Statement on Media Violence
of Joanne Cantor, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
before the
United States House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families
Washington, D.C.
April 28, 1998Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before you to present my views on the causes of violence in children. For the past 23 years, I have been a professor at the University of Wisconsin, focusing my teaching and research on the effects of the mass media on children. Recently, I have participated in the National Television Violence Study, research that explores the television landscape and the harm done to children by exposure to television violence. I have a book due out in September titled "Mommy I'm Scared," which helps parents protect their children from the effects of media violence. Finally, and not the least important, I am the mother of a nine-year-old son, so I can address these issues as a parent as well as a researcher and author.
As you will hear today, there are many factors that contribute to children behaving violently. Having done research on this issue myself, and having reviewed the vast and growing literature on this topic, I can say without hesitation that media violence is a substantial contributor to our children becoming violent, becoming desensitized to the consequences of violence, and becoming fearful of being a victim. Media images of violence make their contributions both in the short-term, immediately after viewing, and in the long-term, as a cumulative effect of repeated exposure to violent images throughout childhood. There is an overwhelming consensus on this point among researchers and among public health organizations. Our youngest children are the most vulnerable, both because they are in the process of forming their own sense of right and wrong, and because they are not yet adept at distinguishing fantasy from reality. A recent meta-analysis of more than 200 studies involving more than 1,000 comparisons showed that viewing violence in programs of a wide range of types consistently contributes to a wide array of violent behaviors -- ranging from stated intentions to commit violence to actual criminal violence.
Research shows that the way violence is portrayed can make it more or less likely that a child will adopt violent attitudes or become violent. For example, violence that is committed by "good guys," that is shown as justified, and that shows little visible pain or harm is more likely to be imitated than violence committed by evil characters or violence that brings pain or punishment. The National Television Violence Study, which recently released its Year Three report on the most representative and extensive sample of television programs ever studied, showed that not only has violence remained at a high level on television (3 out of every 5 programs contain violence), the way most violence is portrayed is destined to promote children's aggression. For example, in more than 40% of programs with violence, the "bad" violent characters are never punished; and only 4% of violent programs portray a theme that promotes nonviolence. Moreover, more than half of the violent interactions on television show no pain, and almost 40% of violent interactions show good guys behaving violently. If someone set out to design an ad campaign to promote violence by making it seem glamorous, effective, risk-free, and painless, they could hardly do better if they tried.
When we see children commit unspeakable and unexplainable acts of violence, it is natural to ask whether repeated exposure to media violence that is glamorized, sanitized, and trivialized contributed to their behavior. There is no doubt that each tragedy is the result of many unhealthy influences working together. But when a child resorts to gunfire to correct what he sees as an injustice, is it unreasonable to think that repeated exposure to violent incidents on television -- 25% of which involve guns -- might have provided encouragement to act that way? In many of these well-publicized incidents, the young perpetrators seem surprised at the severity of the consequences to themselves and their victims. Maybe the fact that violence on television usually underplays violence's negative effects has something to do with this.
Although television violence is not the strongest contributor to children's violent behavior, it is the one over which we may have the most control. Producers and distributors of television programs make choices of what to show, and it is in their power to provide programming that is more or less likely to produce harm.
What else can we do, besides urging the media to be more responsible?
We need better parent education about the effects of media violence on children. When parents understand the harmful effects, they will be motivated to act in protective ways. We also need to promote media literacy education for children. Teaching children about the effects of television and teaching them the ways in which television distorts the reality of violence can help reduce many of the negative effects of what they see.
Speaking personally as a parent who has a TV, a major problem is that TV automatically makes available in my home thousands of programs I would never select if I were making the choice. Rather than having the option of selecting what I want my child to see, everything is accessible at the touch of a remote, and I only have the option of playing defense -- actively working to shield my child from what I consider the worst of it. Given that I must play defense, I need accurate information about the content of programs. TV ratings can help, but only if all stations (including NBC)(1) use ratings that at least point to where the violence is; and the ratings will need to be assigned accurately and consistently. Blocking technologies like the V-chip, that will permit parents to keep the most harmful programs from entering our homes, will need to be effective and user-friendly.
If all of us want to help parents socialize their children well, it will be important that research be continued to monitor the TV landscape and to keep tabs on how appropriately television programs are being rated, whether the existing rating system needs to be modified further, and how well the V-chip and other blocking devices are working. We need to ensure that these new tools really help parents reduce TV's negative influences and help promote children's healthy development. In spite of the enormity and complexity of the problem of child violence and the fact that aggression-promoting images seem firmly intrenched in the television landscape, I believe that media education for parents and children, better labeling of programs, and effective blocking tools can really make a difference.
References
Cantor, J. (1998). Mommy, I'm scared: How TV and movies frighten children and what we can do to protect them. San Diego: Harvest Books/Harcourt Brace.
Federman, J. (Ed., 1998). Executive Summary: National Television Violence Study, Volume 3. Santa Barbara, CA: Center for Communication and Social Policy, University of California, Santa Barbara.
National Television Violence Study (Volumes 1, 2, and 3, 1996, 1997, and 1998, respectively). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Paik, H., & Comstock, G. (1994). The effects of television violence on antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis. Communication Research, 21(4), 516-539.
For More Information About the National Television Violence Study
See: http://research.ucsb.edu/cori/ccsp.htmlor call: (805) 893-7879
1. NBC refuses to go along with the amended TV rating system, implemented in October, 1997, which adds content letters, including a V for violence, to the original age-based TV Parental Guidelines. The Year 3 research of the National Television Violence Study showed that without the content letters, the age-based ratings of TVG, TVPG, TV14, and TVMA are unrelated to the presence of violence in programs.