thesis statements for media violence

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Media Violence Effects on Children, Adolescents and Young Adults

BY: CRAIG A. ANDERSON, MA, PhD

I killed my first Klingon in 1979. It took place in the computer center at Stanford University, where I was playing a new video game based on the Star Trek television series. I was an "early adopter" of the new technology of video games, and continued to be so for many years, first as a fan of this entertainment medium, and later as a researcher interested in the question of what environmental factors influence aggressive and violent behavior.

Of course, like most young men and women of that era, I had grown up witnessing thousands of killings and other acts of aggression in a wide array of television shows and films. Today's youth are even more inundated with media violence than past generations, mostly from entertainment sources but also from news and educational media. And even though the public remains largely unaware of the conclusiveness of more than six decades of research on the effects of exposure to screen media violence, the scientists most directly involved in this research know quite a bit about these effects.

The briefest summary of hundreds of scientific studies can be boiled down to two main points. First, exposure to media violence is a causal risk factor for physical aggression, both immediately after the exposure and months, even years, later. Second, in the absence of other known risk factors for violence, high exposure to media violence will not turn a normal well-adjusted child or adolescent into a mass killer.

SOME DEFINITIONS One reason for much of the confusion and debate among even highly educated citizens, health care professionals and even a few scientists is that when media violence researchers use certain terms and concepts, they have somewhat different meanings than when the general public uses the same words.

By "aggression," researchers mean "behavior that is intended to harm another person who does not wish to be harmed." Thus, hitting, kicking, pinching, stabbing and shooting are types of physical aggression.

Playing soccer or basketball or even football with energy and confidence are not usually considered acts of aggression, even though that is what most coaches mean when they exhort their charges to "play aggressively." Somehow, the phrase "play assertively" doesn't have the same ring to it.

By "violent behavior," most modern aggression and violence scholars mean "aggressive behavior (as defined above) that has a reasonable chance of causing harm serious enough to require medical attention." Note that the behavior does not have to actually cause the harm to be classified as violent; shooting at a person but missing still qualifies as a violent behavior.

By "media violence" we mean scenes and story lines in which at least one character behaves aggressively towards at least one other character, using the above definition of "aggression," not the definition of "violence." Thus, television shows, movies, and video games in which characters fight (Power Rangers, for example), or say mean things about each other (often called relational aggression), or kill bad guys, all are instances of media violence, even if there is no blood, no gore, no screaming in pain. By this definition, most modern video games rated by the video game industry as appropriate for children — up to 90 percent, by some estimates — are violent video games.

AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE Short-term and long-term effects of violent media use on aggressive behavior have been demonstrated by numerous studies across age, culture, gender, even personality types. Overall, the research literature suggests that media violence effects are not large, but they accumulate over time to produce significant changes in behavior that can significantly influence both individuals and society.

For example, one of the longest duration studies of the same individuals found that children exposed to lots of violent television shows at age 8 later became more violent adults at age 30, even after statistically controlling for how aggressive they were at age 8.

Similar long-term effects (up to three years, so far) on aggressive and violent behavior have been found for frequent exposure to violent video games. One six-month longitudinal study found that frequent violent video game play at the beginning of a school year was associated with a 25 percent increase in the likelihood of being in a physical fight during that year, even after controlling for whether or not the child had been in a fight the previous year.

Short-term experimental studies, in which children are randomly assigned to either a violent or nonviolent media exposure condition for a brief period, conclusively demonstrate that the media violence effects are causal. In one such study, for example, children who played a child-oriented violent video game (i.e., no blood, gore, screaming …) later attempted to deliver 47 percent more high-intensity punishments to another child than did children who had been randomly assigned to play a nonviolent video game. Even cartoonish media violence increases aggression.

In recent years, there have been several intervention studies designed to test whether reducing exposure to screen violence over several months or longer can reduce inappropriate aggressive behavior. These randomized control experiments have found that, yes, children and adolescents randomly assigned to the media intervention conditions show a decrease in aggression relative to those in the control conditions.

HOW MEDIA VIOLENCE INCREASES AGGRESSION How does exposure to media violence lead to increased aggressive behavior? Media violence scholars have identified several basic psychological processes involved. They differ somewhat for short-term versus long-term effects, but they all involve various types of learning.

Short-term effects are those that occur immediately after exposure. The main ways that media violence exposure increases aggression in the short term are:

Direct imitation of the observed behavior
Observational learning of attitudes, beliefs and expected benefits of aggression
Increased excitation
Priming of aggression-related ways of thinking and feeling

In essence, for at least a brief period after viewing or playing violent media, the exposed person thinks in more aggressive ways, feels more aggressive, perceives that others are hostile towards him or her and sees aggressive solutions as being more acceptable and beneficial.

The short-term effects typically dissipate quickly. However, with repeated exposure to violent media, the child or adolescent "learns" these short-term lessons in a more permanent way, just as practicing multiplication tables or playing chess improves performance on those skills. That is, the person comes to hold more positive beliefs about aggressive solutions to conflict, develops what is sometimes called a "hostile attribution bias" (a tendency to view ambiguous negative events in a hostile way) and becomes more confident that an aggressive action on their part will work.

There also is growing evidence that repeated exposure to blood, gore and other aspects of extremely violent media can lead to emotional desensitization to the pain and suffering of others. In turn, such desensitization can lead to increased aggression by removing one of the built-in brakes that normally inhibits aggression and violence. Furthermore, this desensitization effect reduces the likelihood of pro-social, empathetic, helping behavior when viewing a victim of violence.

Interestingly, these same basic learning and priming effects account for the fact that exposure to nonviolent, pro-social media can lead to increased pro-social behavior.

SCREEN TIME EFFECTS For a number of years, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended very strict limits on children's exposure to any types of screen media, including TVs and computers, primarily because of concern about attention deficits. For example, they recommend that children under the age of 2 years have no exposure to electronic screens, even nonviolent media. Recent research with children, adolescents and young adults suggests that both nonviolent and violent media contribute to real-world attention problems, such as attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Furthermore, these attention problems are strongly linked to aggressive behavior, especially impulsive types of aggression.

Another emerging problem with video game usage goes by various addiction-related labels, such as video game addiction, internet addiction and internet/gaming disorder. Research across multiple countries and various measures of problematic game use suggests that about 8 percent of "gamers" have serious problems with their gaming habit. That is, their gaming activities interfere with significant aspects of their lives, such as interpersonal relationships, school or work activities. This newer research literature suggests that for some individuals, video game problems look much like gambling addiction.

MAGNITUDE OF HARM News media often report exaggerated claims about "the" cause of the most recent violent tragedy, whether it is a school shooting or another mass killing. Sometimes the cause that is hyped by these stories is violent video games; other times it is mental illness, or gun control, or lack of gun control.

Behavioral scientists (and reasonably thoughtful people in general) know that human behavior is complex, and it is affected by many variables. Violence researchers in particular know that such extreme events as homicide cannot be boiled down to a single cause. Instead, behavioral scientists (including violence scholars) rely on what is known as risk and resilience models, or risk and protective factors.

All consequential behavior is influenced by dozens (maybe hundreds) of risk and protective factors. In the violence domain, there are dozens of known risk and protective factors. Growing up in a violent household or seeing lots of violence in one's neighborhood are two such risk factors. Growing up in a nonviolent household and having warm, caring parents who are highly involved with child rearing are protective factors. From this perspective, exposure to media violence is one known risk factor for later inappropriate aggression and violence. It is not the most important risk factor; joining a violent gang is a good candidate for that title. But it also isn't the least important risk factor.

Indeed, some studies suggest that media violence exposure carries about the same risk potential as having abusive parents or antisocial parents. One major difference from other known risk factors for later aggression and violence is that parents and caregivers can relatively easily and inexpensively reduce a child's exposure to media violence.

WHY BELIEVE THIS ARTICLE? It is easy to find very vocal critics of the mainstream summary that I have presented in this article. A simple web search will generate links to any number of them. Many of the critics are supported by the media industries in one way or another, many are heavy users of violent media and so feel threatened by violence research (much like cigarette smokers once felt threatened by cancer research), some are threatened by anything they see as impinging on free-speech rights, and many are simply ignorant about the science. But, a few appear to have relevant scientific credentials. So, a reasonable question for a parent or health care professional to ask is why believe that exposure to media violence creates harmful effects, rather than maintain the much more comfortable position that there are no harmful effects.

The simple answer is this: Every major professional scientific body that has conducted reviews of the scientific literature has come to the same conclusion. This group includes the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the U.S. Surgeon General and the International Society for Research on Aggression, among others. I have posted these and other, similar reports online. 1

In 1972, former U.S. Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld, MD, testified before the U.S. Senate on his assessment of the research on TV violence and behavior: "It is clear to me that the causal relationship between televised violence and antisocial behavior is sufficient to warrant appropriate and immediate remedial action," he said. "There comes a time when the data are sufficient to justify action. That time has come." 2

In response to one or two vocal critics of the mainstream research community and perhaps to pressure from other groups, the American Psychological Association created a new media violence assessment panel in 2013 to assess the association's 2005 statement and update it. They took a very unusual step to avoid any appearance of bias by excluding all major mainstream media violence scholars from the panel. Instead, the panel was composed of reputable psychological science scholars with expertise in developmental, social and related psychology domains, along with leading meta-analysis statistical experts. Their report, released in 2015, confirmed what the mainstream media violence research community has been saying for years: There are real and harmful effects of violent media.

Violent media are neither the harmless fun that the media industries and their apologists would like you to believe, nor are they the cause of the downfall of society that some alarmists proclaim. Nonetheless, electronic media in the 21st century dominate many children's and adolescents' waking hours, taking more time than any other activity, even time in school and interactions with parents. Thus, electronic media have become important socializing agents, agents that have a measurable impact.

