Media Violence and Children

1. Media Violence and Children • Media violence and broader ‘Moral panics’ • Debates about media impact • Connections to real-life events • A form of electronic child abuse • Media as a convenient scapegoat? • Proposal to regulate media vs. Other significant causes (family breakdown) • Anxiety → Censorship (stricter control) Children Viewing Violence

2. Media Panics? • Long history of media panics and collapse of social order: Continuing concern about over-stimulation, sensuality, and sensationalism • Contradictory notions • The child as innocent and vulnerable • The bearer of original sin (natural not in positive sense; negative drives) • Political purposes Children Viewing Violence

3. Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) • Formulated and adopted by The Association of Motion Picture Producers, Inc. and The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. in 1930 (inside censorship instead of outside) • General Principles • 1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin. • 2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented. • 3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation. Children Viewing Violence

4. Media Panics? • Inconclusive evidence on alleged media violence increase; but it is clear that more graphic and spectacular on screen • Realistic gunfire • Scenes of consequence of injury • Why do children choose to expose themselves to that? • Audience generally prefer programs without violence (some critics suggest). • Global marketing: Violence as a dramatic ingredient requires no translation and instantly comprehensible • Media violence as symptomatic of changes in the Zeitgeist (Anxiety produced by changing roles, insecurity…) • Return of repressed paganism (attempt to re-connect to nature) • Implicit assumption: Violence is a singular phenomenon Children Viewing Violence

5. The Limits of ‘Effects’ • Research on children’s relationship with media • Dominated by particularly reductive understanding of its effects • Central preoccupation: media able to produce aggressive behavior • Children defined in terms of what they ‘lack’ • Inability to conform to adult norms • Inability to distinguish between fiction and reality • Simply too immature • Violence abstracted from contexts in lab experiments and surveys • Correlations seen as causality • Theoretical and methodological shortcomings Children Viewing Violence

6. The Limits of ‘Effects’ • Failed central hypothesis • Media violence makes people more aggressive than they would otherwise have been • It causes them to commit violent acts they would not otherwise have committed • Sociological research: • multifactorial causes • Asking simplistic questions about complicated social issues • Media have no effects? We can’t prove it → better to err on the side of safety Children Viewing Violence

7. Talking ‘Violence’ • What audience defined as violent • Significant variation • Gender, country, age; context, drama types… • Children do not perceive cartoons as violent; but regularly top on lists for researchers • Violence in the media: A more complex question • Children and parents both define violence as ‘bad influence’ on those other than themselves • Social desirability bias Children Viewing Violence

8. Talking ‘Violence’ • Parents see their own children’s imitation as play; Other people’s children might committed copycat violence; inadequate parenting ignored • Parents’ central concern • Not that they become aggressive • But emotionally upset or disturbed Children Viewing Violence

9. Reading Effects • Precisely what kind of effects • Behavior effects • Emotional effects • Ideological or attitudinal effects • Connections complex and diverse; harmful or beneficial • Positive vs. Negative Effects • Positive and negative responses at the same time; far from straightforward • Fear of crime vs. Citizen prerequisite Children Viewing Violence

10. Reading Effects • Fact and Fiction • Development of coping strategy from fictional material; carried over to real life • Become generic knowledge (media literacy)-coping with media experience • Harder to cope with in non-fictional material • Not always clear-cut Children Viewing Violence

11. Why do children (people) watch? • Pathological conception of viewers • Immaturity, lack of intelligence, personality defects • Potential appeal • Thrill, poetry or beauty, countercultural, testing one’s own responses • Few have been acknowledged • Horror as example • To understand and deal with life anxiety in comparatively safe arena • Suspension of disbelief: Imagination might be real Children Viewing Violence

12. Why do children watch? • Taking on victim’s position rather than monster’s • Sadism and Masochism • Pleasure, enjoyment of repeated viewing (enable to see through) • Pleasure inextricably tied up with pain • Transgression and disruption • Violation of social, sexual, physical taboos • Politically progressive or psychically therapeutic Children Viewing Violence

13. Changing Sites of Regulation • Technological advances vs. Control of illegal materials (--still obtained by under age children) • Responsibility inevitably shifted to parents • Banning of forbidden fruits gives attractions !? • Media violence issues → ultimately many diverse but fundamental anxieties: • Decline of family and religion • Changing nature of literacy and cultural • Pace of technological change Children Viewing Violence