The Effects of
Media and Advertising on Children: an Action for Children Brief
Michael
J. Brott
June, 1995
University
of Minnesota Children, Youth and Family Consortium. Permission is granted
to create and distribute copies of this document for noncommercial purposes
provided that the author and CYFC receive acknowledgment and this notice
is included.
For
over 30 years a debate has persisted over the impact of media on our
lives. This has especially been true when it comes to children. When
the Action for Children Commission held discussions with citizens of
Minnesota in June of 1991 about their lives and the lives of their children,
many reported that the media has a tremendous influence on behaviors
and attitudes among children and youth. Television and advertising often
promote behaviors that are detrimental to children and youth. "'Television
does not provide positive role models', a parent in Winona said. 'On
television, people deal with conflict by walking out or hitting each
other. "' (Kids Can't Wait: Action for Minnesota's Children). But
does this have an effect on children? Do they see this form of behavior
as acceptable?
With
numerous studies done on the subject, it would seem plausible that there
is a solid conclusion as to whether or not media causes us to behave
in the manner reflected on the screen or in the newspaper. This is not
the case; direct causality seems to elude researchers and academicians.
However, few dispute that media and advertising have some effect on
all of us. And the trend of media programming is cause for concern.
By
the time children graduate from high school, they will have spent 15,000
to 20,000 hours watching television as compared to 11,000 to 12,000
hours in school (Evelyn Kaye, The Family Guide to Children's Television').
Children born today will spend more time watching television than doing
anything else but sleeping. This is bad enough. But when you factor
in the type of television children are watching, the statistic becomes
even more alarming. From 1982 to 1986, the amount of television time
allocated each week to violent cartoons increased significantly. And
the number of violent acts on TV in the past decade has increased form
about 19 to 27 per hour (Linda Katz, Parents Magazine). "Teenagers
are exposed to an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 references to sexual activity
on television and movies each year (National Commission on Children,
Beyond Rhetoric). On average, a child sees at least 8,000 television
murders by the seventh grade and more than 10,000 other violent acts.
For
many parents, television has become a catch-22. Sometimes it serves
as an entertainer, educator, and even occasional babysitter. Yet it
frequently presents children with values and messages antithetical to
parents' beliefs. Today, television allows children immediate access
to the world around them. "Before the advent of television, when
print was the predominant form of mass communication, parents and teachers
were able to control just what and when the children learned about the
world outside" (Time, October 15, 1990). While the information
age has benefited the world in many ways, it has placed a new responsibility
on parents to monitor the messages being presented to their children.
Moreover, unless it is controlled, television viewing may take time
away from other activities that have more social, educational, or physical
benefits. However, television can be an important force for positive
socialization. Research indicates that the "Sesame Street"
program has helped both middle-class ad lower-status youth academically,
and that children can become more cooperative and nurturant after viewing
programs emphasizing this behavior (Allan C. Ornstein, Daniel U. Levine,
Foundations of Education, Fourth Edition).
Action
for Children Commission members stated in their report Kids Can't Wait
that "...many of the images and messages including violence portrayed
on television, in the movies, and in the recording industry, are harmful
to children and families. The media reach more children directly and
with greater impact than almost all other institutions. " But does
watching/reading/hearing violence in the media cause children to act
aggressively? "'It's a chicken-and-egg problem' says Donald Roberts,
chairman of the communication department of Stanford University. 'There's
a lot of violence out there, and there always has been a lot of violence
out there. Which came first?"' (Kathleen Donnelly, St. Paul Pioneer
Press').
One
area of media coverage that raises concerns in homes and academic institutions
alike is excessive violence. According to the American Psychological
Association's Task Force on Television and Society, with over 30 years
of studies done on the correlation of television violence and violent
behavior, one would be hard pressed to find a study that doesn't find
a relationship between violent programs and the way children behave.
The latest study by the APA concludes that "television can cause
aggressive behavior and can cultivate values favoring the use of aggression"
(Kathleen Donnelly, St. Paul Pioneer Press'). The American Academy of
Pediatrics concurred. In 1989, they concluded there was enough evidence
to suggest that excessive TV viewing is one cause of violent or aggressive
behavior. It further expressed concern over television's implicit and
explicit messages to young viewers promoting the use of alcohol and
promiscuous or unprotected sexual activity (National Commission on Children,
Beyond Rhetoric).