Many of the effects of nonviolent electronic media are positive, but the vast majority of violent media effects are negative. Parents and other caregivers can mitigate the harmful effects of violent media in several ways, such as by increasing positive or "protective" factors in the child's environment, and by reducing exposure to violent media. This is not an easy task, but it can be done with little or no expense. The benefits of doing so are healthier, happier, more successful children, adolescents and young adults.

CRAIG A. ANDERSON is Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, and director of the Center for the Study of Violence, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

http://public.psych.iastate.edu/caa/StatementsonMediaViolence.html .
Jesse Feldman, statement in hearings before Subcommittee on Communications of Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, Serial #92-52 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972) 25-27.

For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3490.

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Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior Essay

It is said that television and media brought about new problems that are evident in the modern day and age. Mostly, these influences are harmful in relation to violence and people’s general behavior, which is characterized as careless, destructive and unpredictable.

In reality, there is a great difference and separation between the violence that is seen on TV and that in real life, as people will not become aggressive if their character is not based on aggression.

For a long time, there has been a debate that violence in the media causes more aggressive behavior in the person. There have been numerous studies, but the evidence is somewhat controversial. The majority of people believe that the causation of violent behavior by media is exaggerated. The social theorists suppose that people learn by modeling and imitating behavior.

There have been experiments where such imitation would be tested with children as participants. It has yielded imprecise results (Wells, 1997). Further studies and experimentation have not established any particular correlation because of the control variables being too fluid.

An important concept in movies and media is that they constantly remind the viewer that it is only the authorized people, like police officers and other authorities, are allowed to use violence as a last resource. In many instances, there is added humor, even though it does not diminish the violent and dangerous nature of the situation where a person is killed or their life is threatened.

In general, it is possible to assume that a person might get desensitized towards violence, blood, aggression and criminal behavior. It has been proven that the more a person is confronted with a certain stimuli, the more they will get used to it. This can be seen in many examples from real life (Casey, 2008).

Today, there are movies that show very gruesome and graphic scenes, and it is a fact that many people watch movies like “Saw” and it might make them more used to horror and blood. But people realize that it is a movie and a false, staged situation. A real life occurrence would be very different.

For example, if a movie does not have graphic images or scenes, it might create an idea of violence where people are controlled against their will or held hostage. From one perspective, it is said that the person will learn to like the violence and use it in real life. But a person’s character or individuality cannot learn to like a particular stimulus. If a person does not like to smoke, they will not get used to it by constantly smoking.

Or if someone likes a certain color or smell, a person cannot be made to like or unlike something. In the end, it is possible to see that there must be a link between violence and an already existing personal predisposition to it. The only people who will get affected by graphic violent media are those who require ideas in how to manifest own violent behavior.

From this perspective, it would be better if violence was excluded from media and movies. It can be left simple, as if when a person gets shot or hit, there are no close-ups to show the wound or any blood. It would be useful to promote that the only moral of the movies in relation to violence is that it is unlawful and unwanted by anyone. Most evidence supports the fact that there must be a predisposition towards violence.

It very much depends on an individual. A person who is kind and moral will not resolve to violence because it will conflict with their core moral beliefs, and no matter how often they see violence on the news or in movies, each time they will feel appalled and will not simulate such behavior (Freedman, 2002).

It is clear that a person, who resolved to violence, either grew up in aggressive circumstances where they thought that it was allowed or possible or they have some genetic malfunction. Majority of people are taught that violence is wrong and will not be tolerated by the law and society.

Modern civilized countries take every effort to make this as clear as possible and everyone, even the criminals, know that taking someone’s life or being aggressive towards someone is the highest crime and will be punished. Unfortunately, the evolving technology is becoming a greater part of human life. The 3D or hologram affects, not to mention virtual reality, can stimulate senses in ways that were not possible before.

There is very little evidence as to how the body and genetic information reacts and what it stores. There is a slight chance that a person who watches violence all their life and becomes desensitized to human pain and suffering, will record that information in genes and pass it on to the next generation (Holtzman, 2000).

In any case, there is always a limit as to violence on TV and its nature. The modern society wants to see more blood, which is evident from many movies, and the types of people that watch those movies are of specific character. But the general public seems unharmed by media, as it is too character specific.

Works Cited

Casey, Bernadette. Television studies: the key concepts . New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Freedman, Jonathan. Media violence and its effect on aggression: Assessing the scientific evidence. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Print.

Holtzman, Linda. Media messages . Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. Print.

Wells, Alan. Mass media & society . London, England: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997. Print.

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1. IvyPanda . "Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior." July 8, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violence-on-tv/.

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Violence, media effects, and criminology.

Nickie D. Phillips Nickie D. Phillips Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, St. Francis College
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.189
Published online: 27 July 2017

Debate surrounding the impact of media representations on violence and crime has raged for decades and shows no sign of abating. Over the years, the targets of concern have shifted from film to comic books to television to video games, but the central questions remain the same. What is the relationship between popular media and audience emotions, attitudes, and behaviors? While media effects research covers a vast range of topics—from the study of its persuasive effects in advertising to its positive impact on emotions and behaviors—of particular interest to criminologists is the relationship between violence in popular media and real-life aggression and violence. Does media violence cause aggression and/or violence?

The study of media effects is informed by a variety of theoretical perspectives and spans many disciplines including communications and media studies, psychology, medicine, sociology, and criminology. Decades of research have amassed on the topic, yet there is no clear agreement about the impact of media or about which methodologies are most appropriate. Instead, there continues to be disagreement about whether media portrayals of violence are a serious problem and, if so, how society should respond.

Conflicting interpretations of research findings inform and shape public debate around media effects. Although there seems to be a consensus among scholars that exposure to media violence impacts aggression, there is less agreement around its potential impact on violence and criminal behavior. While a few criminologists focus on the phenomenon of copycat crimes, most rarely engage with whether media directly causes violence. Instead, they explore broader considerations of the relationship between media, popular culture, and society.

media exposure
criminal behavior
popular culture
media violence
media and crime
copycat crimes

Media Exposure, Violence, and Aggression

On Friday July 22, 2016 , a gunman killed nine people at a mall in Munich, Germany. The 18-year-old shooter was subsequently characterized by the media as being under psychiatric care and harboring at least two obsessions. One, an obsession with mass shootings, including that of Anders Breivik who ultimately killed 77 people in Norway in 2011 , and the other an obsession with video games. A Los Angeles, California, news report stated that the gunman was “an avid player of first-person shooter video games, including ‘Counter-Strike,’” while another headline similarly declared, “Munich gunman, a fan of violent video games, rampage killers, had planned attack for a year”(CNN Wire, 2016 ; Reuters, 2016 ). This high-profile incident was hardly the first to link popular culture to violent crime. Notably, in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine shooting massacre, for example, media sources implicated and later discredited music, video games, and a gothic aesthetic as causal factors of the crime (Cullen, 2009 ; Yamato, 2016 ). Other, more recent, incidents have echoed similar claims suggesting that popular culture has a nefarious influence on consumers.

Media violence and its impact on audiences are among the most researched and examined topics in communications studies (Hetsroni, 2007 ). Yet, debate over whether media violence causes aggression and violence persists, particularly in response to high-profile criminal incidents. Blaming video games, and other forms of media and popular culture, as contributing to violence is not a new phenomenon. However, interpreting media effects can be difficult because commenters often seem to indicate a grand consensus that understates more contradictory and nuanced interpretations of the data.

In fact, there is a consensus among many media researchers that media violence has an impact on aggression although its impact on violence is less clear. For example, in response to the shooting in Munich, Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology, avoided pinning the incident solely on video games, but in the process supported the assertion that video gameplay is linked to aggression. He stated,

While there isn’t complete consensus in any scientific field, a study we conducted showed more than 90% of pediatricians and about two-thirds of media researchers surveyed agreed that violent video games increase aggression in children. (Bushman, 2016 )

Others, too, have reached similar conclusions with regard to other media. In 2008 , psychologist John Murray summarized decades of research stating, “Fifty years of research on the effect of TV violence on children leads to the inescapable conclusion that viewing media violence is related to increases in aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors” (Murray, 2008 , p. 1212). Scholars Glenn Sparks and Cheri Sparks similarly declared that,

Despite the fact that controversy still exists about the impact of media violence, the research results reveal a dominant and consistent pattern in favor of the notion that exposure to violent media images does increase the risk of aggressive behavior. (Sparks & Sparks, 2002 , p. 273)

In 2014 , psychologist Wayne Warburton more broadly concluded that the vast majority of studies have found “that exposure to violent media increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in the short and longterm, increases hostile perceptions and attitudes, and desensitizes individuals to violent content” (Warburton, 2014 , p. 64).

Criminologists, too, are sensitive to the impact of media exposure. For example, Jacqueline Helfgott summarized the research:

There have been over 1000 studies on the effects of TV and film violence over the past 40 years. Research on the influence of TV violence on aggression has consistently shown that TV violence increases aggression and social anxiety, cultivates a “mean view” of the world, and negatively impacts real-world behavior. (Helfgott, 2015 , p. 50)

In his book, Media Coverage of Crime and Criminal Justice , criminologist Matthew Robinson stated, “Studies of the impact of media on violence are crystal clear in their findings and implications for society” (Robinson, 2011 , p. 135). He cited studies on childhood exposure to violent media leading to aggressive behavior as evidence. In his pioneering book Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice , criminologist Ray Surette concurred that media violence is linked to aggression, but offered a nuanced interpretation. He stated,

a small to modest but genuine causal role for media violence regarding viewer aggression has been established for most beyond a reasonable doubt . . . There is certainly a connection between violent media and social aggression, but its strength and configuration is simply not known at this time. (Surette, 2011 , p. 68)

The uncertainties about the strength of the relationship and the lack of evidence linking media violence to real-world violence is often lost in the news media accounts of high-profile violent crimes.

