Vol. 1, No. 3.

Huesmann, L. R., & Eron, L. D. (1986). Television and the aggressive child: A cross-national comparison. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C. L., & Eron, L. D. (2003). Longitudinal relations between children’s exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977–1992. Developmental Psychology , Vol. 39, No. 2, 201–221.

Huston, A. C., Donnerstein, E., Fairchild, H., Feshbach, N. D., Katz, P. A., Murray, J. P., Rubinstein, E. A., Wilcox, B. & Zuckerman, D. (1992). Big world, small screen: The role of television in American society. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Krahe, B., Moller, I., Kirwil, L., Huesmann, L.R., Felber, J., & Berger, A. (2011). Desensitization to media violence: Links with habitual media violence exposure, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 100, No. 4.

Murray, J. P. (1973). Television and violence: Implications of the Surgeon General’s research program. American Psychologist , Vol. 28, 472–478.

National Institute of Mental Health (1982). Television and behavior: Ten years of scientific progress and implications for the eighties, Vol. 1. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Exposure to Media Violence and Emotional Desensitization

What are the long-term consequences to children and adolescents.

Posted May 6, 2019 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

Are we—especially our children, adolescents, and young adults—becoming desensitized to hatred, intolerance, and violence depicted on social media ? The question posed is rhetorical since my personal and professional assumptions confidently suggest that most would agree that it does, at least to some extent. This is not necessarily surprising or “new news,” but it is disheartening nonetheless and therefore worthy of a healthy dialogue. I have expressed my own thoughts as to why we are witnessing so many mass school shootings and other acts of irreprehensible violence, which I explained in an earlier 2018 publication, " Mass Shooters: A Unique Criminological Explanation. "

However, today's focus is more about raising awareness in the hopes of generating a national dialogue leading to positive change. Nearly every single day, we, as a global society, are exposed to what seems like to a constant barrage of violence, negativity, intolerance, and hatred in one form or another on the major news networks, and especially on social media.

Remember when social media was first introduced to the world? Social media began as a way for all of us to reconnect with old friends, and we looked forward to sharing pictures of our families and friends, our travels, and our personal and professional accomplishments. Good times, for sure. That still occurs, but it seems to be occurring with far less frequency. Social media, especially in recent years, can appear as if it's largely become a central hub for spewing hate, intolerance, and in many cases, depicting "real-life" acts of graphic violence and aggression indicative of a total disregard for human life.

A 2016 New York Times article summed it up best. A killer seeks out a nightclub, a church, an airport, a courthouse, a school, a college campus. The number of possible targeted locations is endless. Someone is shot on video, sometimes by the police, and protesters fill the streets. The accused are immediately deemed guilty by the court of social media even though accurate information is scarce at best. A terrorist attack is carried out in France, America, Turkey, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Tunisia, Nigeria, and then claimed and celebrated by another radical, extremist terror group of domestic or foreign origin. Our phones constantly vibrate with breaking news alerts. The cable news captions read “breaking news” in red as the powerful words scroll across the bottom of our TV screens and rapidly infiltrate social media. In response, rumors and misinformation abound. The comments erupt on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. It is a choreographed pattern that has become commonplace while some of us, but not all, try to discern what is real and what is fake news .

How did we get here and why have we become so vocal in openly sharing our political, social, religious, and personal beliefs without regard for its potential impact on the feelings and emotions of others? What happened to that thing we once called empathy? Why do we judge the actions of a few and project those thoughts on the many? Why do we stereotype an entire group of people based on the actions of a few crazed, rogue, or extremist radicals?

Lately, largely in response to the above, I find myself constantly reminiscing about my own childhood . Of course, there were acts of violence. Of course, there were child abductions, murders, global conflicts, etc., but they did not seem to consume every waking hour of our daily lives. We rode our bikes to visit our friends, we played outside, and we spent hours together in our bedrooms or at a local park listening to music. We took long drives in our cars blasting the music with our windows down, and for the most part, life seemed to be more relaxing, less stressful , and less complicated.

