Correlation between media consumption and subsequent behaviour

¶ … media consumption and subsequent behaviour?

Profiling the criminal behavior of rampage perpetrators is one of the main areas of focus in the social science research community. Gender, mental health issues, social exclusion, genetic susceptibility or predisposition, and ultimately, violent media, are most of the factors that guide researchers in the field, seeking to develop broader frameworks of understanding rampage violence. Over the past three decades, 78 cases of public mass shootings have been registered by the Congressional Research Service (2013). An FBI report indicated a rise in typical mass shootings, from 6.4 incidents occurring between 2000 and 2007 to an average of 16.4 incidents between 2007 and 2013 (2013). Most of these public mass shootings have been found to occur either at workplaces or at schools across the United States.

The proliferation of mass shootings over these past few decades has further brought into the public and academic's attention the issue of media consumption and its effects on people's behavior. Correlations have been made between media's continuous coverage of violent incidents and subsequent similar behavior from individuals (Signorielli, 2005). Other researchers have argued that such correlations do not have any real foundations and that scientific evidence does not support them (Freedman, 2002). The popularization of TV and media led researchers in the late 1980s and following years to advance theories regarding the rise in violence. Between the late 1960s and the first half of the 1990s, over 425 scientific studies found that media's non-stop coverage of violent acts influenced public opinion and people's behavior (McCombs and Reynolds, 2009). In the United States, three analyses related to media's coverage of violent events were conducted between 1967 and 1990, which depicted an average of 60 to 80% violence-related broadcasted programs of all national TV broadcasting. At this point, the social scientific community started to wonder about the implications of the themes of violence depicted in media sources and their effects on people. Researchers were trying to find if there was a direct link between people's exposure to violent events presented on TV and subsequent violent behavior. Therefore, if we are to understand academic theories on media violence and the effect on people, we need to take a closer look at some of the elements that create the media and define its relation to the public. These elements are important because they put us in contact with how the social scientific community analyzed and concluded its research on the influence of violent events, which are broadcasted by media sources.

Media is a communicator. It is a medium of communication, which has moved past its initial role of providing people information and entertainment to becoming an integral part of everyone's lives; and one of the most powerful media communicators is the television. According to Gerbner, et al. (1986), television has become an indispensable, almost humanized element for people everywhere. It communicates to large masses of individuals and is unique in that it makes more use of imagery than any other media source. When information is passed visually rather than textually, the human brain absorbs it more easily and rapidly. The visual component is in fact very important in our society that has become, due to the prevalence of movies, videos, visual advertising, reliant on imagery. Graphics and montage are used in media to emphasize certain scenes and create the drama effect, and further reinforce the message that is transmitted. When media transmits information, this is then absorbed and analyzed by the brain, either consciously or subconsciously. Television thus becomes a learning instrument, and watching television becomes the means by which people build their beliefs and accept certain values. Researchers have explained that the more people watch television, the more inclined they are to adopt certain behaviors. Subsequently, the more exposed people are to violent scenes on the screen, the more possible it is that they adopt similar behavior (Paik and Comstock, 1994). When psychologists and sociologists in past centuries put together the issue of violence rising in societies and the portrayal of violent incidents on TV, the idea emerged that the two phenomenons could somehow be related. The imitative model theory, which had served the social scientific community ever since 1896 when C. Lloyd Morgan first promulgated "imitation" as a behaviorist pattern, became a point of reference in the academic circles; and one of the most important figures to portray the imitative model in relation to media violence was Albert Bandura. Bandura (1969) shared a common belief, prevalent in the 1960s, that stimuli produced by visual information can be accessed by individuals long after the exposure, and can affect the individual. Most imitative-model theorists believed that imitation occurs as a type of learning process in which case, the television is the learning mechanism. One study in the 1960s showed that children exposed to violent models, whether in real life or on television -- film and cartoons --, do indeed express aggressiveness upon exposure and when further challenged (Bandura et. al, 1963). Three subject groups were formed in which the first group was put into contact with real-life aggressive models, the second group was exposed to TV mediated aggressive models, and the third group was exposed to cartoon depicting-violence models. The research concluded that aggressiveness on film was the most influential mechanism in shaping the subjects' behaviors.