Media Exposure and Copycat Crimes

While many scholars do seem to agree that there is evidence that media violence—whether that of film, TV, or video games—increases aggression, they disagree about its impact on violent or criminal behavior (Ferguson, 2014 ; Gunter, 2008 ; Helfgott, 2015 ; Reiner, 2002 ; Savage, 2008 ). Nonetheless, it is violent incidents that most often prompt speculation that media causes violence. More specifically, violence that appears to mimic portrayals of violent media tends to ignite controversy. For example, the idea that films contribute to violent crime is not a new assertion. Films such as A Clockwork Orange , Menace II Society , Set it Off , and Child’s Play 3 , have been linked to crimes and at least eight murders have been linked to Oliver Stone’s 1994 film Natural Born Killers (Bracci, 2010 ; Brooks, 2002 ; PBS, n.d. ). Nonetheless, pinpointing a direct, causal relationship between media and violent crime remains elusive.

Criminologist Jacqueline Helfgott defined copycat crime as a “crime that is inspired by another crime” (Helfgott, 2015 , p. 51). The idea is that offenders model their behavior on media representations of violence whether real or fictional. One case, in particular, illustrated how popular culture, media, and criminal violence converge. On July 20, 2012 , James Holmes entered the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises , the third film in the massively successful Batman trilogy, in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He shot and killed 12 people and wounded 70 others. At the time, the New York Times described the incident,

Witnesses told the police that Mr. Holmes said something to the effect of “I am the Joker,” according to a federal law enforcement official, and that his hair had been dyed or he was wearing a wig. Then, as people began to rise from their seats in confusion or anxiety, he began to shoot. The gunman paused at least once, several witnesses said, perhaps to reload, and continued firing. (Frosch & Johnson, 2012 ).

The dyed hair, Holme’s alleged comment, and that the incident occurred at a popular screening led many to speculate that the shooter was influenced by the earlier film in the trilogy and reignited debate around the impact about media violence. The Daily Mail pointed out that Holmes may have been motivated by a 25-year-old Batman comic in which a gunman opens fire in a movie theater—thus further suggesting the iconic villain served as motivation for the attack (Graham & Gallagher, 2012 ). Perceptions of the “Joker connection” fed into the notion that popular media has a direct causal influence on violent behavior even as press reports later indicated that Holmes had not, in fact, made reference to the Joker (Meyer, 2015 ).

A week after the Aurora shooting, the New York Daily News published an article detailing a “possible copycat” crime. A suspect was arrested in his Maryland home after making threatening phone calls to his workplace. The article reported that the suspect stated, “I am a [sic] joker” and “I’m going to load my guns and blow everybody up.” In their search, police found “a lethal arsenal of 25 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition” in the suspect’s home (McShane, 2012 ).

Though criminologists are generally skeptical that those who commit violent crimes are motivated solely by media violence, there does seem to be some evidence that media may be influential in shaping how some offenders commit crime. In his study of serious and violent juvenile offenders, criminologist Ray Surette found “about one out of three juveniles reports having considered a copycat crime and about one out of four reports actually having attempted one.” He concluded that “those juveniles who are self-reported copycats are significantly more likely to credit the media as both a general and personal influence.” Surette contended that though violent offenses garner the most media attention, copycat criminals are more likely to be career criminals and to commit property crimes rather than violent crimes (Surette, 2002 , pp. 56, 63; Surette 2011 ).

Discerning what crimes may be classified as copycat crimes is a challenge. Jacqueline Helfgott suggested they occur on a “continuum of influence.” On one end, she said, media plays a relatively minor role in being a “component of the modus operandi” of the offender, while on the other end, she said, “personality disordered media junkies” have difficulty distinguishing reality from violent fantasy. According to Helfgott, various factors such as individual characteristics, characteristics of media sources, relationship to media, demographic factors, and cultural factors are influential. Overall, scholars suggest that rather than pushing unsuspecting viewers to commit crimes, media more often influences how , rather than why, someone commits a crime (Helfgott, 2015 ; Marsh & Melville, 2014 ).

Given the public interest, there is relatively little research devoted to exactly what copycat crimes are and how they occur. Part of the problem of studying these types of crimes is the difficulty defining and measuring the concept. In an effort to clarify and empirically measure the phenomenon, Surette offered a scale that included seven indicators of copycat crimes. He used the following factors to identify copycat crimes: time order (media exposure must occur before the crime); time proximity (a five-year cut-off point of exposure); theme consistency (“a pattern of thought, feeling or behavior in the offender which closely parallels the media model”); scene specificity (mimicking a specific scene); repetitive viewing; self-editing (repeated viewing of single scene while “the balance of the film is ignored”); and offender statements and second-party statements indicating the influence of media. Findings demonstrated that cases are often prematurely, if not erroneously, labeled as “copycat.” Surette suggested that use of the scale offers a more precise way for researchers to objectively measure trends and frequency of copycat crimes (Surette, 2016 , p. 8).

Media Exposure and Violent Crimes

Overall, a causal link between media exposure and violent criminal behavior has yet to be validated, and most researchers steer clear of making such causal assumptions. Instead, many emphasize that media does not directly cause aggression and violence so much as operate as a risk factor among other variables (Bushman & Anderson, 2015 ; Warburton, 2014 ). In their review of media effects, Brad Bushman and psychologist Craig Anderson concluded,

In sum, extant research shows that media violence is a causal risk factor not only for mild forms of aggression but also for more serious forms of aggression, including violent criminal behavior. That does not mean that violent media exposure by itself will turn a normal child or adolescent who has few or no other risk factors into a violent criminal or a school shooter. Such extreme violence is rare, and tends to occur only when multiple risk factors converge in time, space, and within an individual. (Bushman & Anderson, 2015 , p. 1817)

Surette, however, argued that there is no clear linkage between media exposure and criminal behavior—violent or otherwise. In other words, a link between media violence and aggression does not necessarily mean that exposure to violent media causes violent (or nonviolent) criminal behavior. Though there are thousands of articles addressing media effects, many of these consist of reviews or commentary about prior research findings rather than original studies (Brown, 2007 ; Murray, 2008 ; Savage, 2008 ; Surette, 2011 ). Fewer, still, are studies that specifically measure media violence and criminal behavior (Gunter, 2008 ; Strasburger & Donnerstein, 2014 ). In their meta-analysis investigating the link between media violence and criminal aggression, scholars Joanne Savage and Christina Yancey did not find support for the assertion. Instead, they concluded,

The study of most consequence for violent crime policy actually found that exposure to media violence was significantly negatively related to violent crime rates at the aggregate level . . . It is plain to us that the relationship between exposure to violent media and serious violence has yet to be established. (Savage & Yancey, 2008 , p. 786)

Researchers continue to measure the impact of media violence among various forms of media and generally stop short of drawing a direct causal link in favor of more indirect effects. For example, one study examined the increase of gun violence in films over the years and concluded that violent scenes provide scripts for youth that justify gun violence that, in turn, may amplify aggression (Bushman, Jamieson, Weitz, & Romer, 2013 ). But others report contradictory findings. Patrick Markey and colleagues studied the relationship between rates of homicide and aggravated assault and gun violence in films from 1960–2012 and found that over the years, violent content in films increased while crime rates declined . After controlling for age shifts, poverty, education, incarceration rates, and economic inequality, the relationships remained statistically non-significant (Markey, French, & Markey, 2015 , p. 165). Psychologist Christopher Ferguson also failed to find a relationship between media violence in films and video games and violence (Ferguson, 2014 ).

Another study, by Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna, examined violent films from 1995–2004 and found decreases in violent crimes coincided with violent blockbuster movie attendance. Here, it was not the content that was alleged to impact crime rates, but instead what the authors called “voluntary incapacitation,” or the shifting of daily activities from that of potential criminal behavior to movie attendance. The authors concluded, “For each million people watching a strongly or mildly violent movie, respectively, violent crime decreases by 1.9% and 2.1%. Nonviolent movies have no statistically significant impact” (Dahl & DellaVigna, p. 39).

High-profile cases over the last several years have shifted public concern toward the perceived danger of video games, but research demonstrating a link between video games and criminal violence remains scant. The American Psychiatric Association declared that “research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression . . .” but stopped short of claiming that video games impact criminal violence. According to Breuer and colleagues, “While all of the available meta-analyses . . . found a relationship between aggression and the use of (violent) video games, the size and interpretation of this connection differ largely between these studies . . .” (APA, 2015 ; Breuer et al., 2015 ; DeCamp, 2015 ). Further, psychologists Patrick Markey, Charlotte Markey, and Juliana French conducted four time-series analyses investigating the relationship between video game habits and assault and homicide rates. The studies measured rates of violent crime, the annual and monthly video game sales, Internet searches for video game walkthroughs, and rates of violent crime occurring after the release dates of popular games. The results showed that there was no relationship between video game habits and rates of aggravated assault and homicide. Instead, there was some indication of decreases in crime (Markey, Markey, & French, 2015 ).