Was life truly better back then or am I simply being naïve and gullible? Maybe I am missing something or for some reason; maybe I blocked out negative experiences from my childhood, but as I remember it, we had some good times.

Last week, I received an email from my children’s high school principal announcing a mandatory ALICE training. ALICE is an acronym for “ Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate, ” in reference to mandatory mass school shooting drills, which occur quite frequently. School shootings do occur and preventative measures to combat a potential incident are absolutely necessary because that is the reality of the world we live in. I am not ignorant of that fact. And yes, I do realize that children who were raised in the early age of nuclear weapons had to participate in “duck and cover” drills; however, my position is that today’s children, adolescents, and young adults are being exposed to too much violence and negativity to the point where another school shooting simply becomes another school shooting without evoking the emotions we would expect in a kid raised in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s.

Tackling this issue would require a multifaceted approach, but what I am most concerned about is how our emotions to acts of violence have become normalized and far from shocking and surreal. What happened to empathy, tolerance, and respecting our differences?

A few weeks ago, one of my young relatives, 17-year-old Jillian, a high school junior from New Jersey, published a poem for her language arts class that was intended to be “reflective” of her hopes and desires of living in a world where happiness , peace, and harmony are abundant. The poem depicts her deep desire in wanting to help others, something that many of us, especially those of us in the so-called “helping professions,” like myself, can easily relate to since it is that very passion that often sets us on the path to our respective careers. She acknowledged that “hoping” without action will not create change in the world, which is something that we can all agree on. We need to stop responding with the all-too-familiar “ prayers and positive thoughts to those impacted ” types of comments to tragedies that have resulted in little to no action, even though our leaders on both sides of the political spectrum have repeatedly “promised” to create change.

Jillian’s words spoke to me and made me think about how it must feel growing up in a world in which you are exposed to endless stories, pictures, and videos depicting violence, intolerance, and hatred towards others who we perceive to be different and therefore, less worthy because they do not share our personal beliefs and values. Jillian granted me permission to repost her poem which she aptly titled, “ I Hope ,” which is an emotional plea for change in the world.

I am just an optimistic girl who hopes, I wonder if I could make a change, I hear about wars in other countries, I see animals that do not have a place to call home, I want to make things better but, I am just an optimistic girl who hopes I pretend everything is okay, I feel sad when I cannot fix problems that hurt others, I touch people’s hurts and try to make them forget, I worry when it does not work, I cry when I cannot help but, I am just an optimistic girl who hopes I understand that the world is not perfect, I say we can change that, I dream, one day we will all be happy, I try to help in any small way I can, I hope we can change the world for good, but I am just an optimistic girl who hopes

The American Academy of Pediatrics and other reputable organizations have consistently found that exposure to violence at high levels and across multiple contexts has been linked with emotional desensitization, indicated by low levels of internalizing symptoms; the long-term consequences of such desensitization are unknown, but I believe that we can surmise where this is going.

For example, last week, I mentioned to my university students that there had been another campus shooting, which occurred in North Carolina, hoping to start a healthy, productive dialogue about such acts of violence, but the news did not seem to spark any interest, which only confirmed my thoughts that we are becoming desensitized and that is troubling. I thought to myself, "Wow, another shooting—and it is not worthy of an intellectual discussion or debate?"

The short-term consequences are readily apparent, at least in my experience as a university professor and father of two teen boys. Depression , anxiety , and other emotional disorders, including suicide , are increasing among adolescents, school lockdowns occur with greater frequency, and the fear of what might happen when we go to church, a restaurant, school, a concert, or any event or venue for that matter can be emotionally destabilizing, leading to a sense of vulnerability and powerlessness that leads us to actively search for all the entry and exit points and remain hypervigilant in the event that something should occur.