If people learn by exposure to certain models or certain type of information, such as violent information, then constant and repeated exposure can influence and shape people's behavior is what so many researchers in the field have tried so hard to demonstrate. Many of the theories that have been put forward over the last decades asked whether watching violent behavior on TV could induce a similar pattern in viewers. The social learning theory of Bandura, which he advanced in 1963, assumed that people learn through imitation. They do this by reenacting social behaviors from film into real life. For example, when individuals observe that characters in a movie resolve interpersonal conflicts by physical aggression, they then learn or adopt a similar behavior when confronted with a similar situation in real life. When individuals are repeatedly exposed to physical/verbal-aggression conflict management scenarios, they thus learn that violent and aggressive behavior is a common strategy for solving conflicts. Furthermore, some critics believe, this type of aggressive attitude comes to be perceived as an effective strategy for solving conflicts (Bushman and Huesmann, 2001).

The social learning theory supposes that people learn both from direct experiences and by means of observing others, whether in real life or on screen. It bases its assumptions on four relevant elements in connection with people's cognitive and behavioral construction. First, there is the observing element or the paying attention element. Second, there is the adoption or the memorizing element, which integrates the observed behavior into existing patterns. Third, there is the actual reenactment of the observed behavior and four: there is the motivational element, which supposes that an individual is motivated by certain factors to pay attention to the behavior in the first place and to reproduce it subsequently. The evidence that suggests the influence of violent depictions in media on people rely most if not all, on case studies and experiments in which subjects of different ages, gender, nationality, religion etc. are assigned to some scenarios of various types and doses of violence. In Bandura's et al. study (1963), 48 boys and 48 girls formed the three group subjects, with ages ranging from 35 to 69 months. Bjorkqvist's study from 1985 assessed children in Finland of 5 to 6 years of age. His study also found that children exposed to violent film, as opposed to those exposed to non-violent film, were more inclined to physical aggressiveness, demonstrated in the playing room by physical assault on other children and other types of aggressive behavior (pushing, elbowing etc.). Both Bandura's and Bjorkqvist's studies indicated that there are immediate, short-term effects on children who are exposed to violent media. Though children are indeed known to mimic behavior that they see in models such as their parents and in the people around them, the fact that they replicate violent behavior as seen on screen can influence their predisposition to harm others, according to Anderson et al. (2003).

The Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior in America concluded in 1992 that most of the research that had been conducted in the previous thirty years confirmed the harmful effect of violent media. Three prevalent effects were identified: the direct affect, desensitization of the public and the "mean world syndrome." The first effect assumed that adults and children who watch violet scenes on TV frequently can become more aggressive and can develop further violent behavioral characteristics that they use to manage threatening situations. Desensitization claimed that children who watch a lot of violence on television could become less sensible to real-life violence, less empathic toward other people's suffering and more prone to accepting violence in society as a normal conduit. Lastly, the "mean world syndrome" is a term coined by Gerbner and posited that multiple and repeated exposure to violence scenes in media sources, television especially, can create the belief that the world is a mean and dangerous place. Adults and children would thus start to form a belief that the violent world, which they see on TV, is a real reproduction of the world they live in. All three effects could affect a single individual and act independently from each other, the theory affirmed.

In 1972, a study led by A. Huston Stein was conducted in relation to media. The research aimed at observing both the effects of watching violent programs and of watching non-violent programs. About one hundred preschool children participated in the experiment. They were divided into three groups, each group being exposed to different types of TV shows. The first group of children watched Batman and Superman cartoons, the second group watched Mister Roger's Neighborhood, and the third group watched TV shows for children that were neither violent nor contained any social message. Prior to the experiment, the research group evaluated all children during their daily routine at the playground to observe their social behavior. The experiment lasted 4 weeks during which time the children watched the designated TV show three days a week for half an hour. The study concluded that children who had watched Batman and Superman cartoons were more active physically, more excited, and showed signs of induced aggressiveness (for ex., picking fights with other children, brutality toward toys etc.) Children who had watched the pro-social TV program were observed to engage more with other children and with their teachers, whereas the children in the third group did not exhibit any type of different behavior. At the time, the study was deemed important because it highlighted the fact that media can have both negative and positive effects on children. However, it was also disputed because it presented only short-term results. In order to predict and observe if media could have an influence on adults, who watch a lot of violent television during childhood, a new approach was adopted -- the longitudinal study.