Another longitudinal study failed to find video games as a predictor of aggression, instead finding support for the “selection hypothesis”—that physically aggressive individuals (aged 14–17) were more likely to choose media content that contained violence than those slightly older, aged 18–21. Additionally, the researchers concluded,

that violent media do not have a substantial impact on aggressive personality or behavior, at least in the phases of late adolescence and early adulthood that we focused on. (Breuer, Vogelgesang, Quandt, & Festl, 2015 , p. 324)

Overall, the lack of a consistent finding demonstrating that media exposure causes violent crime may not be particularly surprising given that studies linking media exposure, aggression, and violence suffer from a host of general criticisms. By way of explanation, social theorist David Gauntlett maintained that researchers frequently employ problematic definitions of aggression and violence, questionable methodologies, rely too much on fictional violence, neglect the social meaning of violence, and assume the third-person effect—that is, assume that other, vulnerable people are impacted by media, but “we” are not (Ferguson & Dyck, 2012 ; Gauntlett, 2001 ).

Others, such as scholars Martin Barker and Julian Petley, flatly reject the notion that violent media exposure is a causal factor for aggression and/or violence. In their book Ill Effects , the authors stated instead that it is simply “stupid” to query about “what are the effects of [media] violence” without taking context into account (p. 2). They counter what they describe as moral campaigners who advance the idea that media violence causes violence. Instead, Barker and Petley argue that audiences interpret media violence in a variety of ways based on their histories, experiences, and knowledge, and as such, it makes little sense to claim media “cause” violence (Barker & Petley, 2001 ).

Given the seemingly inconclusive and contradictory findings regarding media effects research, to say that the debate can, at times, be contentious is an understatement. One article published in European Psychologist queried “Does Doing Media Violence Research Make One Aggressive?” and lamented that the debate had devolved into an ideological one (Elson & Ferguson, 2013 ). Another academic journal published a special issue devoted to video games and youth and included a transcript of exchanges between two scholars to demonstrate that a “peaceful debate” was, in fact, possible (Ferguson & Konijn, 2015 ).

Nonetheless, in this debate, the stakes are high and the policy consequences profound. After examining over 900 published articles, publication patterns, prominent authors and coauthors, and disciplinary interest in the topic, scholar James Anderson argued that prominent media effects scholars, whom he deems the “causationists,” had developed a cottage industry dependent on funding by agencies focused primarily on the negative effects of media on children. Anderson argued that such a focus presents media as a threat to family values and ultimately operates as a zero-sum game. As a result, attention and resources are diverted toward media and away from other priorities that are essential to understanding aggression such as social disadvantage, substance abuse, and parental conflict (Anderson, 2008 , p. 1276).

Theoretical Perspectives on Media Effects

Understanding how media may impact attitudes and behavior has been the focus of media and communications studies for decades. Numerous theoretical perspectives offer insight into how and to what extent the media impacts the audience. As scholar Jenny Kitzinger documented in 2004 , there are generally two ways to approach the study of media effects. One is to foreground the power of media. That is, to suggest that the media holds powerful sway over viewers. Another perspective is to foreground the power and heterogeneity of the audience and to recognize that it is comprised of active agents (Kitzinger, 2004 ).

The notion of an all-powerful media can be traced to the influence of scholars affiliated with the Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School, in the 1930–1940s and proponents of the mass society theory. The institute was originally founded in Germany but later moved to the United States. Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes outlined how mass society theory assumed that members of the public were susceptible to media messages. This, theorists argued, was a result of rapidly changing social conditions and industrialization that produced isolated, impressionable individuals “cut adrift from kinship and organic ties and lacking moral cohesion” (Jewkes, 2015 , p. 13). In this historical context, in the era of World War II, the impact of Nazi propaganda was particularly resonant. Here, the media was believed to exhibit a unidirectional flow, operating as a powerful force influencing the masses. The most useful metaphor for this perspective described the media as a “hypodermic syringe” that could “‘inject’ values, ideas and information directly into the passive receiver producing direct and unmediated ‘effects’” (Jewkes, 2015 , pp. 16, 34). Though the hypodermic syringe model seems simplistic today, the idea that the media is all-powerful continues to inform contemporary public discourse around media and violence.

Concern of the power of media captured the attention of researchers interested in its purported negative impact on children. In one of the earliest series of studies in the United States during the late 1920s–1930s, researchers attempted to quantitatively measure media effects with the Payne Fund Studies. For example, they investigated how film, a relatively new medium, impacted children’s attitudes and behaviors, including antisocial and violent behavior. At the time, the Payne Fund Studies’ findings fueled the notion that children were indeed negatively influenced by films. This prompted the film industry to adopt a self-imposed code regulating content (Sparks & Sparks, 2002 ; Surette, 2011 ). Not everyone agreed with the approach. In fact, the methodologies employed in the studies received much criticism, and ultimately, the movement was branded as a moral crusade to regulate film content. Scholars Garth Jowett, Ian Jarvie, and Kathryn Fuller wrote about the significance of the studies,

We have seen this same policy battle fought and refought over radio, television, rock and roll, music videos and video games. Their researchers looked to see if intuitive concerns could be given concrete, measurable expression in research. While they had partial success, as have all subsequent efforts, they also ran into intractable problems . . . Since that day, no way has yet been found to resolve the dilemma of cause and effect: do crime movies create more crime, or do the criminally inclined enjoy and perhaps imitate crime movies? (Jowett, Jarvie, & Fuller, 1996 , p. 12)

As the debate continued, more sophisticated theoretical perspectives emerged. Efforts to empirically measure the impact of media on aggression and violence continued, albeit with equivocal results. In the 1950s and 1960s, psychological behaviorism, or understanding psychological motivations through observable behavior, became a prominent lens through which to view the causal impact of media violence. This type of research was exemplified by Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll studies demonstrating that children exposed to aggressive behavior, either observed in real life or on film, behaved more aggressively than those in control groups who were not exposed to the behavior. The assumption derived was that children learn through exposure and imitate behavior (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963 ). Though influential, the Bandura experiments were nevertheless heavily criticized. Some argued the laboratory conditions under which children were exposed to media were not generalizable to real-life conditions. Others challenged the assumption that children absorb media content in an unsophisticated manner without being able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. In fact, later studies did find children to be more discerning consumers of media than popularly believed (Gauntlett, 2001 ).

Hugely influential in our understandings of human behavior, the concept of social learning has been at the core of more contemporary understandings of media effects. For example, scholar Christopher Ferguson noted that the General Aggression Model (GAM), rooted in social learning and cognitive theory, has for decades been a dominant model for understanding how media impacts aggression and violence. GAM is described as the idea that “aggression is learned by the activation and repetition of cognitive scripts coupled with the desensitization of emotional responses due to repeated exposure.” However, Ferguson noted that its usefulness has been debated and advocated for a paradigm shift (Ferguson, 2013 , pp. 65, 27; Krahé, 2014 ).

Though the methodologies of the Payne Fund Studies and Bandura studies were heavily criticized, concern over media effects continued to be tied to larger moral debates including the fear of moral decline and concern over the welfare of children. Most notably, in the 1950s, psychiatrist Frederic Wertham warned of the dangers of comic books, a hugely popular medium at the time, and their impact on juveniles. Based on anecdotes and his clinical experience with children, Wertham argued that images of graphic violence and sexual debauchery in comic books were linked to juvenile delinquency. Though he was far from the only critic of comic book content, his criticisms reached the masses and gained further notoriety with the publication of his 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent . Wertham described the comic book content thusly,

The stories have a lot of crime and gunplay and, in addition, alluring advertisements of guns, some of them full-page and in bright colors, with four guns of various sizes and descriptions on a page . . . Here is the repetition of violence and sexiness which no Freud, Krafft-Ebing or Havelock Ellis ever dreamed could be offered to children, and in such profusion . . . I have come to the conclusion that this chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction by comic books, both their content and their alluring advertisements of knives and guns, are contributing factors to many children’s maladjustment. (Wertham, 1954 , p. 39)

Wertham’s work was instrumental in shaping public opinion and policies about the dangers of comic books. Concern about the impact of comics reached its apex in 1954 with the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Wertham testified before the committee, arguing that comics were a leading cause of juvenile delinquency. Ultimately, the protest of graphic content in comic books by various interest groups contributed to implementation of the publishers’ self-censorship code, the Comics Code Authority, which essentially designated select books that were deemed “safe” for children (Nyberg, 1998 ). The code remained in place for decades, though it was eventually relaxed and decades later phased out by the two most dominant publishers, DC and Marvel.

Wertham’s work, however influential in impacting the comic industry, was ultimately panned by academics. Although scholar Bart Beaty characterized Wertham’s position as more nuanced, if not progressive, than the mythology that followed him, Wertham was broadly dismissed as a moral reactionary (Beaty, 2005 ; Phillips & Strobl, 2013 ). The most damning criticism of Wertham’s work came decades later, from Carol Tilley’s examination of Wertham’s files. She concluded that in Seduction of the Innocent ,

Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain. (Tilley, 2012 , p. 386)

Tilley linked Wertham’s approach to that of the Frankfurt theorists who deemed popular culture a social threat and contended that Wertham was most interested in “cultural correction” rather than scientific inquiry (Tilley, 2012 , p. 404).

Over the decades, concern about the moral impact of media remained while theoretical and methodological approaches to media effects studies continued to evolve (Rich, Bickham, & Wartella, 2015 ). In what many consider a sophisticated development, theorists began to view the audience as more active and multifaceted than the mass society perspective allowed (Kitzinger, 2004 ). One perspective, based on a “uses and gratifications” model, assumes that rather than a passive audience being injected with values and information, a more active audience selects and “uses” media as a response to their needs and desires. Studies of uses and gratifications take into account how choice of media is influenced by one’s psychological and social circumstances. In this context, media provides a variety of functions for consumers who may engage with it for the purposes of gathering information, reducing boredom, seeking enjoyment, or facilitating communication (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973 ; Rubin, 2002 ). This approach differs from earlier views in that it privileges the perspective and agency of the audience.

