MEDIA VIOLENCE AND CHILDREN

Research on the amount of violence in media consumed by children and teenagers is woefully out of date and incomplete. The presence of violent images in advertising seen by children has barely been studied, comprehensive research on TV violence is nearly two decades old, video game research hasn’t kept pace with current modes of gaming or tracked the content most consumed by youth, and studies of online exposure are nearly nonexistent. The research that has been done tends to use widely varying standards for counting “violence,” ranging from studies limited to physical acts of aggression to those that include verbal threats, insults, and even accidental violence. Studies documenting media content are expensive and time consuming to conduct, and for some media are difficult to design (for example, interactive games and online content). A lack of funding prevents much progress in filling the gaps in this research. Yet children and teens are consuming many hours of media content: an average of more than seven hours of screen media per day[1]. From the research that has been conducted in the past, we can roughly estimate that about 90% of movies include some depictions of violence, as do 68% of video games, 60% of TV shows, and 15% of music videos. There is substantial variation within genres, so any young person’s exposure depends on the types of TV shows and movies they are watching, games they are playing, and music they are listening to. And the nature and frequency of the violence varies widely as well, from slapstick to gruesome, occasional to nearly constant. But it seems clear that most young people are seeing many examples of physical violence in the media they consume every day.

Advertising content: Children’s exposure to violence in advertising has not received the same attention as violence in movies, TV shows, or video games. Yet advertising is one of the most ubiquitous forms of media that young people are exposed to, ranging from 30-second spots on TV and online video ads to print ads seen in magazines and outdoor ads on billboards or at the bus stop. And children’s exposure to violent (or sexual) content in advertising has long been a special concern for parents, because it so often catches them unaware.

Television content: The most recent studies indicate that 8- to 18-year-olds in this country watch an average of four hours of TV programming per day, more time than is spent with any other type of media. The most comprehensive content analysis of TV violence – the National Television Violence Study – was conducted in the mid-1990s. It coded more than 10,000 hours of programming across 23 channels, including cable and broadcast networks, PBS, and daytime as well as primetime programming. This study counted as violence any act or threat of physical force intended to cause physical harm. The key findings were:

Video game content: Eight- to 18-year-olds spend an average of an hour and a half per day playing video and computer games, including 36 minutes a day playing console games, 21 minutes using hand-held gaming devices, 17 minutes playing computer games, and 17 minutes playing cellphone games. Relatively few studies have coded the violent content in video games.A review of E-rated games released between 1985 and 2000 found that 64% included “intentional physical aggression” and that an average of 31% of the duration of game play involved violence.

 

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        By: Mr. Prashant Pandey

                                                                                                        Assistant Professor (Law)