This document summarizes a research paper on the effects of television violence on viewers, especially children. It discusses several previous studies that have found links between viewing violent TV content and increased aggressive behaviors in children. It also describes cultivation theory and the mean world syndrome, as well as the concepts of catharsis and catalytic effects. The document analyzes the methodologies and findings of multiple studies on television violence and areas that warrant further research.

1. Richard Murphy
Violence on Television
Individual Studies
7/30/16

2. Americans should limit the amount of television viewed by younger individuals because
studies have shown that exposure to the violence viewed on TV may result in the child being
more violent. This is very important to study because of how easy it is for children to view
violence on television. If these kids who are viewing it daily or more likely to become violent
after watching programs that contain violent content in them then parents need to limit the
amount of television that children view daily. There have been cases where acts of violence have
reflected what was seen on television. If this is the case where people are learning what they see
on TV and using it in real life then it is important that the amount of it that is able to be viewed
becomes limited. It has also been shown that the amount of violence increases in sequels of
movies, and that children’s cartoons show them nonstop violence for the thirty minutes that they
are being aired on television. This study will use cultivation theory to examine the data; we will
also look at the mean world index, cathartic effect and catalytic effect. We will also discuss what
has been covered in previous studies and what needs to be looked at in future studies.
Cultivation Theory examines the long term effects of television. This will give people an
idea of what the long term effects to expect from their children when they spend a lot of time
watching television. This is very important since it is so easy to view violent television shows.
Twenty years ago there was a limited amount of channels you gout receive on television. Today
you can view almost any channel on every cable unit depending on what packages you have. It
has also become easier to view these shows since it is available on tablets and smart phones as
well. This generation has easier access to the violent movies as well. You use to only be able to
view movies at the theaters or if you buy or rent the movies. Now you can get them on demand
or pirated before they are even in stores in a matter of seconds. Kids are also much better with
technology, this has given them the ability to order it themselves or view it themselves without

3. the parents ever even knowing. Technology has also become much more advanced over the last
twenty years which has made these programs much more realistic. It has also made it easier for
them to add special effects and make gun shots and explosions, as result of them being more
realistic it has also made the much more graphic. These are all things that viewers are capable of
recreating. All of these factors increase children of becoming more violent as a result of
television; this is why it is so important to study as much as possible on the topic.
Mean world index was a study done by George Gerbner, The mean world index has lead
people to believe that the more violence they view on television that the more they believe that
the world is a mean place. He proved that the more television an individual watches the more
likely they are to believe that the world is an unforgiving and dangerous place. This has resulted
in some individuals spending more time indoors because of their fear of the real world. When
they spend all this time inside they are also more likely to spend more time watching more
television. These individuals watch TV and believe what they are watching is real.
When people watch television often they are not always going to think that what they are
viewing is what really happens in the real world like what George Gerbner has said. There are
two other effects that media has on these individuals that are viewing them. These two effects are
known as the cathartic effects and the catalytic effect. The cathartic effect is when people
become numb to the violence that they are viewing on television. When the catalytic effect is
when people are more likely to go out and perform a violent act that they view on television. It
has been shown that these both can be true. People are less likely to think that violent acts are
really that bad when that is what they are use to on television. Especially when it comes to
children, a lot of these children are watching television that has a lot of violence in it and when
there are fights at school they do not really realize how bad some of them are because of how

4. numb they have become to violence as well. The cathartic effect does not say that these kids are
likely to commit the violence that they see on television, but when they do get into a physical
altercation they are so use to watching it they may not realize how bad they are hurting these
kids. When they watch all of this violence on television they do not feel any of the guilt that
other kids do when they physically attack another child. This can be true when it comes to sports
as well. Just because it is organized violence does not mean that it does not have an effect on
kids who watch them often. This is a very easy way to tell who has become numb to violence on
television. If you watch a boxing fight or a football game with someone you will notice people
how individuals react differently to a huge hit in football or a knockout punch in boxing. There
are usually two different types of reactions when one of these two situations happens. There is
usually some people who you can hear make the loud “ohh” or have a dramatic reaction because
of how violent the hit or punch was. These individuals are the ones who do not usually watch
this and have not become numb to this. Since they are not use to it the site of all of this is all new
to them and very shocking. The other reaction that you will see when the action happens is that
the other individuals do not have any surprised reaction and that it is almost like they expected it.
These are the individuals who have been affected by the cathartic effect happen to them from
viewing the violence so often on television. These individuals are so use to watching this happen
that they have become numb to it when it does happen. This is not something that only happens
when watching television either like I stated earlier with the kids fighting in school. This is also
to true with adults who watch a lot of television. When they see fights, or car accidents, it is not
as big of a deal to them because they have become numb to these actions because of how much
television they watch on a daily basis. People do not just become numb to these acts that they
view, some will be more likely to do what they watch in the media, and this is known as the

