In the UK pretty much every household has a television set and on average, Britons are thought to watch around 4 hours of TV a day, and that’s on top of other forms of media, such as films, the internet and video games. As we’ve mentioned in previous articles, the programmes, films and games we’re watching these days are becoming increasingly violent, because those who produce the media know that crime and violence is inherently interesting to us. However, the question has never been properly answered, what exactly are these images of violence and crime doing to us?
A worry of the government and of parents alike is that these forms of media may make us, in particular the younger generations more violent as a result. This worry has existed since the 50s, when campaigners first argued against the release of horror comics in the UK. This was part of a bigger trend of the communist party in the UK wanting to fight against the Americanisation of the country, with many trends moving over from the US, including comic books. Later, in the 60s and 70s, Mary Whitehouse and the National Listeners and Viewers Association fought against a variety of programmes that were being shown on the television, claiming that they promoted a permissive attitude towards crime and were leading to moral decline. These programmes included some popular favourites of the time, including Doctor Who. In the 80s, the campaigns started once again, but this time against the so-called ‘video nasties’, horror films which were supposed to be poisoning children’s minds. Today, the internet and mobile phones have fallen victim to the same controversy, with some believing they are making children more antisocial and are stopping children from living within the real world.
Some research has suggested that there may be a link between aggression and the watching of violent and crime based TV and movies. However, this evidence is controversial and there are some studies which disagree with the findings. Even if we accept some kind of relationship between the watching of these forms of media and aggression, we cannot say what this relationship is. It may not be that people are becoming more aggressive because of what they are watch, but simply that more aggressive people choose to watch more violent television. Equally, it could be that there are certain other factors that both make people more aggressive and make them like violent television more at the same time.
Often the studies that show there to be effects from watching violent television only measure short term differences, so it may be that there is a short period of raised aggression after watching a violent film, before behaviour returns to normal. Also the studies may involve very artificial situations and so may not be replicable in the real world. For example, one of the most famous studies in the area, carried out be Bandura showed that children, after being shown a violent video were more aggressive to a toy Bobo doll than those who had not been shown the video. One criticism of this study is that aggression towards a toy is not the same as towards a person and so it may have only made the children act more violently towards the toys.
It was shown in a study of American cities that there was a 5% increase in theft after televisions were introduced to the cities. At face value this seems to suggest that seeing crime on the TV mad people more likely to commit crime themselves. In fact, there are several other explanations for this phenomenon. It could be that the materialism that is promoted from advertising on TV makes people want to commit crime more, or it could be that people seeing crime on television made them more aware of it and so more likely to report crime, meaning that more criminals were caught.
There are a variety of explanations for the link between crime in the media and increased crime taking place, and more research must be carried out before we can say how exactly this relationship works. However with increasingly realistic portrayals of crime and violence in the media and the invention of video games, which allow you to play as a criminal and commit crime yourself virtually, it is important that we remain aware of the difference between the real world and the virtual one we are watching or we run the risk of not only being controlled by it but also neglecting our real life.
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