Violence on Television

An Analysis of Amount, Nature, Location and Origin of Violence in British Programmes

Barrie Gunter, Jackie Harrison

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781138986756
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134691777
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Television is often accused of showing too much violence. However, it is rare that anyone stops to ask what this statement means. Violence on Television provides an objective analysis of the violence on television, how much there is and what form it takes.
It presents findings from the largest ever sudy of the depiction of violence on television carried out in Britain, funded by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Independent Television Commission. As well as presenting a quantitative analysis of the amount of violence on television, this research places great emphasis on investigating the character of violent portrayals and the contexts in which they occur.
Barrie Gunter and Jackie Harrison present a detailed literature review, which examines previous research from around the world. They then explain the methodology and look at the problems of measuring and quantifying violence on television. They examine the specific attributes of violence, including the form it takes, its physical setting, its motives and consequences, and the nature of the characters involved as either aggressors or victims. They also examine the amount and nature of violent portrayals in different programme genres, such as films and drama, entertainment programming, news and factual programmes, and children's programmes.
The book will be of interest to students and researchers in psychology, communication studies and media studies.

1
Introduction

Concern about violence on television can be traced back to the earliest days of the medium. In fact, this concern has its roots in the unease that is expressed about any new entertainment medium which appeals to the masses. Such reactions were reported with the appearance of popular romantic and adventure novels in the nineteenth century and were present again in response to the growing popularity of motion pictures in the early part of the twentieth century.

In tracing the history of research into questions about violence in the media, a number of historical milestones can be identified over a period spanning more than sixty years. These were related to concerns about violence in the cinema, violence or horror on the radio, violence in comics and finally, violence on television. Much of the early research was conducted in the United States where particular theoretical approaches within the social sciences have dominated the major mass media research initiatives and traditions.

With the arrival of motion pictures in the United States in the 1920s as the first of the mass popular media, there began an almost ritual-like invoking of experimental, quantitative social science to investigate what powers such mass entertainment forms held over the public at large, which was to be repeated in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. This pattern of concern, with special interest groups representing parents, educators and the church at the forefront of highly public debates lobbying their governments and political representatives about media influences, emerged during this period in other countries, the United Kingdom included. At different times, public anxieties centred on the potentially harmful effects of a particular mass medium, with television being the focal point of the public’s attention since the 1950s. The most frequent source of concern was the portrayal of violence in programmes which, according to television’s critics, could undermine the moral values of young people, teach lessons which encouraged delinquent behaviour, and play a significant part in contributing towards rising levels of crime in society. Meanwhile, those involved with the media, together with more liberal minded members of the public, countered that television could enhance a young viewer’s life in so many ways, provide a source of education and information, and offer varied forms of highbrow as well as low-brow entertainment in a convenient and cheap fashion. Given this rhetorical stalemate, the industry and politicians turned to social scientists as impartial arbiters whose independent and objective data could be invoked to give a dispassionate account of what influences television did indeed have (see Rowland, 1983).

The scientists failed to resolve this dispute, in spite of the expectations that had been placed upon them. Arguments frequently occurred among social scientists about the quality and validity of data derived from different research methodologies, while on a more profound level, there have been debates about the efficacy of particular scientific paradigms to provide an appropriate form of analysis of the way in which the mass media can shape the public consciousness, whether for good or ill (see Gauntlett, 1995; Rowland, 1983). Mass communications research developed initially out of a research tradition in the social sciences which derived from the pure sciences. In the United States, scientists were sponsored by and worked in the service of industrial corporations which expected results with economic and wealth-creating consequences. The physical sciences were preoccupied with discovering the deterministic, universal, predictable ‘laws of nature’ in order to control them for technical purposes. This pragmatic spirit of the technical and engineering sciences was to suffuse the developing social sciences. Even by the 1950s, questions were being raised about the effectiveness of this approach to the analysis of cultural phenomena. The focus was placed on the effects of media output rather than upon the economics and value systems underpinning media productions themselves.

Violence in the Movies

The earliest coordinated social scientific research effort connected with the depiction of violence in the mass media, occurred in the 1920s in the United States. This was the decade when the motion picture industry became the major source of mass entertainment. By 1922, for example, the year when cinema audience measurement was first properly carried out, 40 million cinema tickets were sold in the United States every week. By the end of the decade, this figure had risen to 90 million, including 17 million children aged under 14 years. During this period American films took over the world market. Hollywood became the centre of the movie industry—the glamour capital of the world. Obscure people were discovered by the studios and propelled into overnight stardom, earning vast sums of money and becoming the idols of many millions of ordinary people. One interesting observation is that the content of motion pictures made in the 1920s was actually not much different from the content of movies today. One study of movies’ themes at this time found that film stories could be grouped into just ten categories. Three quarters of all movies fell into just three categories, however—love, sex and crime.

