Media Violence and Youth Violence

¶ … Media violence and youth violence: a 2-year longitudinal study" which was written by Hopf et al. This study examined the relationship between violence in the media and violent delinquency in juveniles. As the title of this article suggests, the research is based on a two-year longitudinal study. The hypotheses for this study were multifold, and were based in large measure on existent hypothesis. The hypothesis of Hopf et al. related to an effect hypothesis that watching violence in the media contributes to aggressive behavior and a selection hypothesis which states that violently aggressive actions stimulates exposure to violence (Hopf et al., 2008, p. 79). As a result, the researchers in this article developed three sub-hypotheses: exposure to violent media at a young age contributes to violence, early playing of video games is the most effective way of contributing to violence in juveniles, and "exposure to media violence…is the strongest predictor of later exposure to media violence" and violent behavior (Hopf et al., 2008, p. 82). The purpose of the study, therefore was to produce a clearer understanding of the ramifications of media violence involvement as related to environmental and personality-based risk factors for juveniles.

METHODS

The data for this study was collected from the data of a previous cross-sectional study conducted by Hopf in 2004 in which students in the 1999/2000 school year were issued an assessment -- many of those same students were issued an assessment during the 2002-2003 school year. As such, there was no original research in the study within the article reviewed in this document. The participants were largely 12 years old during the time of the initial assessment who had turned 14 at the time of the second assessment and were students in Bavaria's Hauptschule school track -- which is notorious for delinquency (Hopf et al., 2008, p. 82). This sample was selected for this proclivity to aberrant or antisocial behavior. The sample size included 314 students who participated in both assessments. There were two instruments used, whose scales stemmed from a previous study conducted by Tillman in 1999 and other studies. The first was the Violence and Climate Questionnaire, while the second was the Media Questionnaire. To examine the initial hypothesis, the researchers employed "multiple regression algorithms" that had "five predictor variables as the base structure" (Hopf et al., 2008, p. 84). To test the second and third hypotheses, the researchers utilized a path analyses with relied upon the AUTO-PFAD algorithm.

RESULTS

The results of the study were largely codified according to the three hypotheses. The first hypothesis was partly confirmed by the statistical analyses. Exposure to media violence at a young age did predict delinquency and further exposure to media violence. Still, former violent beliefs and previous violence of students (followed by parents' physical violence) were also important factors that did not confirm part of this hypothesis. The researchers did well to confirm these facts by utilizing regression analysis for each of the dependent variables during the time the second assessment was administered. The results also showed that a dearth of warmth and well-being in school also contributed to violent media exposure (Hopf et al., 2008, p. 85).

The results of hypothesis two indicate that horror and violent films are the strongest contributor to violent behavior, but that electronic video games are the strongest contributor to delinquency. These results were predicated upon a composite score of early media violence as relating to the aforementioned two sources in addition to television violence. The researchers used path models to calculate these scores involving various goal variable delinquencies in which these three media were direct factors. What was effective about this process is that the researchers used multiple correlations that referred to the hierarchical stratum from the AU-TO-PFAD algorithm (Hopf et al., 2008, p. 87). The results confirmed hypothesis three and indicated that the strongest effect for the total of experiencing media violence after two years is delinquency, while violent beliefs and students' violence is affected as well. To determine this result the researchers aggregated the data for the three types of media violence into one, which seems logical considering the data available.

DISCUSSION