Another approach, the cultivation theory, gained momentum among researchers in the 1970s and has been of particular interest to criminologists. It focuses on how television television viewing impacts viewers’ attitudes toward social reality. The theory was first introduced by communications scholar George Gerbner, who argued the importance of understanding messages that long-term viewers absorb. Rather than examine the effect of specific content within any given programming, cultivation theory,

looks at exposure to massive flows of messages over long periods of time. The cultivation process takes place in the interaction of the viewer with the message; neither the message nor the viewer are all-powerful. (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Singnorielli, & Shanahan, 2002 , p. 48)

In other words, he argued, television viewers are, over time, exposed to messages about the way the world works. As Gerbner and colleagues stated, “continued exposure to its messages is likely to reiterate, confirm, and nourish—that is, cultivate—its own values and perspectives” (p. 49).

One of the most well-known consequences of heavy media exposure is what Gerbner termed the “mean world” syndrome. He coined it based on studies that found that long-term exposure to media violence among heavy television viewers, “tends to cultivate the image of a relatively mean and dangerous world” (p. 52). Inherent in Gerbner’s view was that media representations are separate and distinct entities from “real life.” That is, it is the distorted representations of crime and violence that cultivate the notion that the world is a dangerous place. In this context, Gerbner found that heavy television viewers are more likely to be fearful of crime and to overestimate their chances of being a victim of violence (Gerbner, 1994 ).

Though there is evidence in support of cultivation theory, the strength of the relationship between media exposure and fear of crime is inconclusive. This is in part due to the recognition that audience members are not homogenous. Instead, researchers have found that there are many factors that impact the cultivating process. This includes, but is not limited to, “class, race, gender, place of residence, and actual experience of crime” (Reiner, 2002 ; Sparks, 1992 ). Or, as Ted Chiricos and colleagues remarked in their study of crime news and fear of crime, “The issue is not whether media accounts of crime increase fear, but which audiences, with which experiences and interests, construct which meanings from the messages received” (Chiricos, Eschholz, & Gertz, p. 354).

Other researchers found that exposure to media violence creates a desensitizing effect, that is, that as viewers consume more violent media, they become less empathetic as well as psychologically and emotionally numb when confronted with actual violence (Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, 2006 ; Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, 2007 ; Cline, Croft, & Courrier, 1973 ; Fanti, Vanman, Henrich, & Avraamides, 2009 ; Krahé et al., 2011 ). Other scholars such as Henry Giroux, however, point out that our contemporary culture is awash in violence and “everyone is infected.” From this perspective, the focus is not on certain individuals whose exposure to violent media leads to a desensitization of real-life violence, but rather on the notion that violence so permeates society that it has become normalized in ways that are divorced from ethical and moral implications. Giroux wrote,

While it would be wrong to suggest that the violence that saturates popular culture directly causes violence in the larger society, it is arguable that such violence serves not only to produce an insensitivity to real life violence but also functions to normalize violence as both a source of pleasure and as a practice for addressing social issues. When young people and others begin to believe that a world of extreme violence, vengeance, lawlessness, and revenge is the only world they inhabit, the culture and practice of real-life violence is more difficult to scrutinize, resist, and transform . . . (Giroux, 2015 )

For Giroux, the danger is that the normalization of violence has become a threat to democracy itself. In our culture of mass consumption shaped by neoliberal logics, depoliticized narratives of violence have become desired forms of entertainment and are presented in ways that express tolerance for some forms of violence while delegitimizing other forms of violence. In their book, Disposable Futures , Brad Evans and Henry Giroux argued that as the spectacle of violence perpetuates fear of inevitable catastrophe, it reinforces expansion of police powers, increased militarization and other forms of social control, and ultimately renders marginalized members of the populace disposable (Evans & Giroux, 2015 , p. 81).

Criminology and the “Media/Crime Nexus”

Most criminologists and sociologists who focus on media and crime are generally either dismissive of the notion that media violence directly causes violence or conclude that findings are more complex than traditional media effects models allow, preferring to focus attention on the impact of media violence on society rather than individual behavior (Carrabine, 2008 ; Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2015 ; Jewkes, 2015 ; Kitzinger, 2004 ; Marsh & Melville, 2014 ; Rafter, 2006 ; Sternheimer, 2003 ; Sternheimer 2013 ; Surette, 2011 ). Sociologist Karen Sternheimer forcefully declared “media culture is not the root cause of American social problems, not the Big Bad Wolf, as our ongoing public discussion would suggest” (Sternheimer, 2003 , p. 3). Sternheimer rejected the idea that media causes violence and argued that a false connection has been forged between media, popular culture, and violence. Like others critical of a singular focus on media, Sternheimer posited that overemphasis on the perceived dangers of media violence serves as a red herring that directs attention away from the actual causes of violence rooted in factors such as poverty, family violence, abuse, and economic inequalities (Sternheimer, 2003 , 2013 ). Similarly, in her Media and Crime text, Yvonne Jewkes stated that U.K. scholars tend to reject findings of a causal link because the studies are too reductionist; criminal behavior cannot be reduced to a single causal factor such as media consumption. Echoing Gauntlett’s critiques of media effects research, Jewkes stated that simplistic causal assumptions ignore “the wider context of a lifetime of meaning-making” (Jewkes, 2015 , p. 17).

Although they most often reject a “violent media cause violence” relationship, criminologists do not dismiss the notion of media as influential. To the contrary, over the decades much criminological interest has focused on the construction of social problems, the ideological implications of media, and media’s potential impact on crime policies and social control. Eamonn Carrabine noted that the focus of concern is not whether media directly causes violence but on “how the media promote damaging stereotypes of social groups, especially the young, to uphold the status quo” (Carrabine, 2008 , p. 34). Theoretically, these foci have been traced to the influence of cultural and Marxist studies. For example, criminologists frequently focus on how social anxieties and class inequalities impact our understandings of the relationship between media violence and attitudes, values, and behaviors. Influential works in the 1970s, such as Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order by Stuart Hall et al. and Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics , shifted criminological critique toward understanding media as a hegemonic force that reinforces state power and social control (Brown, 2011 ; Carrabine, 2008 ; Cohen, 2005 ; Garland, 2008 ; Hall et al., 2013 /1973, 2013/1973 ). Since that time, moral panic has become a common framework applied to public discourse around a variety of social issues including road rage, child abuse, popular music, sex panics, and drug abuse among others.

Into the 21st century , advances in technology, including increased use of social media, shifted the ways that criminologists approach the study of media effects. Scholar Sheila Brown traced how research in criminology evolved from a focus on “media and crime” to what she calls the “media/crime nexus” that recognizes that “media experience is real experience” (Brown, 2011 , p. 413). In other words, many criminologists began to reject as fallacy what social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson deemed “digital dualism,” or the notion that we have an “online” existence that is separate and distinct from our “off-line” existence. Instead, we exist simultaneously both online and offline, an

augmented reality that exists at the intersection of materiality and information, physicality and digitality, bodies and technology, atoms and bits, the off and the online. It is wrong to say “IRL” [in real life] to mean offline: Facebook is real life. (Jurgenson, 2012 )

The changing media landscape has been of particular interest to cultural criminologists. Michelle Brown recognized the omnipresence of media as significant in terms of methodological preferences and urged a move away from a focus on causality and predictability toward a more fluid approach that embraces the complex, contemporary media-saturated social reality characterized by uncertainty and instability (Brown, 2007 ).

Cultural criminologists have indeed rejected direct, causal relationships in favor of the recognition that social meanings of aggression and violence are constantly in transition, flowing through the media landscape, where “bits of information reverberate and bend back on themselves, creating a fluid porosity of meaning that defines late-modern life, and the nature of crime and media within it.” In other words, there is no linear relationship between crime and its representation. Instead, crime is viewed as inseparable from the culture in which our everyday lives are constantly re-created in loops and spirals that “amplify, distort, and define the experience of crime and criminality itself” (Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2015 , pp. 154–155). As an example of this shift in understanding media effects, criminologist Majid Yar proposed that we consider how the transition from being primarily consumers to primarily producers of content may serve as a motivating mechanism for criminal behavior. Here, Yar is suggesting that the proliferation of user-generated content via media technologies such as social media (i.e., the desire “to be seen” and to manage self-presentation) has a criminogenic component worthy of criminological inquiry (Yar, 2012 ). Shifting attention toward the media/crime nexus and away from traditional media effects analyses opens possibilities for a deeper understanding of the ways that media remains an integral part of our everyday lives and inseparable from our understandings of and engagement with crime and violence.

Over the years, from films to comic books to television to video games to social media, concerns over media effects have shifted along with changing technologies. While there seems to be some consensus that exposure to violent media impacts aggression, there is little evidence showing its impact on violent or criminal behavior. Nonetheless, high-profile violent crimes continue to reignite public interest in media effects, particularly with regard to copycat crimes.

At times, academic debate around media effects remains contentious and one’s academic discipline informs the study and interpretation of media effects. Criminologists and sociologists are generally reluctant to attribute violence and criminal behavior directly to exposure to violence media. They are, however, not dismissive of the impact of media on attitudes, social policies, and social control as evidenced by the myriad of studies on moral panics and other research that addresses the relationship between media, social anxieties, gender, race, and class inequalities. Scholars who study media effects are also sensitive to the historical context of the debates and ways that moral concerns shape public policies. The self-regulating codes of the film industry and the comic book industry have led scholars to be wary of hyperbole and policy overreach in response to claims of media effects. Future research will continue to explore ways that changing technologies, including increasing use of social media, will impact our understandings and perceptions of crime as well as criminal behavior.

How Violent Media Can Impact Your Mental Health

Cynthia Vinney, PhD is an expert in media psychology and a published scholar whose work has been published in peer-reviewed psychology journals.