The
Center for Media and Public Affairs was contracted by TV Guide to watch
and analyze 18 hours worth of daily television. On April 2, 1992, from
the hours of 6 a.m. to midnight, the center taped, tabulated and evaluated
the programs on 10 channels in Washington, D.C.: the affiliates of ABC,
CBS, NBC, PBS and Fox; WDCA (a non-affiliated station); and the cable
channels WTBS, the USA Network, MTV, and HBO. What they found was startling.
In that brief timespan there was a "...total of 1,846 individual
acts of violence; 175 scenes in which violence resulted in one or more
fatalities; 389 scenes depicting serious assaults; 362 scenes involving
gunplay; 673 depictions of punching, pushing, slapping, dragging, and
other physically hostile acts; 226 scenes of menacing threats with a
weapon... The outlet purveying the most violence on that particular
spring day was the unaffiliated station: 376 scenes, or one very three
minutes... WTBS - 321 scenes (18 per hour); HBO - 257 scenes (14 per
hour); USA Network - 209 scenes (12 per hour); MTV - 202 scenes (11
per hour); Fox - 182 scenes (10 per hour); CBS - 175 scenes (10 per
hour); ABC - 48 scenes (three per hour); NBC - 39 scenes (two per hour);
PBS - 37 scenes (two per hour)" (TV Guide, August 22, 1992). The
study concluded that violence is a pervasive, major feature of today's
television programming and it is coming from more sources and in greater
volume than ever before.
Reviews
of research on the issue of violence have concluded that effects of
television on children's aggression are heavily dependent on situational
elements such as "the child's degree of frustration or anger, similarities
between the available target and the target in the television portrayal,
potential consequences such as pain or punishment, and opportunity to
perform an act of violence" (Allan C. Ornstein, Daniel U. Levine,
Foundations of Education, Fourth Edition). A committee of behavioral
scientists reviewed the research and determined that TV is as strongly
associated with aggressive behavior as any other behavioral variable
that has been measured. The committee also noted that the number of
violent acts per television program has been increasing and that children
learn to behave aggressively from the violence they see on the screen
in the same way that they learn other social and thinking skills from
watching parents, siblings, peers and others (Allan C. Ornstein, Daniel
U. Levine, Foundations of Education, Fourth Edition).
In
1983, psychologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago attempted
to mitigate the relation between aggression and television violence
viewing in children. A sample of 169 first-and third-grade children,
were selected because of their high exposure to television violence,
and were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group.
Over two years, the children in the experimental group were exposed
to two treatments designed to reduce the likelihood of their imitating
the aggressive behaviors they observed on television. The control group
received comparable neutral treatments. By the end of the second year,
the experimental group of children were rated as significantly less
aggressive by their peers, and the relation between violence viewing
and aggressiveness was diminished in the experimental group. The psychologists
concluded:
"Although
any one of the significant changes observed after the second intervention
might have been attributed to chance, the pattern of significant effects
forms a consistent picture that is difficult to ignore. 777e subjects'
attitudes about whether watching television violence is harmful were
clearly altered in the desired direction. The change in attitudes seems
to have been most pronounced for those children who did not identify
strongly with TV characters. Most importantly, this change in attitudes
was accompanied by a significant reduction in a child's propensity to
behave aggressively. Violence viewing itself was not significantly reduced
but became uncorrelated with aggression, whereas identification with
TV characters became more strongly correlated with aggression. (Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, "Mitigating the Imitation
of Aggressive Behaviors by Changing Children's Attitudes About Media
Violence ", Vol. 44, No. 5, 1983, pp. 889-910)
In
another major study, Dr. Leonard D. Eron and others examined a group
individuals at ages 8, 19, and 30 in a semi rural county of New York.
His research found that the more frequently the participants watched
TV at age 8, the more serious were the crimes they were convicted of
by age 30. Also, their behavior when drinking was more aggressive, and
the punishment they inflicted on their own children was more severe.
The researchers achieved basically the same results when they examined
another group of youths for three years in a Chicago suburb. The experiment
was replicated in Australia, Finland, Israel, and Poland. The outcome
was unchanged (TV Guide, August 22, 1992).
