Televison Viewing And Violet Behaviour

Television violence and its effects on viewers has been a controversial issue for many years. Some viewers believe that there is an increasingly large amount of violence on television and this widespread public concern has "led to calls for stricter controls on the depiction of violence in programmes" (Gunter and McAleer 1990:92). Exactly how much violence is there on television though?

Many cultivation theorists have studied this, acquiring data in the form of content analysis. They agree on a definition of a violent act, for example Gerbner in his study used the definition, "an overt expression of physical force against self or other, compelling action against ones will on pain of being hurt or killed, or actually hurting or killing" (Gunter and McAleer 1990:94). This is an objective definition that can then be used to count the number of violent acts in whatever is being observed. Halloran and Croll (1972) used this technique to establish the amount of violence on British television in comparison with that of American television. For one week in April 1971, they observed the news, fictional drama, current affairs and documentaries on BBC1 and ITV Midlands and counted the number of violent incidents using Gerbner's definition of violence. It was found that on average, 56% of British programmes contained some violence with four incidents of violence per hour. This was in comparison with American television which contained some seven incidents of violence per hour and where it was considerably more prevalent than on British television (Gunter and McAleer 1990:97).

Focusing now on British television and violence, we can analyse Guy Cumberbatch's research on television violence in 1987. He looked at all types of television programme focusing on four separate weeks between May and September 1986. All four channels were reviewed, totalling 1412 hours of television (930 BBC programmes and 1146 ITV and channel four programmes). He found, using his own definitions of a violent act, that 30% of all programmes contained some violence with an average of 1.14 acts of violence per programme (Gross 1992:455). It was also found that there was much more violence on television after 9pm and that violence was rare in children's television programmes other than cartoons. It has been questioned however whether the violence in cartoons should actually be classed as violence at all. "If cartoon violence is to be treated as more than a joke then cartoons do number amongst the most violent programmes on television" (Gunter and McAleer 1990:99).

It is clearly obvious from the research already done concerning television and its effects, that violence is quite prevalent on British television. Of more concern however is the effect that those can have on its viewers. Does the violence on television really increase the violent attitudes and behaviour in individuals? Violence on television can do one of three things. The first is make us more violent (Huesmann 1982), the second is make us less violent (Feshbach 1972) and the third is to have no effect at all (Freedman 1984, Kaplan and Singer 1976). Most evidence has supported the first argument namely that television violence does increase our own violent behaviour. There are four main effects that cause this violent behaviour when viewing it on television.

The first of these affects is arousal. It is believed that a violent programme increases levels of arousal and thus causes us to become more violent as we are not only excited by the programme but also agitated and nervous. This effect is not limited to violent programmes however, as a comedy programme may induce arousal in the form of amusement in the same way as a violent programme induces arousal in the form of anger. It is the type of arousal that occurs in the first place that determines the effect the programme has. Condry (1989:11) found that suspense programmes, comedy programmes and sport events (especially identifying with a team) are the most common programmes that cause arousal. Several studies have shown the effects of arousal on the viewer. Berkowitz (1967) used American College students in a laboratory situation. They were first antagonised and thus angered by the experimenter and were then allowed to watch either a violent or a non-violent programme. Some students were not allowed to watch anything at all. After this part of the experiment had been undertaken, the participants were given the opportunity to get the experimenter back for the behaviour displayed previously by delivering shocks every time they failed on a learning task. Findings showed that those people who had been angered and then seen a violent film, were considerably more aggressive than those not angered or those not angered but watched a violent film.

Liebert and Baron (1972) also found similar results. Children were shown a segment from a television show called The Untouchables and were then given the opportunity to either help or hurt another child through the use of button pressing. "These investigators found that the children who had viewed the aggressive programme, were far more willing to hurt another child than those who had not seen the programme" (Condry 1989:89). Those children were also significantly more violent in a free play session later than those who had not seen the violent television show. They were seen to play with aggressive toys and weapons.

This has, however, also been contradicted. In some instances, "there does not seem to be any strong relationship between perceiving a programme as violent and verbal report of emotional arousal" (Gross 1992:456). It appears that it is only if the violence appears realistic, that it is likely to cause arousal. " Before the age of nine, fantasy and reality are not easily distinguished and children tend to believe much of what they see" (Eron et al. 1983 cited in Van Evra 1989:86). This would link to findings that television programmes are seen as more violent, the more real they are. In documentary programmes and the news, violence is seen as more real, therefore we become more aroused than programmes that are in fictional settings (Gunter and McAleer 1990:100). It has also been stated that the closer to everyday life the violence is (i.e. the more real) the more serious we judge it to be and therefore the more aroused a person is likely to be.

The effect of television violence may depend largely on the person's present cognitive state. If a person is already aroused, further television violence may cause no more arousal, however if the violence is related to what originally aroused them, the arousal may greaten. This evidence shows that the level of arousal is influenced by what the participant has seen on television, concluding that violence on