In a society that had barely emerged from the Victorian age, the themes that dominated films seemed to many to pose troublesome challenges to established moral standards. By the mid-1920s pressure began to mount on the motion picture industry. Numerous editorials, sermons, magazine articles and other forms of public criticism raised questions and made charges that movies were a negative influence on children.

During the same period, important developments were taking place in the social sciences. Increased attention was being paid to quantitative research techniques and new methods were developed, which meant that researchers were able to get answers to questions they had previously not had the tools and techniques properly to investigate. For one thing, statistics were introduced to social science research, which facilitated a more scientific approach to opinion research. Armed with these few techniques and a growing confidence in how to use them, social scientists began to seek opportunities to undertake research into the existence, nature and extent of mass media effects on their audiences.

In 1928 William H.Short, Executive Director of the Motion Picture Research Council, invited a group of university psychologists, sociologists and educators to design a series of studies to assess the influence of the movies on children. The research was funded by a private philanthropic foundation called the Payne Fund.

The research findings were published in the early 1930s in ten volumes and represent classic works. Among the questions they tackled were whether the movies eroded moral standards and had an influence on conduct. Findings indicated that many scenes of crime and sex could be found in the movies that were contrary to moral standards of the day, but no conclusive evidence emerged that the movies actually had degenerating effects on their audiences.

Dale (1935) reported an analysis of the major themes of 1,500 films as part of the Payne Fund research and found that about one in four films had a major theme of crime and, in an in-depth analysis of 115 films, found an average of 3.9 crimes per film. His conclusions, like so many later studies of television violence, were suffused with assumptions about the harmful effects ‘due to this excessive and dramatic way of presenting crime’ (Dale, 1935, p. 140).

The study reported evidence of media effects. Research into movies’ influences on delinquency suggested that there might be a link. One study of delinquency-prone youngsters reported that motion pictures played a direct role in shaping delinquent and criminal careers. The methods and strategies of some of this work were highly criticized at the time by criminologists and specialists in the study of deviant behaviour; nevertheless the findings caused a considerable stir. Unfortunately, like many subsequent major research programmes on the mass media, the Payne Fund project was uncertain how to separate out the precise effects of media from the complex influences of family, school, church and teenage peer groups.

Violence on the Radio

A few years after the Payne Fund studies had reported their findings about the movies, another stir was caused by an incident that occurred on radio. On 30 October 1938, Mercury Theatre on the Air, starring among others Orson Welles and John Houseman, broadcast a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ science fiction masterpiece War of the Worlds. Because the dramatization was presented in a clever newscast style, many listeners believed that the Martians really had landed. What happened that October night was one of the most remarkable media events of all time. If nothing else, the incident demonstrated that radio drama could have a powerful impact on its audience.

At the time, radio in the United States had become the primary source of information and home entertainment for the masses. The popularity of newspapers had begun to fade. It was estimated that of 32 million families in the United States in 1938, 27 million had radio. The crucial broadcast was aired one Sunday evening between 8.00 and 9.00 pm. The introduction by Welles was very realistic in regard to the time frame and events. After Welles’ introduction, an anonymous announcer read what was apparently a routine news bulletin. Twelve minutes into the show there was a newsflash announcing that a mysterious flaming object had been sighted over New Jersey. Further flashes revealed, in realistic fashion, an apparent alien invasion.

As newspaper headlines over the next day or two revealed, there were many people who believed they were listening to real events rather than a fictional dramatization. Many people panicked, leaving their homes, and even their towns or cities, in order to escape what they believed was a real invasion from Mars.

Subsequent research showed that many listeners joined the programme part of the way through, having listened through to the end of a popular radio music and variety show on a different station. They had missed Welles’ explanation at the very beginning of the programme that the events they were about to hear were fictional. Many people, missing this information and the context it provided, thought they were listening to an authentic news bulletin.

Horror Comics

During the 1950s in the United States, there was renewed concern about the role of mass media in juvenile delinquency. Senate hearings insisted on getting from behavioural scientists conclusive evidence of long-term harmful effects of media. Unfortunately, psychologists and representatives of the new field of communications could only give conflicting theories of media and delinquency, which made reference to such mechanisms as catharsis, arousal and social learning (imitation). Politicians were further dismayed by social scientists who argued their cases on the basis of significant correlations between media and behaviour, which did not offer the direct proof of causality needed for legislation.