Some studies suggest that not only does violence portrayed in media influence child behavior immediately but that exposure also has long-term effects (Anderson et al., 2003). In 1963, Leonard Eron initiated a project to evaluate the development of the stages of aggression on a group of eight-year-old children in New York. Eron evaluated what type of programs children watched on TV and other activities that they liked to engage in. He also asked children to evaluate their friends' aggressive behavior. He interviewed their teachers to find which of the children in the group was more violent or more peaceful. He also talked to parents about their children's TV habits and family life. Eron's research concluded that children who had watched violent TV shows presented more prevailing aggressive traits and were seen by their friends as indeed more prone to violent behavior. Eron evaluated the subjects after ten years and discovered similar correlations, that a strong connection between violent behavior and violent media exists in the long run. The final step of the investigation ended when the subjects were evaluated in their early thirties. Eron found that there are positive correlations between watching TV violence in an early age and felony in adulthood. He found that many of his subjects had records of interpersonal violence, spouse abuse, murder, and rape. Another study, though less controversial but still widely disputed by disbelievers is Huesmann's longitudinal study that sought to investigate media effects in the long run, as well. In 2003, Huesmann et al. published the results of a previous study that was conducted in 1977 on 557 children from Chicago. The study sought to investigate whether or not there were also effects of media violence exposure on the long run. For the study in 2003, Huesmann et al. contacted the subjects, who were now in their early twenties, and collected data from interviews with friends, family, and the subjects themselves. State archives such as criminal records and driver's license records were also used as a source of information. Of the 557 subjects from 1977, 450 were located for the follow up in 2003. Both men and women subjects participated. The study found correlations between the amounts of time that the subjects were exposed to violent media as children and their degree of aggressive behavior as adults (Huesmann et al., 2003). It thus found that early TV-violence exposure has long-term effects on individuals, who present more signs of violence and aggressive attitudes as young adults.

The experimental studies claim to have demonstrated causal effects that produce subsequent violent behavior: example, when children watching aggressive behavior replicate it with other children or when individuals seek to resolve interpersonal conflicts by violence after repeatedly watching similar TV-mediated scenarios. However, critics have suggested that this evidence is not self-sufficient in that it does not demonstrate if such patterns of behavior exist outside the laboratory, in an environment that scientists cannot control. This is why researchers approached the matter from a different perspective, the longitudinal studies that have been conducted in relevancy to subjects' natural environments. These seem to confirm the idea that depiction of violence in media sources does have an effect on people, both short-term and long-term considered. Johnson's et al. (2002) longitudinal study also found correlations between exposures to violence, this time during adolescence, and subsequent violent behavior. 707 subjects were evaluated over a period of 17 years for the study. The respondents who had watched more violent programs than others had, presented a higher degree of prevalent aggressiveness. Yet, despite the numerous studies that seem to suggest positive correlations between violent media and subsequent violent behavior in people, there is counter-reaction to these claims.

