off steam. However, there is continued debate over these studies and how effectively they actually measure each aspect of the issue (Ferguson and Savage, 2012).
Paik and Comstock (1994) performed a meta‐analysis on 217 studies of television and antisocial behavior, from both psychology and sociology, since 1960. A “meta‐analysis” is a quantitative method which allows researchers to aggregate findings from multiple studies in order to draw stronger conclusions than would be possible for each study alone. Their key finding is that there is a highly significant, positive association between television violence and antisocial behavior, when antisocial behavior is broadly measured (including aggression towards toys or objects).
Paik and Comstock’s work demonstrates that experimental studies show a stronger magnitude of effects than those based on surveys, and laboratory experiments greater effects than field experiments or “time‐series studies” (which examine naturally occurring situations), but all types of studies showed positive effects in their aggregated analysis. They also found that cartoon violence and fantasy violence had stronger effects on antisocial behavior than realistic‐fictional or newscast violence, a finding which might be related to the finding that preschool subjects (who watch more cartoons) demonstrate higher levels of antisocial behavior than adult subjects. Effects were highest in magnitude when antisocial behavior was measured as aggression towards objects and intermediate when measured as verbal aggression. It is notable that the lowest magnitude effects were shown for violence towards persons and criminal behavior.
Felson (1996) argues that violent behavior may be associated with media consumption, but that the violence stems from other sources. This is a “problem of spurious correlation,” where a third variable (such as abusive or neglectful parents) is a causal factor in both of the measured variables (media violence and violent behavior). Further, as Ferguson and Savage (2012) argue, cross‐sectional studies (surveys that look at one point in time) that find more aggressive individuals associated with more violent media fare lack a “temporal order.” That is, it is not clear which comes first. In addition, Felson notes that audiences are likely to choose materials that match their values and interests. This “selective exposure” provides an alternative interpretation of any correlation between violent audiences and violent television.2
Further, the reviews by Felson and by Ferguson and Savage point out that the story line of most television shows suggests that “crime doesn’t pay” and criminals are punished in the end; indeed, consequences for illegitimate violence on television are greater than they are in real life. This suggests that if viewers are sensitive to the moral of the story, television violence might reduce real‐life violence (an idea which was supported in Paik and Comstock’s meta‐analysis). Overall, the review articles find that many studies lack validity as they suffer from numerous problems with measurement, data, and statistical models. A meta‐analysis finds strength in numbers and can demonstrate differential effects of different kinds of measurement of key variables. But it is only as good as its constituent analyses. Ferguson and Savage state that demonstrated effects of televised violence range from small to trivial, and “the best studies, particular those which use outcome measures for the most serious aggression, produce the weakest effects” (p. 137). Felson concludes that “exposure to television violence probably does have a small effect on violent behavior for some viewers, possibly because the media directs viewer’s attention to novel forms of violent behavior that they would not otherwise consider” (p. 103).
So, careful reviews and meta‐analyses of a wide range of studies show that either there is little to no measurable effect of violent media on aggression or crime, or else that it is devilishly hard to establish the connection empirically. Nevertheless, this has not quelled concerns about media violence. Centerwall (1993) argues that small effects should not be discounted because they aggregate to many more violent attacks at a national level. He claims that if television had never been invented, “there would today be 10,000 fewer homicides each year in the United States, 70,000 fewer rapes, and 700,000 fewer injurious assaults” (p. 64). He argues that children are powerfully affected by pictorial violence, unlike adults, and that small children cannot distinguish between real and cartoon violence in the same way that adults do and that they are less sensitive to the motives of people who are violent. In this way, he believes that television violence is a public health issue, like smoking and road traffic accidents. He suggests that parents limit television for their children. But, he says, parental vigilance is not enough.
Television violence is everybody’s problem. You may feel assured that your child will never become violent despite a steady diet of television mayhem, but you cannot be assured that your child won’t be murdered or maimed by someone else’s child raised on a similar diet. (p. 69)
He advocates what we now call parental control devices to allow adults to lock out violent shows based on a rating system, similar to one used for movies. There have been similar calls for rating systems of popular music as an aid to keep songs with violent or sexually explicit lyrics away from kids.
In a very interesting study, Harkness (2013) studies Chicago gang members who rap in the gangsta style. Harkness describes how gang members use raps posted to YouTube “to insult and goad one another” (p. 152), and his article starts with the true story of one young rapper murdered in the course of one of these online contests, apparently by a rival gang. Harkness does not make a shaping (or reflection) argument about street gangs and gangsta rap—he is interested in the cultural practices of the rappers and the “microscene” this creates—however, the two worlds were deeply enmeshed. Here is a place where violence in life and in music converge. Does this give us reason for concern? (That is, beyond that micro scene and the potential perpetrators and victims therein, who surely deserve compassion.) Savage (2008), a criminologist, argues that those who work in the field with offenders do not talk about media violence as a cause of violent crime. Instead, they focus on situational factors such as poverty and concentrated disadvantage, adverse experiences such as child abuse, and individual traits such as addictions and significant psychiatric issues. “Serious offenders” she writes, are not simply “individuals who watched too much TV as young children” (p. 1125).
Other professionals may come to a different consensus. For instance, Philo (1999) argues that teachers regularly cite violent media as a problem in their schools. He studied reactions of 12‐year‐olds to Pulp Fiction (1994), a film that is rated “18” in the United Kingdom. One‐third of pupils in the studied class had seen the movie, despite being seven years too young with respect to the movie’s classification. The children were able to recall many of the movie’s scenes in great detail, including gruesome ones, and they thought that several of the characters in the film were “cool.” Philo wonders if the casual acceptance of the Pulp Fiction story by children shows how a worldview “with no empathy for victims” becomes “part of ‘everyday’ values” that can promote pernicious behaviors such as “bullying at school or intimidation at work” (p. 51).
Finally, what of the people who consume popular music, movies, and television? Ourselves. We are, for the most part, non‐violent members of society. As Ferguson and Savage write, “Our moral values deter us from behavior that might really harm another person. Even under highly provocative circumstances, people can almost always refrain from committing violence” (p. 133). The media effects literature suggests, in essence, that other people succumb to television violence (but not us). Most of us are not violent, but are some of us just a little bit of a bully? Or might it be that we are more tolerant of violence in society?
Notes
1 In the film Bowling for Columbine (2002), Michael Moore calls into question the influence of Manson’s music. As the title of the film suggests, the shooters also liked to go bowling. This activity may have had as much an effect as listening to metal music, but no one thinks to blame bowling, as that sounds preposterous. See also