Attention switched, at one point, to a popular printed entertainment medium of that time—horror comics. This attention was triggered by the appearance of a book called Seduction of the Innocent by a psychiatrist, Dr Frederick Wertham. He argued that comic books were, contrary to what their name suggested, not in the least bit funny. Instead, at their worst, they were turning children into dangerous juvenile delinquents; at best, they were giving children who read them a distorted view of the world. They were also blamed by Wertham for contributing to reading problems.

Throughout his book Wertham catalogued instances where children supposedly initiated violent acts found in crime comics. He claimed that ‘there is a significant correlation between crime comics reading and the more serious forms of juvenile delinquency’. Reduced to its simplest terms, Wertham’s argument was that

1. comic books were read by a large number of children;
2. a large component of the comic diet consisted of crime, violence, horror and sex; and therefore
3. children who read the comics were necessarily stimulated to the performance of delinquent acts, cruelty, violence and undesirable social behaviour.

Perhaps the most significant impact of Wertham’s work was to nearly destroy the comic book industry. Theoretically, however, there were inconsistencies in his analysis. His evidence for comic book effects on delinquent tendencies in youngsters, based as it was on interviews with children in clinical settings, was often unsystematic and ambiguous in its potential interpretations, creating more questions than answers. Even media researchers who did utilize systematic modes of investigation were unable to produce results which offered conclusive evidence of media effects.

Violence on Television

Since the 1950s when television broadcasting became widespread in the United States and the United Kingdom, the attention of social science researchers has been predominantly drawn to this medium, particularly with reference to the possible impact its depictions of violence might have upon viewers. Although much of this research has been focused upon the potential impact of violent television on children (e.g., Himmelweit et al., 1958), who are regarded as especially susceptible to media effects, there has been wider public concern about television violence and its influences on the audience as a whole.

During the 1960s, as television became increasingly well established, competing channels and stations engaged in a fierce race for audiences and advertising revenues. One aspect of this changing environment was the introduction of more and more attention-gripping programmes featuring fast-paced action and simple storylines—with themes commonly centred around westerns, crime, and espionage—many with the stock feature of violent resolutions to problems. Even then, despite calls for a tightening of regulations (the need for greater self-regulation in the United States, and the need for a more active external regulator and greater emphasis on research establishing viewers’ needs and interests in the United Kingdom), there was no call for an analysis of the relationship between the medium’s economic foundations and its programme content (Rowland, 1983). Instead, researchers offered more and more complex forms of analysis based on the increasingly fashionable multi-variate computational techniques that were becoming available. These often gave the appearance of having greater scientific weight and credibility, but came little closer to establishing the kind of causal evidence governments needed to support new legislation.

The debate about the effects of television violence has frequently been accompanied by calls for tighter controls over television content and the way it is regulated. These demands have emphasized the need to establish the extent of violence on television as a basis for developing public policy in the area. It has become clear, however, that the measurement of television violence is a complex problem to which there are no ready or clear cut solutions. One complication is the fact that the meaning of violence can vary widely from one individual to another. A portrayal that is perceived as extremely violent by one viewer may be seen as relatively innocuous by another. Attempts by professional researchers to make statements about the violence profile of television on the basis of quantitative data derived from simplistic definitions of ‘violence’, without any recourse to public values, attitudes and perceptions, are fraught with conceptual difficulties because the television violence ratings of professional researchers may differ in significant respects from those which would be applied by ordinary viewers. The perception of television violence can vary according to the kind of violence, the context in which it occurs, the nature of the perpetrator and victim, the consequences which follow from it, the types of weapons employed, and the reasons why it occurred (see Gunter, 1985). These are matters which need to be borne in mind by those who attempt to develop procedures for measuring the amount of violence on television, since they may largely determine the meaning that the subsequent results might have (Watsons et al. 1991).

Television came under particularly close scrutiny at the beginning of the 1970s. In the United States, fear about rising crime, concern about inner city riots and college campus rebellions against the Vietnam war, together with other forms of civil unrest, gave many the impression that the fabric of American society was being ripped apar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The research
• 3 Amount of violence on television
• 4 Nature of violence on television
• 5 Setting of violence
• 6 Motives and consequences of violence
• 7 Aggressors and victims
• 8 Programme genre and TV violence
• 9 Violence in dramatic fiction
• 10 Violence in light entertainment
• 11 Violence in news and factual programmes
• 12 Violence in children's programmes
• 13 Scheduling and television violence
• 14 Violence on British television: A cause for concern or comfort?
• Appendix
• References
• Author index
• Subject index