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Carol Yepes / Getty Images

Violent Media & Aggresssion
Controversy
Violent Media & Mental Health
How to Help Your Child

When to Seek Therapy

One of the most studied—and most controversial—topics in media psychology is the impact of violent media on consumers, especially children. Violence in is movies, on television, in video games, and on the internet. It's also included in content aimed at kids, tweens, and teens, and therefore, it's no surprise that psychologists, parents, and media consumers, in general, are concerned about the impact it has on people.

As a result, ever since the advent of television decades ago, psychologists have investigated the possibility of a link between the consumption of violent media and increases in real-life aggression.

This article will explore the research on this topic including arguments for and against an association. In addition, this article will examine newer research that has found a relationship between exposure to violent content, especially via news media, and mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety .

Does Consuming Violent Content Lead to Increased Aggression?

Studies have consistently shown that media violence has an impact on real-life aggression . These studies use a diverse set of methods and participants, leading many experts on the impact of media violence to agree that aggression increases as a result of media violence consumption.

However, that doesn't mean exposure to media violence drives consumers to murder or other particularly violent acts. These studies explore different kinds of aggression, making the association the research has established between violent media and aggression more nuanced than it initially appears.

Evidence for a Link Between Violent Content and Aggression

Many experiments in labs have provided evidence that demonstrates that short-term exposure to violent media increases aggression in children, teenagers, and young adults. However, aggression doesn't always mean physical aggression. It can also mean verbal aggression , such as yelling insults, as well as thinking aggressive thoughts or having aggressive emotions.

There Varying Degrees of Aggression

Moreover, even physical aggression exists on a continuum from a light shove to something far more dangerous. As a result, people may become more aggressive immediately following exposure to media violence but that aggression manifests itself in a variety of different ways, a majority of which wouldn't be considered particularly dangerous.

Consuming Violent Media During Childhood May Result in Adult Aggression

More disturbing are the few longitudinal studies that have followed people over decades and have shown that frequent exposure to media violence in childhood results in adult aggression even if people no longer consume violent media as adults.

For example, one study found that frequent exposure to violent television at age 8 predicted aggressive behavior at ages 19 and 30 for male, but not female, participants. This effect held even after controlling for variables like social class, IQ , and initial aggressiveness.

Similarly, another study that surveyed 329 participants between the ages of 6 and 9 found that 15 years later the exposure of both males and females to television violence in childhood predicted increased aggression in adulthood. In particular, the 25% of study participants who viewed the most media violence in childhood were the most likely to be much more aggressive in adulthood.

These individuals exhibited a range of behaviors including:

Shoving their spouses
Beating people up
Committing crimes

This was especially true if they identified with aggressive characters and felt that television violence was realistic when they were children.

These findings suggest that frequent early exposure to television violence can have a powerful impact on individuals over time and well into their adult lives.

Why Is This Topic So Controversial?

So if there's so much research evidence for a link between media violence and real-world aggression, why is the debate over this topic ongoing? Part of the issue is one of definition.

Studies often define violence and aggression in very different ways and they use different measures to test the association, making it hard to replicate the results. Moreover, many researchers edit together media for lab experiments , creating a situation where participants must watch and react to media that bears minimal resemblance to anything they'd actually consume via TV, movies, or the internet.

As a result, even when these experiments find media violence causes aggression, the extent to which it can be generalized to the population as a whole is limited.

Of course, it would be naïve to think that consuming media violence has no impact on people, but it appears it may not be the most powerful influence. The effect of media violence is likely to vary based on other factors including personality traits, developmental stage, social and environmental influences, and the context in which the violence is presented.

It's also important to recognize that not all aggression is negative or socially unacceptable. One study found that a relationship between exposure to television violence and an increase in positive aggression, or aggression that isn't intended to cause harm, in the form of participation in extreme or contact sports.

Does Consuming Violent Media Lead to Mental Health Issues?

While psychologists have been studying the association between the consumption of violent media and increased aggression for well over 50 years, more recently, some have turned their attention to the impact of media violence on mental health concerns.

Consumption of Violent Media May Lead to Anxiety

Studies have demonstrated that there's a correlation between exposure to media violence and increased anxiety and the belief that the world is a scary place. For instance, an experimental investigation found that late adolescents who were exposed to a violent movie clip were more anxious than those who watched a nonviolent clip.

These findings suggest that the regular consumption of violent media could lead to anxiety in the long-term .

Constant Exposure to Violent Media Via Technology May Lead to Poorer Mental Health

Today, the violence shown on the news media may especially impact people's mental health. New technology means that violent events, including terrorist attacks, school shootings , and natural disasters, can be filmed and reported on immediately, and media consumers all over the world will be exposed to these events almost instantly via social media or news alerts on their smartphones and other devices.

Moreover, this exposure is likely to be intense and repeated due to the need to fill a 24-hour news cycle. Studies have shown that this kind of exposure, especially to acts of terrorism, has the potential to lead to depression , anxiety, stress reactions, substance use, and even post-traumatic stress (PTSD).

Plus, those who take in more images of a disaster tend to be more likely to experience negative mental health consequences. For example, in a study conducted shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, people who viewed more television news reports about what happened in the seven days after the event had more symptoms of PTSD than those who had viewed less television news coverage.

How to Cope With the Impact of Media Violence

Violence will continue to be depicted in the media and, for most adults, there's nothing wrong with watching a violent horror or action movie or playing a violent video game, as long as it doesn't impair your mental health or daily functioning.

However, if you feel you're being negatively impacted by the violence depicted in the media, especially after a disaster that's getting constant coverage on the news, the first solution is to stop engaging with devices that could lead to further exposure.

This means turning off the TV, and for anyone who frequently looks at the news on their computers or mobile devices, adjusting any settings that could lead you to see more images of a violent event.

How You Can Help Your Child

For parents concerned about children's exposure to violent media, the solution isn't to attempt to prevent children from consuming violence altogether, although limiting their exposure is valuable.

Instead, parents should co-view violent media with their children and then talk about what they see. This helps children become discerning media consumers who can think critically about the content they read, watch, and play.

Similarly, when a disturbing event like a school shooting happens it's valuable to discuss it with children so they can express their emotions and parents can put the incident in the context of its overall likelihood.

If a parent notices their child seems depressed or anxious after frequent exposure to media violence or an adult notices their mental health is suffering due to regular consumption of violent media, it may be valuable to seek the help of a mental health professional .

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The Conversation. Here's How Witnessing Violence Harms Children's Mental House .

By Cynthia Vinney, PhD Cynthia Vinney, PhD is an expert in media psychology and a published scholar whose work has been published in peer-reviewed psychology journals.

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The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research

L. rowell huesmann.

The University of Michigan

Since the early 1960s research evidence has been accumulating that suggests that exposure to violence in television, movies, video games, cell phones, and on the internet increases the risk of violent behavior on the viewer’s part just as growing up in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of them behaving violently. In the current review this research evidence is critically assessed, and the psychological theory that explains why exposure to violence has detrimental effects for both the short run and long run is elaborated. Finally, the size of the “media violence effect” is compared with some other well known threats to society to estimate how important a threat it should be considered.

One of the notable changes in our social environment in the 20 th and 21st centuries has been the saturation of our culture and daily lives by the mass media. In this new environment radio, television, movies, videos, video games, cell phones, and computer networks have assumed central roles in our children’s daily lives. For better or worse the mass media are having an enormous impact on our children’s values, beliefs, and behaviors. Unfortunately, the consequences of one particular common element of the electronic mass media has a particularly detrimental effect on children’s well being. Research evidence has accumulated over the past half-century that exposure to violence on television, movies, and most recently in video games increases the risk of violent behavior on the viewer’s part just as growing up in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of violent behavior. Correspondingly, the recent increase in the use of mobile phones, text messaging, e-mail, and chat rooms by our youth have opened new venues for social interaction in which aggression can occur and youth can be victimized – new venues that break the old boundaries of family, neighborhood, and community that might have protected our youth to some extent in the past. These globe spanning electronic communication media have not really introduced new psychological threats to our children, but they have made it much harder to protect youth from the threats and have exposed many more of them to threats that only a few might have experienced before. It is now not just kids in bad neighborhoods or with bad friends who are likely to be exposed to bad things when they go out on the street. A ‘virtual’ bad street is easily available to most youth now. However, our response should not be to panic and keep our children “indoors” because the “streets” out there are dangerous. The streets also provide wonderful experiences and help youth become the kinds of adults we desire. Rather our response should be to understand the dangers on the streets, to help our children understand and avoid the dangers, to avoid exaggerating the dangers which will destroy our credibility, and also to try to control exposure to the extent we can.

Background for the Review

Different people may have quite different things in mind when they think of media violence. Similarly, among the public there may be little consensus on what constitutes aggressive and violent behavior . Most researchers, however, have clear conceptions of what they mean by media violence and aggressive behavior.

Most researchers define media violence as visual portrayals of acts of physical aggression by one human or human-like character against another. This definition has evolved as theories about the effects of media violence have evolved and represents an attempt to describe the kind of violent media presentation that is most likely to teach the viewer to be more violent. Movies depicting violence of this type were frequent 75 years ago and are even more frequent today, e.g., M, The Maltese Falcon, Shane, Dirty Harry, Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, Kill Bill . Violent TV programs became common shortly after TV became common in American homes about 55 years ago and are common today, e.g., Gunsmoke, Miami Vice, CSI, and 24. More recently, video games, internet displays, and cell phone displays have become part of most children’s growing-up, and violent displays have become common on them, e.g., Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, Warrior .