We need to delve deeper into the potential ramifications of exposure to too much "real-life" hatred, intolerance, and violence. While there have been numerous studies over the decades focusing on violence on TV, in the movies, and in video games and their potential influence on aggression and violence in children, those are not real-life. I am not discounting that such violence could influence or contribute to real-life violence, but I am most concerned about children and adolescents witnessing horrific incidents in real-time with mostly little to no censorship of the horrific and quite graphic fatalities, severe injuries, or the traumatic reactions to those who witnessed the events firsthand. I am not in favor of censorship because I believe that could it lead down a slippery slope to too much governmental oversight, but on the other hand, I feel strongly that our children are witnessing the worst of what humankind is capable of doing. That should concern all of us.

Dr. Michael Pittaro is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at American Military University and an adjunct professor with several colleges/universities.

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Exploring How Quentin Tarantino Uses Violence in His Films

"it's not blood. it's red." —jean-luc godard.

Quentin Tarantino is a maestro when it comes to on-screen violence—I mean, every single one of his films features entire sequences dedicated to shootouts, sword fights, or general bloody mayhem (even his segment in Four Rooms builds up to a guy's pinky getting chopped off). But is there more to all of the carnage and bloodshed than mere spectacle and thrills? This video essay by Julian Palmer of The Discarded Image examines Tarantino's use of violence in his work to find out.

So, just how violent are Tarantino's movies? A quick Google search will tell you just how many characters Tarantino has killed since Django Unchained , and even though the death toll reaches over 560 , it doesn't even make it on the top 10 list for most on-screen deaths in a movie. That honor belongs to Guardians of the Galaxy with 83,871 deaths. (That is not a typo.)

I think this is one of the main points the video tries to explain, how one death can be considered brutal and cruel, while another can be comical and almost unimportant. Perhaps it's not about how many characters you kill off in a film, but how you do it. I mean, is violence really seen as violence when it's Indiana Jones shooting the Cairo Swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark ? Not really, in fact most people laugh at that scene. But when it's Ordell shooting Louis at point blank range in the front seat of a car, it's startling mostly due to the facts that the scene and the setting are so intimate, and Ordell is a ruthless m-fer.

But even though scenes from Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, and Django Unchained are full of blood, bullets, and all-out carnage, there seems to be some sort of rhyme and reason for it. Tarantino himself is not a big fan of real-world violence, but he appears to see a huge chasm between actual violence and movie violence—the two are not closely related. At a 1994 press conference, he told Newsday :

Violence is just one of many things you can do in movies. People ask me, 'Where does all this violence come from in your movies?' I say, 'Where does all this dancing come from in Stanley Donen movies?' If you ask me how I feel about violence in real life, well, I have a lot of feelings about it. It's one of the worst aspects of America. In movies, violence is cool. I like it.

What do you think about how Quentin Tarantino uses violence in his films? Do you think there's a limit to how much a filmmaker can include depictions of violence in their work before it becomes "irresponsible"? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: The Discarded Image

Shoot Light and Fast With Canon's Smallest RF Zoom Yet

A look at this tiny and light rf zoom lens and how it could be ideal for your full-frame and aps-c canon mirrorless cameras..

Rounding out what has been a pretty jam-packed IBC conference in Amsterdam this year, we have a small but notable announcement from Canon to explore. The camera and lens company has unveiled its third lens of 2024 with a new RF 28-70mm f/2.8 IS STM.

This RF zoom is set to be the company’s smallest and lightest zoom lens for its RF lineup and an ideal fit for any full-frame and APC-S EOS R-series mirrorless cameras. It’s designed to be useful for both photographers and videographers alike and should shine in its compact form factor and easy-to-use design.

Let’s look at this new small and versatile RF zoom and explore how it might be right for you and your hybrid content needs.

Canon RF 28-70mm f/2.8 IS STM

Overall this new RF zoom should bring a fast aperture, a compact size, and some versatile wide-to-short telephoto zoom range as an everyday do-it-all lens for all types of content creators.