When
it comes to the issue of violence, the information age has added a new
element. "Expanded and more interdependent media amplify our awareness
of crime; people hear more about crimes that have occurred in other
places, they hear about these crimes quicker, and they hear about the
same crimes over and over--through television, through the newspaper,
on the car radio on the way to work. Studies by the Annenberg School
for Communication in Pennsylvania suggest that television heightens
our level of apprehension. According to George Gerbner, all other things
being equal, those who frequently watch TV exhibit far more anxiety
about crime than those who watch television infrequently" (Louv,
Richard. Childhood's Future, p. 3 1). A similar hypothesis regarding
heightened levels of apprehension in print media has also been studied.
Joel Best, professor and chair of sociology at Cal State/Fresno conducted
a study of Halloween terrorism. He reviewed 76 specific stories and
rumors reported from 1958 to 1984 in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune,
Los Angeles Times and Fresno Bee. "We couldn't find a single case
of any child killed or seriously injured by candy contamination,"
he said. "The Halloween sadist is an urban myth" (Louv, Richard.
Childhood's Future, p.29).
In
other areas of media influence, the impact of media on children is less
clear. "Relationships among viewing of television, achievement
[in school], age of the student, family environment, and other variables
are multidimensional and complex. Thus, a study of television viewing
among more than 12,000 sixth graders in California found that watching
television more than five to six hours a day was associated with low
achievement in reading, mathematics, and writing across all social-class
groups, but television viewing was positively associated with achievement
for students low social class, as long as they spent less than three
or four hours a day in this manner" (Allan C. Ornstein, Daniel
U. Levine, Foundations of Education, Fourth Edition). Besides violence,
The American Psychological Association found: adolescents' sex-stereotyped
attitudes increase after viewing programs that cast women in subservient
roles; women are cast in roles that place more value on their appearance
that their competence and capability; and men are portrayed on television
more often than women (Diana Williams, "TV perpetuates racial stereotypes,
psychologists say', St. Paul Pioneer Press). "Preschoolers are
particularly vulnerable to the negative influences of the media because
they are not yet fully able to distinguish fantasy from reality, and
their grasp of the underlying motives for behavior and the subtleties
of moral conflicts is not yet well defined" (Linda Katz, Parents
Magazine).
Broadcasters
tend to disagree with the conclusion that television violence can affect
behavior. "'So-called television researchers have always complained
about links between obesity and junk food commercials, about violence
in society and violence on television,' says Doug Wills, a spokesman
for the National Association of Broadcasters, which does not include
cable-system operators in its membership and blames cable channels for
much of the violence on the small screen. 'Yet there's not been a single
study that has directly linked (television) violence to actual behavior.
Does a television program cause people to go out and hit somebody over
the head with a baseball bat? There are no studies to prove that"'
(Kathleen Donnelly, St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 20, 1992).
The
U.S. Department of Education funded a monograph three years ago. It
reported that while watching television may not be the best use of a
child's time, an ample portion of the documentation claiming it is harmful
to children is not very reliable. The report's authors were convinced
that much of the past research was careless or biased and predicated
on a prevalent attitude in the public that TV is dangerous (Patrick
Cooke, "TV or Not TV", In Health, Dec/Jan 1992).
Television
is not the only form of media that has been receiving attention in this
arena. The music industry has been under fire for its bearing on the
lives of children. Most agree that music has and emotional impact. It
can bring about a variety of feelings and attitudes. For some, music
soothes and relaxes. For others it excites and energizes. Music can
evoke a wide range of emotions in all of us. But this emotional roller-coaster
ride is not always healthy. "A University of Georgia study concluded
that music videos produced by heavy metal groups are "violent,
male-oriented, and laden with sexual content," with violence occurring
in almost 57 percent of the videos that were examined. More than 80
percent of these videos also linked sex with violence. Recently, some
observers have expressed similar concern about the content of some rap
music, finding it violent, misogynous, and anti-Semitic" (National
Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric). Los Angeles Rap artists N.W.A.
tell listeners to "F--- Tha Police", while some heavy metal
bands spout about death and damnation (Kathleen Donnelly, St. Paul Pioneer
Press).
In
recent years, many people have expressed mounting concern over the effects
of offensive lyrics and images on children and teenagers. "Most
music popular with children and adolescents, however, appears mainstream
in its value orientation, and existing research does not demonstrate
massive negative effects from popular music. Correlational studies indicate
that while music may reinforce listeners' dangerous or antisocial behavior,
it does not appear to cause it. In other words, adolescents who are
already alienated, have delinquent tendencies, or are similarly at risk
may also be more likely to prefer heavy metal and other music that emphasizes
aggressive and even violent behavior, but the music itself does not
appear to create these feelings. " The recording industry has responded
to increasing complaints by pointing out that violent, explicit, and
other-wise offensive lyrics and videos are a very small part of the
total number of recordings released by the industry. The majority of
rock lyrics, they maintain, are either generally unobjectionable or
promote positive social attitudes and practices. Moreover, they maintain
that music reflects, rather than creates, society's values (National
Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric).
