Media violence research

Media violence research attempts to establish a link between consuming media violence and subsequent violent behavior. Although a majority of social scientists support this link, methodological and theoretical problems with the existing literature limit the conclusivity of its findings.

Background
For several decades, particular since the advent of television, social scientists have engaged in research to determine whether violence displayed in the media is related to subsequent violent behavior among children and adults who view such media. This body of research is based on a psychological theory known as "Social Learning Theory" developed by Albert Bandura that suggests that one powerful way in which human beings learn is by watching other humans successfully accomplish various procedures that they wish to learn (an example would be a child learning to tie his or her shoes by watching an adult do the same thing.)

Although Social Learning Theory is not necessarily mutually exclusive to research suggesting that the pathway to aggression is primarily biological/genetic (see the work of Hare, 1993, Larsson, Andershed, & Lichtenstein, In Press, among others), media violence researchers typically focus on learning pathways to aggression rather than biological pathways. Models such as the General Aggression Model (Anderson & Dill, 2000) suggest that humans develop cognitive "scripts" for how to respond to stressful situations by watching individuals in the media (TV, movies, music and video games, primarily) respond to stressful situations. When potential models in the media respond violently, this activates violent cognitive scripts in the viewer's mind, increasing their subsequent aggression level. This model predicts both an immediate short-term increase in violent behavior immediately following a single viewing, as well as long-term increases in violent behavior following a pattern of viewing violent media.

Although organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have suggested that thousands (3500 according to the AAP) of studies have been conducted confirming this link, others have argued that this information is incorrect. Rather, only about two hundred studies have been conducted in peer-reviewed scientific journals on television, movie, music and video game violence effects. Critics argue that about half find some link between media and subsequent aggression (but not violent crime), whereas the other half do not find a link between consuming violent media and subsequent aggression of any kind (Freedman, 2002).

Media violence studies take two basic forms. Correlational studies measure exposure to media violence and associate these exposure levels with aggressive behavior or sometimes (but only seldom) violent criminal behavior. Experimental studies expose volunteers (usually college students, but sometimes other groups) to violent media and then measure their aggression in a laboratory setting. Famous studies include Bandura's bo-bo doll studies, Heusmann & Eron's cross national study, and Anderson & Dill's study of violent video game effects. Although these studies generally claim support for the social learning model, some cite a common set of flaws in these studies, leading some researchers to by skeptical of this literature (e.g. Savage, 2004; Olson, 2004; Freedman, 2002). The well-regarded cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker in his (2002) book, The Blank Slate criticizes this body of work for its methodological and theoretical flaws.

Criticisms of Media Violence Research
Although social scientists often claim "consensus" on the issue of media violence effects, only a relatively small number of scientists carry out this work. Most members of this "consensus" actually seem unfamiliar with the research itself.

Criticisms of the media violence link focus on a number of methodological and theoretical problems including (but not limited to) the following (see Freedman, 2002; Olson, 2004; Tedeschi & Quigley, 1996; Pinker, 2002):


 * 1) Failure to employ standardized, reliable and valid measures of aggression and media violence exposure.  Although measurement of psychological variables is always tricky at best, it is generally accepted that measurement techniques should be standardized, reliable and valid, as demonstrated empirically.  However, a read of the studies involved notes that the measurement tools involved are often unstandardized, sloppily employed and fail to report reliablity coefficients.  Examples include the "Competitive Reaction Time Test" in which participants believe that they are punishing an opponent for losing in a reaction time test by subjecting the opponent to noise blasts or electric shocks.  There is no standardized way of employing this task, raising the possibility that authors may manipulate the results to support their conclusions.  This task may produce dozens of different possible ways to measure "aggression", all from a single participant's data.  Without a standardized way of employing and measuring aggression using this task, there is no way of knowing whether the results reported are a valid measure of aggression, or were selected from among the possible alternatives simply because they produced positive findings where other alternatives did not.
 * 2) Failure to report negative findings. Many of the articles that purport positive findings regarding a link between media violence and subsequent aggression, on a closer read, actually have negative or inconclusive results.  One example is the experimental portion of Anderson & Dill (2000; with video games) which measures aggression four separate ways (using an unstandardized, unreliable and unvalidated measure of aggression, the Competitive Reaction Time Test mentioned above) and finds significance for only one of those measures.  Had a statistical adjustment known as a "Bonferoni correction" been properly employed, that fourth finding also would have been insignificant
 * 3) Failure to account for "third" variables. Media violence studies regularly fail to account for other variables such as genetics, personality and exposure to family violence that may explain both why some people become violent and why those same people may choose to expose themselves to violent media.
 * 4) Failure to adequately define "aggression." Most studies of media violence imply that there is a link between violent media and violent crime in society.  However, almost none of these studies actually deal with violent crime.  Instead these studies (for both practical and legitimate ethical reasons) focus on a broader idea of "aggression" which may or may not include violent crime.  However, there is no consensus on what aggression is, or how to measure it.  Many experimental measures of aggression are rather questionable (Mussen & Rutherford, 1961; Berkowitz, 1965; Bushman & Anderson, 2002; Deselms & Altman, 2003). Other studies fail to differentiate between "aggression" aimed at causing harm to another person, and "aggressive play" in which two individuals (usually children) may pretend to engage in aggressive behavior, but do so mutually consensually for enjoyment purposes.
 * 5) Small "effects" sizes. In the research world, the term "statistical significance" does not mean very much.  Effects can vary according to their size (for example the effects of eating bananas on your mood could very well be "statistically significant" but would be tiny, almost imperceptible, where as the effect of a death in the immediate family would also be "statistically significant" but obviously much larger).  Media violence studies usually produce very small, transient effects that do not translate into large effects in the real world.  Media violence researchers often defend this by pointing out that many medical studies also produce small effects (which is true).
 * 6) Media violence rates are not correlated with violent crime rates. Ultimately the biggest problem for this body of literature is that for this theory to be true, media violence (which appears to have been consistently and unfailingly on the rise since the 1950s) should be well correlated with violent crime (which has been cycling up and down throughout human history).  By discussing only the data from the 1950s through the 1990s, media violence researchers create the illusion that there is a correlation, when in fact there is not.  Large spikes in violent crime in the United States occurred without associated media violence spikes during the 1880s (when records were first kept) and 1930s.  The homicide rate in the United States have never been higher than during the 1930s.  Similarly, this theory fails to explain why violent crime rates (including among juveniles) dramatically fell in the mid 1990s and have stayed low, during a time when media violence has continued to increase, and saw the addition of violent video games.  Lastly media violence researchers can not explain why many countries with media violence rates similar to or equal to the U.S. (such as Norway, Canada, Japan, etc.) have much lower violent crime rates.  Huesmann & Eron's own cross-national study (which is often cited in support of media violence effects) failed to find a link between television violence and aggressive behavior in most of the countries included in the analysis (including oddly enough, American boys).

Thus debate remains whether exposure to media violence is indeed a cause of violent criminal behavior.