This 28-70mm zoom range and fast f/2.8 aperture should also make this lens quite capable of covering everything from landscapes to portraits and many other things in between. The RF zoom also features L-series quality optics while keeping to a smaller form factor and a relatively affordable price point for the performance and features.

Fast and Small Form Factor

What’s neat about this RF 28-70mm zoom is how it differs from its L-series counterpart (the RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L) by finding a way to maintain a much smaller and lighter form factor. This new RF zoom also does this through an advanced optical design and a more conservative, but still very capable, 28mm wide-angle starting point. When not in use, the lens can collapse into itself, resulting in even greater space savings in a bag or when slung over a shoulder.

Another main element of the RF 28-70mm's appeal is its physical construction. It is small, lightweight, and durable. The lens also features a weather-sealed construction, like L-series glass, which helps ensure this lens can be used in rain or shine. This makes it a reliable choice for photographers and videographers.

Price and Availability

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The Facts on Media Violence

By Vanessa Schipani

Posted on March 8, 2018

In the wake of the Florida school shooting, politicians have raised concern over the influence of violent video games and films on young people, with the president claiming they’re “shaping young people’s thoughts.” Scientists still debate the issue, but the majority of studies show that extensive exposure to media violence is a risk factor for aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

The link between media violence and mass shootings is yet more tenuous. Compared with acts of aggression and violence, mass shootings are relatively rare events, which makes conducting conclusive research on them difficult.

President Donald Trump first raised the issue during a meeting on school safety with local and state officials, which took place a week after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, reportedly obsessively played violent video games.

Trump, Feb. 22: We have to look at the Internet because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds, and their minds are being formed. And we have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing and how they’re seeing it. And also video games. I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts. And then you go the further step, and that’s the movies. You see these movies, they’re so violent.

Trump discussed the issue again with members of Congress on Feb. 28 during another meeting on school safety. During that discussion, Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn claimed mothers have told her they’re “very concerned” that “exposure” to entertainment media has “desensitized” children to violence.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley also said during the meeting: “[Y]ou see all these films about everybody being blown up. Well, just think of the impact that makes on young people.”

The points Trump and members of Congress raise aren’t unfounded, but the research on the subject is complex. Scientists who study the effect of media violence have taken issue with how the popular press has portrayed their work, arguing that the nuance of their research is often left out.

In a 2015 review of the scientific literature on video game violence, the American Psychological Association elaborates on this point.

APA, 2015: News commentators often turn to violent video game use as a potential causal contributor to acts of mass homicide. The media point to perpetrators’ gaming habits as either a reason they have chosen to commit their crimes or as a method of training. This practice extends at least as far back as the Columbine massacre (1999). … As with most areas of science, the picture presented by this research is more complex than is usually depicted in news coverage and other information prepared for the general public.

Here, we break down the facts — nuance included — on the effect of media violence on young people.

Is Media Violence a Risk Factor for Aggression?

The 2015 report by the APA on video games is a good place to start. After systematically going through the scientific literature, the report’s authors “concluded that violent video game use has an effect on aggression.”

In particular, the authors explain that this effect manifests as an increase in aggressive behaviors, thoughts and feelings and a decrease in helping others, empathy and sensitivity to aggression. Though limited, evidence also suggests that “higher amounts of exposure” to video games is linked to “higher levels of aggression,” the report said.

The report emphasized that “aggression is a complex behavior” caused by multiple factors, each of which increases the likelihood that an individual will be aggressive. “Children who experience multiple risk factors are more likely to engage in aggression,” the report said.

The authors came to their conclusions because researchers have consistently found the effect across three different kinds of studies: cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies and laboratory experiments. “One method’s limits are offset by another method’s strengths,” the APA report explains, so only together can they be used to infer a causal relationship.