To most researchers, aggressive behavior refers to an act that is intended to injure or irritate another person. Laymen may call assertive salesmen “aggressive,” but researchers do not because there is no intent to harm. Aggression can be physical or non-physical. It includes many kinds of behavior that do not seem to fit the commonly understood meaning of “violence.” Insults and spreading harmful rumors fit the definition. Of course, the aggressive behaviors of greatest concern clearly involve physical aggression ranging in severity from pushing or shoving, to fighting, to serious assaults and homicide. In this review he term violent behavior is used to describe these more serious forms of physical aggression that have a significant risk of seriously injuring the victim.

Violent or aggressive actions seldom result from a single cause; rather, multiple factors converging over time contribute to such behavior. Accordingly, the influence of the violent mass media is best viewed as one of the many potential factors that influence the risk for violence and aggression. No reputable researcher is suggesting that media violence is “the” cause of violent behavior. Furthermore, a developmental perspective is essential for an adequate understanding of how media violence affects youthful conduct and in order to formulate a coherent response to this problem. Most youth who are aggressive and engage in some forms of antisocial behavior do not go on to become violent teens and adults [ 1 ]. Still, research has shown that a significant proportion of aggressive children are likely to grow up to be aggressive adults, and that seriously violent adolescents and adults often were highly aggressive and even violent as children [ 2 ]. The best single predictor of violent behavior in older adolescents, young adults, and even middle aged adults is aggressive behavior when they were younger. Thus, anything that promotes aggressive behavior in young children statistically is a risk factor for violent behavior in adults as well.

Theoretical Explanations for Media Violence Effects

In order to understand the empirical research implicating violence in electronic media as a threat to society, an understanding of why and how violent media cause aggression is vital. In fact, psychological theories that explain why media violence is such a threat are now well established. Furthermore, these theories also explain why the observation of violence in the real world – among the family, among peers, and within the community – also stimulates aggressive behavior in the observer.

Somewhat different processes seem to cause short term effects of violent content and long term effects of violent content, and that both of these processes are distinct from the time displacement effects that engagement in media may have on children. Time displacement effects refer to the role of the mass media (including video games) in displacing other activities in which the child might engage which might change the risk for certain kinds of behavior, e.g. replacing reading, athletics, etc. This essay is focusing on the effects of violent media content, and displacement effects will not be reviewed though they may well have important consequences.

Short-term Effects

Most theorists would now agree that the short term effects of exposure to media violence are mostly due to 1) priming processes, 2) arousal processes, and 3) the immediate mimicking of specific behaviors [ 3 , 4 ].

Priming is the process through which spreading activation in the brain’s neural network from the locus representing an external observed stimulus excites another brain node representing a cognition, emotion, or behavior. The external stimulus can be inherently linked to a cognition, e.g., the sight of a gun is inherently linked to the concept of aggression [ 5 ], or the external stimulus can be something inherently neutral like a particular ethnic group (e.g., African-American) that has become linked in the past to certain beliefs or behaviors (e.g., welfare). The primed concepts make behaviors linked to them more likely. When media violence primes aggressive concepts, aggression is more likely.

To the extent that mass media presentations arouse the observer, aggressive behavior may also become more likely in the short run for two possible reasons -- excitation transfer [ 6 ] and general arousal [ 7 ]. First, a subsequent stimulus that arouses an emotion (e.g. a provocation arousing anger) may be perceived as more severe than it is because some of the emotional response stimulated by the media presentation is miss-attributed as due to the provocation transfer. For example, immediately following an exciting media presentation, such excitation transfer could cause more aggressive responses to provocation. Alternatively, the increased general arousal stimulated by the media presentation may simply reach such a peak that inhibition of inappropriate responses is diminished, and dominant learned responses are displayed in social problem solving, e.g. direct instrumental aggression.

The third short term process, imitation of specific behaviors, can be viewed as a special case of the more general long-term process of observational learning [ 8 ]. In recent years evidence has accumulated that human and primate young have an innate tendency to mimic whomever they observe [ 9 ]. Observation of specific social behaviors around them increases the likelihood of children behaving exactly that way. Specifically, as children observe violent behavior, they are prone to mimic it. The neurological process through which this happens is not completely understood, but it seems likely that “mirror neurons,” which fire when either a behavior is observed or when the same behavior is acted out, play an important role [ 10 , 4 ].

Long-term Effects

Long term content effects, on the other hand, seem to be due to 1) more lasting observational learning of cognitions and behaviors (i.e., imitation of behaviors), and 2) activation and desensitization of emotional processes.

Observational learning

According to widely accepted social cognitive models, a person’s social behavior is controlled to a great extent by the interplay of the current situation with the person’s emotional state, their schemas about the world, their normative beliefs about what is appropriate, and the scripts for social behavior that they have learned [ 11 ]. During early, middle, and late childhood children encode in memory social scripts to guide behavior though observation of family, peers, community, and mass media. Consequently observed behaviors are imitated long after they are observed [ 10 ]. During this period, children’s social cognitive schemas about the world around them also are elaborated. For example, extensive observation of violence has been shown to bias children’s world schemas toward attributing hostility to others’ actions. Such attributions in turn increase the likelihood of children behaving aggressively [ 12 ]. As children mature further, normative beliefs about what social behaviors are appropriate become crystallized and begin to act as filters to limit inappropriate social behaviors [ 13 ]. These normative beliefs are influenced in part by children’s observation of the behaviors of those around them including those observed in the mass media.

Desensitization

Long-term socialization effects of the mass media are also quite likely increased by the way the mass media and video games affect emotions. Repeated exposures to emotionally activating media or video games can lead to habituation of certain natural emotional reactions. This process is called “desensitization.” Negative emotions experienced automatically by viewers in response to a particular violent or gory scene decline in intensity after many exposures [ 4 ]. For example, increased heart rates, perspiration, and self-reports of discomfort often accompany exposure to blood and gore. However, with repeated exposures, this negative emotional response habituates, and the child becomes “desensitized.” The child can then think about and plan proactive aggressive acts without experiencing negative affect [ 4 ].

Enactive learning

One more theoretical point is important. Observational learning and desensitization do not occur independently of other learning processes. Children are constantly being conditioned and reinforced to behave in certain ways, and this learning may occur during media interactions. For example, because players of violent video games are not just observers but also “active” participants in violent actions, and are generally reinforced for using violence to gain desired goals, the effects on stimulating long-term increases in violent behavior should be even greater for video games than for TV, movies, or internet displays of violence. At the same time, because some video games are played together by social groups (e.g., multi-person games) and because individual games may often be played together by peers, more complex social conditioning processes may be involved that have not yet been empirically examined. These effects, including effects of selection and involvement, need to be explored.

The Key Empirical Studies

Given this theoretical back ground, let us now examine the empirical research that indicates that childhood exposure to media violence has both short term and long term effects in stimulating aggression and violence in the viewer. Most of this research is on TV, movies, and video games, but from the theory above one can see that the same effects should occur for violence portrayed on various internet sites (e.g., multi-person game sites, video posting sites, chat rooms) and on handheld cell phones or computers.

Violence in Television, Films, and Video Games

The fact that most research on the impact of media violence on aggressive behavior has focused on violence in fictional television and film and video games is not surprising given the prominence of violent content in these media and the prominence of these media in children’s lives.

Children in the United States spend an average of between three and four hours per day viewing television [ 14 ], and the best studies have shown that over 60% of programs contain some violence, and about 40% of those contain heavy violence [ 15 ]. Children are also spending an increasingly large amount of time playing video games, most of which contain violence. Video game units are now present in 83% of homes with children [ 16 ]. In 2004, children spent 49 minutes per day playing video, and on any given day, 52% of children ages 8–18 years play a video game games [ 16 ]. Video game use peaks during middle childhood with an average of 65 minutes per day for 8–10 year-olds, and declines to 33 minutes per day for 15–18 year-olds [ 16 ]. And most of these games are violent; 94% of games rated (by the video game industry) as appropriate for teens are described as containing violence, and ratings by independent researchers suggest that the real percentage may be even higher [ 17 ]. No published study has quantified the violence in games rated ‘M’ for mature—presumably, these are even more likely to be violent.

Meta-analyses that average the effects observed in many studies provide the best overall estimates of the effects of media violence. Two particularly notable meta-analyses are those of Paik and Comstock [ 18 ] and Anderson and Bushman [ 19 ]. The Paik and Comstock meta-analysis focused on violent TV and films while the Anderson and Bushman meta-analysis focused on violent video games.

Paik and Comstock [ 18 ] examined effect sizes from 217 studies published between 1957 and 1990. For the randomized experiments they reviewed, Paik and Comstock found an average effect size ( r =.38, N=432 independent tests of hypotheses) which is moderate to large compared to other public health effects. When the analysis was limited to experiments on physical violence against a person, the average r was still .32 (N=71 independent tests). This meta-analysis also examined cross-sectional and longitudinal field surveys published between 1957 and 1990. For these studies the authors found an average r of .19 (N=410 independent tests). When only studies were used for which the dependent measure was actual physical aggression against another person (N=200), the effect size remained unchanged. Finally, the average correlation of media violence exposure with engaging in criminal violence was .13.

Anderson and Bushman [ 19 ] conducted the key meta-analyses on the effects of violent video games. Their meta-analyses revealed effect sizes for violent video games ranging from .15 to .30. Specifically, playing violent video games was related to increases in aggressive behavior ( r = .27), aggressive affect ( r =.19), aggressive cognitions (i.e., aggressive thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes), ( r =.27), and physiological arousal ( r = .22) and was related to decreases in prosocial (helping) behavior ( r = −.27). Furthermore, when studies were coded for the quality of their methodology, the best studies yielded larger effect sizes than the “not-best” studies.