5. catalytic effect. Many of people believe that this effect is true when it comes to individuals
especially children. This can be applied to video games use as well, and that is where most
people think this is more applicable when it comes to children. Television has also been shown
to increase the likelihood of individuals acting violent. Adults are also at risk of this happening
to them as well. Individuals can see acts of violence on TV and try to do what they seen on
television as a way to get back at other individuals. There have been movies made called “Bum
Fights” was a series of videos made where a group of individuals would go around and act out
fights with homeless individuals. These videos inspired many of young individuals to go around
and do the same things to homeless people, except these were not staged. These individuals who
were going around and recreating this caused a lot of harm to these homeless individuals. In
some cases the homeless victims ended up getting seriously hurt and even killed because of these
act of violence. The individuals causing harm to the homeless were influenced by what they seen
on television. These are not the only instances where people became violent because of what
they seen on TV. People have created their own backyard fight clubs because of movies like
fight club, never back down, and even because of professional wrestling. A lot of kids are seeing
this media content and trying to recreate it in their very own back yards. Most of these kids do
not realize how much training it takes to become a professional wrestler. Without the proper
training or even equipment many of these kids try to reenact what they see on television and as a
result suffer serious injuries. They also do not have proper medical staff on scene like the
professionals do when at live wrestling events or when filming these movies. Catalytic effect
does not always mean that the individuals performing these violent acts are always on other
individuals. There are cases where they perform violent acts that are towards themselves that
result in serious injury. The television and movie series “Jackass” has been a series of videos that

6. teenage kids have watched and often attempted to recreate. They see how funny it when these
actors are doing these stunts that they want to go out with their friends to recreate the stunts to
have a good time and have some laughs. These kids do not often realize the risks they are taking
and like the back yard wrestlers do not think about how the actors have a medical staff on hand.
A lot of times the more these kids try to reenact the more dangerous the stunts are and the more
serious there injuries are because of it.
Many of previous studies have focused on violence on television and how it affects the
individuals viewing it. Especially when it comes to children after incidents like the Columbine
high school shooting, many of people wanted to know if video games or television helped make
these individuals want to act violently toward others. Many of studies have focused on how
television violence affects children. In January of 2016 Brocato, Gentile, Laczniak, Maier, and
Ji-Song did a study to see how violent commercials affect children. There have been any of
commercial ads that have had a lot of violent content in them. This study was done to show that
these can also be harmful to the children viewers. They did the study with children from the ages
of eight years old to twelve years old. They did focus groups so that the children were able to
talk about the content that they were viewing and how it affects them individually. This study did
show that television commercials that contain violent content correlates a negative effect on the
children viewers. The parents of these children were not worried about the results of the study.
This was a very important study because people often only focus on the content that the children
are watching and completely forget about whether or not the content the commercials contain has
an effect on them or not. You can monitor what your child watches on TV but it is out of your
control to monitor what commercials are being played. This study was so important to parents so
that they know what kind of affect the commercials being shown daily can have on a child.

7. Hetsroni also did a study in 2011 on violence in television advertising. In this study he compared
American ads to Israeli ads and the violence in them. Of the violence that appeared in these ads
assault was the most popular of all of the violent acts. The study also revealed that sexual
violence was not present at all, the sexual violence that the young viewers were exposed to cam
from actually watching the television content, and not from the commercial ads themselves. The
study showed that there was a concern for all of the violence that was being shown in television
ads. One of the major concerns was how much violence was being showed when the amount of
time that commercials get to air their ads is limited to only seconds. The fact that there was so
little of time for each commercial and with how many other ads they had to split the time with,
the fact that the amount of violence was so high concerned many of individuals. Weaver and
Wilson conducted a study in 2009 called “The Role of Graphic and Sanitized Violence in the
Enjoyment of Television Dramas”. In this study they wanted to look at what was more enjoyable
for viewers, graphically violent, sanitized violence and nonviolent programs. They edited five
television programs to meet these three categories to see which one these 400 individuals viewed
as the most enjoyable to watch. With all of these studies being based on the violence in the
movie none of them were based off of character likeability. Lachlan and Tamborini did a study
on “The Effect of Perpetrator Motive and Dispositional Attributes on Enjoyment of Televsion
Violence and Attitudes” in 2008. This study was done to see if the likeability of the character
changed the way that the viewer viewed their actions. The study showed that people only was
only changed by the motive of the action and not by the action itself. If the viewers felt that what
the violent individual was doing was justified than they still liked the character despite how
violent the individual was. Studies have also been done to see that if the media can raise
awareness about violent topics like domestic violence. In 2010 Keller, Wikinson and Otjen

8. conducted a study called “Unintended Effects of a Domesic Violence Campaign”. They used TV
and newspaper ads, posters, and billboards. These ads did show that they productively raised
awareness for domestic violence. Males had more of a positive attitude when it comes to
domestic violence. The ads also motivated women to fight against domestic violence in more
useful ways like joining protests. This campaign also gave females more belief that efforts like
this do work and they help raise awareness.
Studies have shown that television violence has an effect on the viewers watching it,
especially the younger generation. In the future it is important that they narrow down their
studies to what kind of acts of violence are more likely to affect the children. This could stop a
lot of injuries and even death in some cases. It would be really interesting if they could conduct
studies on the families of the individuals who were affected enough by television to go out and
recreate acts of violence that they viewed. This could help shed some light on why these
individuals committed the acts of violence they did and others did not after viewing the same
content. This would be a very difficult and time consuming study but it could end up being one
of the most useful ones ever done on this topic. Violence on television has shown to cause the
mean world index on individual where they believe the world is a very mean place. Television
has also cause people to experience the cathartic and catalytic effects where they are so use to
violence in the media that they have become numb to it and more likely to go out and perform
these violent acts. It is very important that they continue to conduct studies on violence on
television to help prevent more of them happening in the future.

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