Cross-sectional studies find correlations between different phenomena at one point in time. They’re relatively easy to conduct, but they can’t provide causal evidence because correlations can be spurious . For example, an increase in video game sales might correlate with a decrease in violent crime, but that doesn’t necessarily mean video games prevent violent crime. Other unknown factors might also be at play.

Longitudinal panel studies collect data on the same group over time, sometimes for decades. They’re used to investigate long-term effects, such as whether playing video games as a child might correlate with aggression as an adult. These studies also measure other risk factors for aggression, such as harsh discipline from parents, with the aim of singling out the effect of media violence. For this reason, these studies provide better evidence for causality than cross-sectional studies, but they are more difficult to conduct.

Laboratory experiments manipulate one phenomenon — in this case, exposure to media violence — and keep all others constant. Because of their controlled environment, experiments provide strong evidence for a causal effect. But for the same reason, laboratory studies may not accurately reflect how people act in the real world.

This brings us to why debate still exists among scientists studying media violence. Some researchers have found that the experimental evidence backing the causal relationship between playing video games and aggression might not be as solid as it seems.

Last July, Joseph Hilgard , an assistant professor of psychology at Illinois State University, and others published a study in the journal Psychological Bulletin that found that laboratory experiments on the topic may be subject to publication bias. This means that studies that show the effect may be more likely to be published than those that don’t, skewing the body of evidence.

After Hilgard corrected for this bias, the effect of violent video games on aggressive behavior and emotions did still exist, but it was reduced, perhaps even to near zero. However, the effect on aggressive thoughts remained relatively unaffected by this publication bias. The researchers also found that cross-sectional studies weren’t subject to publication bias. They didn’t examine longitudinal studies, which have shown that youth who play more violent video games are more likely to report aggressive behavior over time.

Hilgard looked at a 2010 literature review by Craig A. Anderson , the director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University, and others. Published in Psychological Bulletin, this review influenced the APA’s report.

In response, Anderson took a second look at his review and found that the effect of violent video games on aggression was smaller than he originally thought, but not as small as Hilgard found. For this reason, he argued the effect was still a “societal concern.”

To be clear, Hilgard is arguing that there’s more uncertainty in the field than originally thought, not that video games have no effect on aggression. He’s also not the first to find that research on video games may be suffering from publication bias.

But what about movies and television? Reviews of the literature on these forms of media tend to be less recent, Kenneth A. Dodge , a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, told us by email.

Dodge, also one of the authors of the 2015 APA study, pointed us to one 1994 review of the literature on television published in the journal Communication Research that concluded that television violence also “increases aggressiveness and antisocial behavior.” Dodge told us he’s “confident” the effect this analysis and others found “would hold again today.”

Dodge also pointed us to a 2006 study that reviewed the literature on violent video games, films, television and other media together. “Most contemporary studies start with the premise that children are exposed [to violence] through so many diverse media that they start to group them together,” said Dodge.

Published in JAMA Pediatrics , the review found that exposure to violent media increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior, thoughts and feelings. The review also found media decreases the likelihood of helping behavior. All of these effects were “modest,” the researchers concluded.

Overall, most of the research suggests media violence is a risk factor for aggression, but some experts in the field still question whether there’s enough evidence to conclusively say there’s a link.

Is Violent Media a Risk Factor for Violence?

There’s even less evidence to suggest media violence is a risk factor for criminal violence.

“In psychological research, aggression is usually conceptualized as behavior that is intended to harm another,” while, “[v]iolence can be defined as an extreme form of physical aggression,” the 2015 APA report explains . “Thus, all violence is aggression, but not all aggression is violence.”

The APA report said studies have been conducted on media violence’s relationship with “criminal violence,” but the authors “did not find enough evidence of sufficient utility to evaluate whether” there’s a solid link to violent video game use.

This lack of evidence is due, in part, to the fact that there are ethical limitations to conducting experiments on violence in the laboratory, especially when it comes to children and teens, the report explains. That leaves only evidence from cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies. So what do those studies say?