Apart
from possibly negative effects on school achievement, television and
other mass media such as the movies and the music industry have a major
influence on acculturation and socialization of children and youth.
The mass media obviously stimulate and reflect fundamental changes in
attitudes and behaviors involving recreation, career aspirations, sexual
relationships, drugs, and other matters. Unfortunately there are no
conclusive data to determine just how much the media affect children
and youth or whether overall effects are positive or negative (depending,
of course, on what one values as positive or negative). For example,
the provision of twenty-four-hour rock-music programming has been viewed
both as a means to keep young people off the streets and as the beginning
of the end of Western civilization. Although most observers would agree
on the vast influence of the mass media, data to assess their effects
more precisely are almost completely lacking. --Allan C. Ornstein, Daniel
U. Levine, Foundations of Education, Fourth Edition
Advertisers
spend more than $33 billion a year reaching consumers, including children,
through television and radio. Children themselves are powerful consumers.
In each case, market forces can effect tremendous change. --National
Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric
Americans
have long celebrated and jealously guarded the nation's pluralism, viewing
with appropriate skepticism those who would impose their own values
or doctrines on others. Yet at the root of everything Americans hold
dear about their country are fundamental values and rights that have
sustained this nation in times of crisis and called forth our best when
others are in need. As a society and as individual citizens, we would
be well served to cultivate in our children these enduring values of
human dignity, character, and citizenship.
In
a free society, there will always be tension between freedom of expression
and upholding common social values. Censorship is the antithesis of
what we embrace. Forging common values will never depend solely on laws,
but also on persuasion and example. Success will require thoughtful
action and self-restraint by individuals and major institutions with
the ability or potential to influence children's moral development.
This makes the task of parents, public leaders, educators, media executives,
entertainers, and advertisers more difficult, but no less important.
--National Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric
Media
literacy as an answer.
How
Much Violence?
During
18 hours (6 a.m. - midnight) on April 2, 1992, in Washington, D.C.,
the center taped, tabulated, computerized, and analyzed the programs
on 10 channels: the affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and PBS; one non-affiliated
station, WDCA; plus the cable channels WTBS, the USA Network, MTV, and
HBO.
A total
of 1,846 individual acts of violence; 175 scenes in which violence resulted
in one or more fatalities; 389 scenes depicting serious assaults; 362
scenes involving gunplay; 673 depictions of punching, pushing, slapping,
dragging, and other physically hostile acts; 226 scenes of menacing
threats with a weapon.
The
outlet purveying the most violence on that particular spring day was
the unaffiliated station: 376 scenes, or one every three minutes. The
rest of the list:
WTBS
- 321 scenes (18 per hour)
HBO - 257 scenes (14 per hour)
USA Network - 209 scenes (12 per hour)
MTV - 202 scenes (11 per hour)
Fox - 182 scenes (10 per hour)
CBS - 175 scenes (10 per hour)
ABC - 48 scenes (three per hour)
NBC - 39 scenes (two per hour)
PBS - 37 scenes (two per hour)
Thus,
the study's conclusion: violence remains a pervasive, major feature
of contemporary television programming and it's coming from more sources
and in greater volume than ever before.
Cause:
One of the ambitious and conclusive studies (conducted by Dr. Leonard
D. Eron and others) examined a group at ages 8, 19, and 30 in a semi-rural
county of New York State. The findings: the more frequently the participants
watched TV at age 8, the more serious were the crimes they were convicted
of by age 30; the more aggressive was their behavior when drinking;
and the harsher was the punishment they inflicted on their own children.
Essentially the same results emerged when the researchers examined another
large group of youths for three years in a suburb of Chicago. And when
they replicated the experiment in Australia, Finland, Israel, and Poland,
the outcome was unchanged: as Dr. Eron states it, "There can no
longer be any doubt that heavy exposure to televised violence is one
of the causes of aggressive behavior, crime, and violence in society.
The evidence comes from both the laboratory and real-life studies. Television
violence affects youngsters of all ages, of both genders, at all socioeconomic
levels, and all levels of intelligence.