Jonathan L. Freedman is known in academic circles for his ongoing debate that no substantial and exact evidence exists to support claims of violent media's negative effects on individuals. In his opinion, less than half of the studies dedicated to this subject have found any conclusive evidence on the matter. Freedman has questioned researchers' conclusions that exposure to violence on TV could lead to similar behavior in real life cases. He bases his suppositions on several facts. First, not all cases of violent-criminal behavior can be put in correlation with television since not all perpetrators have access to media sources. In his book (2002), Freedman recounts the events that occurred in 1992 in America, when an eight-year-old boy lit a fire that killed his younger sister. Two days prior to the event, a television program had been aired in which several young boys were depicted while setting fires. Following the tragic death of the baby-sister, the case received a lot of media attention and many suppositions were advanced that the TV program must have influenced the eight-year-old boy. However, Freedman explained, investigations concluded that the family had no television cable and so, since the little boy could not have seen the program on TV, his actions were definitely not induced by it. In his opinion, further reinforced by the fact that the boy had set fires in previous occasions, the tragedy was merely a simple case of a playing-with-matches game that had gone wrong.

Second, Freedman advanced the idea that, even though media consumption was on the rise along with technological developments and spread of television and video games in households, violent crimes experienced a considerable drop in parallel. If violence depicted in media sources did indeed have a subsequent effect on people's behavior, then the rate crime should have increased rather than decreased, Freedman explained. He believed that most of the events associated with media violence could be explained by other factors. Freedman also disputed Huesmann's findings, stating that the latter could have simply sought to present evidence that supported his personal beliefs. Because he had dedicated almost his entire career to studies that evidenced strong correlations between violent media and people's behavior, Huesmann might have been less inclined to show neutrality and more inclined to "take sides," Freedman argued. Jonathan Freedman denied both the evidence presented by experimental studies and the evidence brought forth by longitudinal field studies. As other disbelievers before and after him have argued, experiments fail to demonstrate if laboratory settings apply to experiences in everyday life regarding violent media influence on behavioral patterns. The same disbelievers have criticized longitudinal studies because these findings fail to present a model that could be generalized to an entire population. In addition, they believed that this research method is frail because it concerns data that may change along with people's ways of thinking and developing in time. The longitudinal study, because it bases its framework within the current intellectual climate of its time, cannot be accepted as actual result in a future climate when people's behavior may be different due to a number of different factors. To dispute the idea that violent media affects people in a negative way, other researchers have stated that watching violent news or violent movies has in fact the ability to decrease aggression. Jib Fowles (1999) postulated that studies on violent media and subsequent behavior in people present so many flaws that they could be either ignored altogether or opened to completely different interpretations. A proponent of the catharsis theory, Fowles believed that playing violent video games, for example, could be a proper management skill that helps release any personal frustrations or feelings of anger, which otherwise are directed at people in the real world. The catharsis effect assumes that people in their everyday lives have to confront an array of frustrating situations that may cause acts of violence and aggressiveness. The catharsis then is a method through which people can release these frustrations by symbolic or imaginary participation in scenes of violence (ex., identification with aggressive characters in movies, playing violent video games). Proponents of the catharsis theory have suggested that TV programs with violent scenes and events can actually help people in managing their own violent inclinations. But then again, researchers such as Huesmann have stated the exact opposite. Although Huesmann agrees that news violence and film violence have been researched more thoroughly, he believes there is sufficient evidence that suggests the influence of violent video games and their potential to increase aggressiveness. (2006). To this day, controversies continue to exist over media's role in our society and its impact on people's lives. As long as no definitive answer has been determined and violent media's negative effect on people has not been unanimously accepted, researchers feel compelled to adopt different research frameworks. Gentile and Bushman (2012) proposed a frame of research that took into consideration the probability of media influences, as well as other factors that could facilitate the adoption of aggressive behavior. They believe that the cause for violent events such as mass shootings cannot be determined by merely seeking influences in media violence. Moreover, violent media effects should not be considered only when society is confronted with this type of violent actions. Instead, Gentile and Bushman argued, violent media effects should be evaluated and analyzed together with other pervasive risk factors. This somewhat new framework of methodological research is called the risk and resilience approach. This theory assumes that there are particular characteristics in every child, that every child has different life experiences, which may affect them during adolescence and adulthood. The risk and resilience approach considers media violence as a "risk factor" that may become pervasive in future experiences. According to this approach, some children have risk factors that could aggravate the effects of exposure to violent media, whereas other children have factors that diminish these negative effects (Gentile and Sesma Jr., 2003).