One longitudinal study , published in the journal Developmental Psychology in 2003, found that, out of 153 males, those who watched the most violent television as children were more likely 15 years later “to have pushed, grabbed, or shoved their spouses, to have responded to an insult by shoving a person” or to have been “to have been convicted of a crime” during the previous year. Girls who watched the most violent television were also more likely to commit similar acts as young women. These effects persisted after controlling for other risk factors for aggression, such as parental aggression and intellectual ability.

A 2012 cross-sectional study that Anderson, at Iowa State, and others published in the journal Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice did find that the amount of violent video games juvenile delinquents played correlated with how many violent acts they had committed over the past year. The violent acts included gang fighting, hitting a teacher, hitting a parent, hitting other students and attacking another person.

However, a 2008 review of the literature published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior concluded that “ the effects of exposure to media violence on criminally violent behavior have not been established.” But the authors clarify: “Saying that the effect has not been established is not the same as saying that the effect does not exist.”

In contrast to the APA report, Anderson and a colleague argue in a 2015 article published in American Behavioral Scientist that “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.”

Why did Anderson and his colleagues come to different conclusions than the APA? He told us that the APA “did not include the research literature on TV violence,” and excluded “several important studies on video game effects on violent behavior published since 2013.”

In their 2015 article, Anderson and his colleague clarify that, even if there is a link, it “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.” They add, “Such extreme violence is rare, and tends to occur only when multiple risk factors converge in time, space, and within an individual.”

Multiple experts we spoke with did point to one factor unique to the United States that they argue increases the risk of mass shootings and lethality of violence in general — access to guns.

For example, Anderson told us by email: “There is a pretty strong consensus among violence researchers in psychology and criminology that the main reason that U.S. homicide rates are so much higher than in most Western democracies is our easy access to guns.”

Dodge, at Duke, echoed Anderson’s point.”The single most obvious and probably largest difference between a country like the US that has many mass shootings and other developed countries is the easy access to guns,” he said.

So while scientists disagree about how much evidence is enough to sufficiently support a causal link between media violence and real world violence, Trump and other politicians’ concerns aren’t unfounded.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is also based at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. Hilgard, now at Illinois State, was a post doctoral fellow at the APPC.

Hundreds of Hezbollah pagers explode in apparent attack across Lebanon

At least eight people were killed and more than 2,700 injured, many of them Lebanon-based Hezbollah fighters , when the handheld pagers they use to communicate exploded, Lebanon's health minister said Tuesday.

Firass Abiad said in a news conference that the blasts took place in several suburbs of Beirut, according to Lebanon's National News Agency . He said many of the victims had injuries to their faces, hands and stomachs.

He said one of those killed was an 8-year-old girl.

The direct cause of the explosions, which appeared to take place simultaneously at 3:30 p.m., was not immediately clear, though Hezbollah quickly blamed Israel for what it called its "sinful aggression."

It said Israel would get "its fair punishment."

A Hezbollah official told the Reuters news agency that the detonation of the pagers was the "biggest security breach" the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.

Mojtaba Amani, Iran's ambassador in Lebanon, was also injured in the incident, though not seriously, according to Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency. Hezbollah is materially and financially backed by Iran.

There was no immediate comment from Israel's military.

Spiking West Bank violence: another front to Israel's collection of conflicts

Still, the incident comes just hours after Israel's security Cabinet released a statement vowing to return tens of thousands of displaced residents of Israel's northern areas to their homes. Hezbollah, long Israel's enemy, has repeatedly fired missiles at Israeli territory since Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks, causing many residents to flee south.

A pager is a small electronic device that can be worn or fit in a pocket that beeps or vibrates when someone is trying to contact you. It displays the phone number or sometimes a short message. Pagers can usually only receive information, not transmit it, making their location hard to track.

Small bombs on both pagers and cellphones can be detonated remotely.

Israel has for months warned that it could launch a military operation to drive Hezbollah away from its border.

Orna Mizrachi, a former Israeli national security official, said in a call with reporters that the pager attack could signal that Israel is about to change its war strategy, in which it has been fighting Hamas in Gaza for almost a year, and move its main front to the north to fight Hezbollah.

"I think we are closer than we were before to a full-scale war" with Hezbollah, said Mizrachi, now a senior research fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.

Still, hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, are not new. They have been clashing and exchanging fire along their shared border since the mid-1980s. They fought a major war in 2006.

Hezbollah says it has upped its attacks on Israel as part of its support for Hamas in Gaza. But they are also connected to a broader regional commitment to oppose and pressure Israel. Lina Khatib, an expert on the Middle East at London think tank Chatham House, noted recently that Hezbollah’s fight with Israel may not ultimately be about helping Palestinians, or even Hamas, but about self-preservation.

"The group could have intervened on a large scale in October before Israel significantly weakened Hamas’ military capability, but it did not," Khatib said. "Hezbollah would only engage in all-out war with Israel if the group felt it was facing an existential threat of its own (which, currently, it does not). It will not sacrifice itself for Palestine."

Rose Kelanic, who runs the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank, said that if it's confirmed the operation was carried out by Israel, the message is clear: "The Israelis just told Hezbollah that they've got their number, quite literally, by exploding these pagers."

Kelanic said the pagers could have been detonated through purely cyber means by a computer virus or "worm." The Israelis are believed to have done similarly when Iranian nuclear centrifuges were destroyed by making them spin so fast, they broke. Or the pagers could have been physically sabotaged at some point along the supply chain.

However, she said even if it's "just" cyber, there is probably an on-the-ground component. In the case of the worm, known as Stuxnet, believed to have been implanted in the Iranian centrifuge software, for example, it was likely uploaded by someone with a thumb drive because the centrifuges were not connected to the internet.

"If I'm Hezbollah, I'm now looking around at everyone in the organization and wondering who the saboteur is," Kelanic said.

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COMMENTS

Violence in Movies and Its Effects
At this point it is necessary to mention another possible effect of violence in movies. Researchers claim that violence in media can affect adolescents' self-efficacy. In other words, young people can feel more confident when they associate themselves with certain characters created by filmmakers (Kirsh 102).
Violence in Movies Reflects a Cultural Reality
Updated June 30, 2016, 3:20 AM. We witness fictional acts of violence all the time at the movies, in PG-13 flicks and otherwise, and there's certainly a conversation to be had about our ...
Violent media and real-world behavior: Historical data and recent
The graphicness of movie violence shows an increasing pattern across the 20th century, particularly beginning in the 1950s, but did not correlate with societal violence. ... These papers look at aggressive behavior on stage, the likelihood candidates' performance will change voters' minds and other topics. Criminal Justice, Health, Media.
Essay about violence in movies
Decent Essays. 580 Words. 3 Pages. Open Document. If you watch movies these days you know you're sure to see some sort of violence whether it be a killing, beating, or some kind of cruel act. Now every time you watch TV, you are likely to see a commercial promoting a new movie with a catch title such as "Scream" or "Fear.".
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 ...
Effects of violence in mass media
The study of violence in mass media analyzes the degree of correlation between themes of violence in media sources (particularly violence in video games, television and films) with real-world aggression and violence over time.Many social scientists support the correlation, [1] [2] [3] however, some scholars argue that media research has methodological problems and that findings are exaggerated.
Quentin Tarantino's Ultimate Statement on Movie Violence
Once Upon a Time 's "real" calamities—the death of Booth's wife, the conflict in Vietnam, the many horrors committed by the Manson family—lurk on the edge, undepicted and ...
Violence in the Media: What Effects on Behavior?
In a 2009 Policy Statement on Media Violence, the American Academy of Pediatrics said, "Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares, and fear of being harmed." 3. This year, the Media Violence Commission of the International Society for Research on ...
Does Media Violence Lead to the Real Thing?
Naturally, debate over media violence stirs up strong emotions because it raises concerns about the balance between public safety and freedom of speech. Even if violent media are conclusively ...
Violence and Cinema
Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre. New York: Wallflower, 2009. Part of Wallflower's Short Cuts series, Kendrick gives an overview of the issues involved in scholarship on violence in the cinema. The book addresses problems of definition, constructs a history of filmic violence, studies violence in various genres, and develops a case ...
Violence in Films
Violence is an important part of films in order to depict the sensational and explicit appeal. Films under the genre of gangster and war featured violence as the central theme of the film. The featuring of violence in these movies had to be accounted and was justified rationally. During the world war 11, Hollywood and the OWI made films were in ...
Watching violence on screens makes children more emotionally distressed
Studies show that 37% of media aimed at children have scenes of physical or verbal violence. What's more, 90% of movies, 68% of video games, 60% of TV shows, and 15% of music videos have some ...
Violent Movies and Severe Acts of Violence: Sensationalism versus
A recent analysis published in the journal Pediatrics found that violence in the top grossing movies has increased substantially over the past 50 years. Perhaps even more troubling is that gun violence in films is now as prevalent in PG-13 movies as it is in R-rated movies (Bushman, Jamieson, Weitz, & Romer, 2013).The authors of this study argued that such violent portrayals in cinema provide ...
Female rage: The brutal new icons of film and TV
In fact, a 2014 study from The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found that 90% of the highest-grossing movies across a 25-year period had a segment of violence ...
Violent Movies and Severe Acts of Violence: Sensationalism Versus
Following recent findings that violence in movies has increased substantially over the last few decades, this research examined whether such increases were related to trends in severe acts of violence. Annual rates of movie violence and gun violence in movies were compared to homicide and aggravated assault rates between the years of 1960 and 2012.
Violence in the Media and Entertainment (Position Paper)
For example, studies have found that 91% of movies on television contain violence, including extreme violence. 11,36 Although film ratings and advisory labels can help parents decide on movies to ...
The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research
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, ... 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.
Violence In Movies: Cinematic Craft Or Hollywood Gone Too Far
Being exposed to violence can lead to warlike behaviors. In the article Violence in Movies: Cinematic Craft or Hollywood Gone Too Far?,"Researchers have found tremendous evidence supporting a link between exposure to violence in media and behavior in children" (29, Get Access. Free Essay: From the time we are born, we are immediately ...
Violence in the media: Psychologists study potential harmful effects
The advent of video games raised new questions about the potential impact of media violence, since the video game player is an active participant rather than merely a viewer. 97% of adolescents age 12-17 play video games—on a computer, on consoles such as the Wii, Playstation, and Xbox, or on portable devices such as Gameboys, smartphones, and tablets.
The Violence In Movies
Violent movies disrupt sleep and leave children not so eager for hard work and concentration in classrooms, which automatically leads to a considerable drop in grades and accumulation and assimilation of knowledge. The same research also proved that students with excellent scholastic results dropped from 50% to 25% in grades.
Exposure to Media Violence and Emotional Desensitization
Social media, especially in recent years, can appear as if it's largely become a central hub for spewing hate, intolerance, and in many cases, depicting "real-life" acts of graphic violence and ...
Exploring How Quentin Tarantino Uses Violence in His Films
This video essay by Julian Palmer of The Discarded Image examines Tarantino's use of violence in his work to find out. So, just how violent are Tarantino's movies? A quick Google search will tell you just how many characters Tarantino has killed since Django Unchained , and even though the death toll reaches over 560 , it doesn't even make it ...
The Facts on Media Violence
Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the review found that exposure to violent media increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior, thoughts and feelings. The review also found media decreases the ...
Hezbollah pagers explode in apparent attack across Lebanon
Spiking West Bank violence:another front to Israel's collection of conflicts. Still, the incident comes just hours after Israel's security Cabinet released a statement vowing to return tens of ...