One criticism sometimes leveled at meta-analyses is based on the “file drawer effect.” This refers to the fact that studies with “non-significant” results are less likely to be published and to appear in meta-analyses. However, one can correct for this problem by estimating how many “null-effect” studies it would take to change the results of the meta-analysis. This has been done with the above meta-analyses, and the numbers are very large. For example, Paik and Comstock [ 18 ] show that over 500,000 cases of null effects would have to exist in file drawers to change their overall conclusion of a significant positive relation between exposure to media violence and aggression.

While meta-analyses are good of obtaining a summary view of what the research shows, a better understanding of the research can be obtained by examining a few key specific studies in more detail.

Experiments

Generally, experiments have demonstrated that exposing people, especially children and youth, to violent behavior on film and TV increases the likelihood that they will behave aggressively immediately afterwards. In the typical paradigm, randomly selected individuals are shown either a violent or non-violent short film or TV program or play a violent or non-violent video game and are then observed as they have the opportunity to aggress. For children, this generally means playing with other children in situations that might stimulate conflict; for adults, it generally means participating in a competitive activity in which winning seems to involve inflicting pain on another person.

Children in such experiments who see the violent film clip or play the violent game typically behave more aggressively immediately afterwards than those viewing or playing nonviolence (20, 21, 22). For example, Josephson (22) randomly assigned 396 seven- to nine-year-old boys to watch either a violent or a nonviolent film before they played a game of floor hockey in school. Observers who did not know what movie any boy had seen recorded the number of times each boy physically attacked another boy during the game. Physical attack was defined to include hitting, elbowing, or shoving another player to the floor, as well as tripping, kneeing, and other assaultive behaviors that would be penalized in hockey. For some children, the referees carried a walkie-talkie, a specific cue that had appeared in the violent film that was expected to remind the boys of the movie they had seen earlier. For boys rated by their teacher as frequently aggressive, the combination of seeing a violent film and seeing the movie-associated cue stimulated significantly more assaultive behavior than any other combination of film and cue. Parallel results have been found in randomized experiments for preschoolers who physically attack each other more often after watching violent videos [ 21 ] and for older delinquent adolescents who get into more fights on days they see more violent films [ 23 ].

In a randomized experiment with violent video games, Irwin & Gross [ 24 ] assessed physical aggression (e.g., hitting, shoving, pinching, kicking) between boys who had just played either a violent or a nonviolent video game. Those who had played the violent video game were more physically aggressive toward peers. Other randomized experiments have measured college students’ propensity to be physically aggressive after they had played (or not played) a violent video game. For example, Bartholow &Anderson [ 25 ] found that male and female college students who had played a violent game subsequently delivered more than two and a half times as many high-intensity punishments to a peer as those who played a nonviolent video game. Other experiments have shown that it is the violence in video games, not the excitement that playing them provokes, that produces the increase in aggression [ 26 ].

In summary, experiments unambiguously show that viewing violent videos, films, cartoons, or TV dramas or playing violent video games “cause” the risk to go up that the observing child will behave seriously aggressively toward others immediately afterwards. This is true of preschoolers, elementary school children, high school children, college students, and adults. Those who watch the violent clips tend to behave more aggressively than those who view non-violent clips, and they adopt beliefs that are more “accepting” of violence [ 27 ].

One more quasi-experiment frequently cited by game manufacturers should be mentioned here. Williams and Skoric [ 28 ] have published the results of a dissertation study of cooperative online game playing by adults in which they report no significant long-term effects of playing a violent game on the adult’s behavior. However, the low statistical power of the study, the numerous methodological flaws (self-selection of a biased sample, lack of an adequate control group, the lack of adequate behavioral measures) make the validity of the study highly questionable. Furthermore, the participants were adults for whom there would be little theoretical reason to expect long-term effects.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies

Empirical cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of youth behaving and watching or playing violent media in their natural environments do not test causation as well as experiments do, but they provide strong evidence that the causal processes demonstrated in experiments generalize to violence observed in the real world and have significant effects on real world violent behavior. As reported in the discussion of meta-analyses above, the great majority of competently done one-shot survey studies have shown that children who watch more media violence day in and day out behave more aggressively day in and day out [ 18 ]. The relationship is less strong than that observed in laboratory experiments, but it is nonetheless large enough to be socially significant; the correlations obtained are usually are between .15 and .30. Moreover, the relation is highly replicable even across researchers who disagree about the reasons for the relationship [e.g., 29 ] and across countries [ 30 , 31 ].

Complementing these one-time survey studies are the longitudinal real-world studies that have shown correlations over time from childhood viewing of media violence to later adolescent and adult aggressive behavior [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]; for reviews see [ 4 , 27 , 33 ]. This studies have shown that early habitual exposure to media violence in middle-childhood predicts increased aggressiveness 1 year, 3 years, 10 years, 15 years, and 22 years later in adulthood, even controlling for early aggressiveness. On the other hand, behaving aggressively in childhood is a much weaker predictor of higher subsequent viewing of violence when initial violence viewing is controlled, making it implausible that the correlation between aggression and violent media use was primarily due to aggressive children turning to watching more violence [ 31 , 32 , 33 ]. As discussed below the pattern of results suggests that the strongest contribution to the correlation is the stimulation of aggression from exposure to media violence but that those behaving aggressively may also have a tendency to turn to watching more violence, leading to a downward spiral effect [ 13 ].

An example is illustrative. In a study of children interviewed each year for three years as they moved through middle childhood, Huesmann et al. [ 31 ] found increasing rates of aggression for both boys and girls who watched more television violence even with controls for initial aggressiveness and many other background factors. Children who identified with the portrayed aggressor and those who perceived the violence as realistic were especially likely to show these observational learning effects. A 15-year follow-up of these children [ 33 ] demonstrated that those who habitually watched more TV violence in their middle-childhood years grew up to be more aggressive young adults. For example, among children who were in the upper quartile on violence viewing in middle childhood, 11% of the males had been convicted of a crime (compared with 3% for other males), 42% had “pushed, grabbed, or shoved their spouse” in the past year (compared with 22% of other males), and 69% had “shoved a person” when made angry in the past year (compared with 50% of other males). For females, 39% of the high-violence-viewers had “thrown something at their spouse” in the past year (compared with 17% of the other females), and 17% had “punched, beaten, or choked” another adult when angry in the past year (compared with 4% of the other females). These effects were not attributable to any of a large set of child and parent characteristics including demographic factors, intelligence, parenting practices. Overall, for both males and females the effect of middle-childhood violence viewing on young adult aggression was significant even when controlling for their initial aggression. In contrast, the effect of middle-childhood aggression on adult violence viewing when controlling for initial violence viewing was not-significant, though it was positive.

Moderators of Media Violence Effects

Obviously, not all observers of violence are affected equally by what they observe at all times. Research has shown that the effects of media violence on children are moderated by situational characteristics of the presentation including how well it attracts and sustains attention, personal characteristics of the viewer including their aggressive predispositions, and characteristics of the physical and human context in which the children are exposed to violence.

In terms of plot characteristics, portraying violence as justified and showing rewards (or at least not showing punishments) for violence increase the effects that media violence has in stimulating aggression, particularly in the long run [ 27 , 36 , 37 ]. As for viewer characteristics that depend on perceptions of the plot, those viewers who perceive the violence as telling about life more like it really is and who identify more with the perpetrator of the violence are also stimulated more toward violent behavior in the long run [ 27 , 30 , 33 , 38 ]. Taken together these facts mean that violent acts by charismatic heroes, that appear justified and are rewarded, are the violent acts most likely to increase viewer’s aggression.

A number of researchers have suggested that, independently of the plot, viewers or game players who are already aggressive should be the only one’s affected. This is certainly not true. While the already aggressive child who watches or plays a lot of violent media may become the most aggressive young adult, the research shows that even initially unaggressive children are made more aggressive by viewing media violence [ 27 , 32 , 33 ]. Long term effects due appear to be stronger for younger children [ 3 , 14 ], but short term affects appear, if anything, stronger for older children [ 3 ] perhaps because one needs to have already learned aggressive scripts to have them primed by violent displays. While the effects appeared weaker for female 40 years ago [ 32 ], they appear equally strong today [ 33 ]. Finally, having a high IQ does not seem to protect a child against being influenced [ 27 ].

Mediators of Media Violence Effects

Most researchers believe that the long term effects of media violence depend on social cognitions that control social behavior being changed for the long run. More research needs to completed to identify all the mediators, but it seems clear that they include normative beliefs about what kinds of social behaviors are OK [ 4 , 13 , 27 ], world schemas that lead to hostile or non-hostile attributions about others intentions [ 4 , 12 , 27 ], and social scripts that automatically control social behavior once they are well learned [ 4 , 11 , 27 ].

This review marshals evidence that compelling points to the conclusion that media violence increases the risk significantly that a viewer or game player will behave more violently in the short run and in the long run. Randomized experiments demonstrate conclusively that exposure to media violence immediately increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior for children and adults in the short run. The most important underlying process for this effect is probably priming though mimicry and increased arousal also play important roles. The evidence from longitudinal field studies is also compelling that children’s exposure to violent electronic media including violent games leads to long-term increases in their risk for behaving aggressively and violently. These long-term effects are a consequence of the powerful observational learning and desensitization processes that neuroscientists and psychologists now understand occur automatically in the human child. Children automatically acquire scripts for the behaviors they observe around them in real life or in the media along with emotional reactions and social cognitions that support those behaviors. Social comparison processes also lead children to seek out others who behave similarly aggressively in the media or in real life leading to a downward spiral process that increases risk for violent behavior.

One valid remaining question is whether the size of this effect is large enough that one should consider it to be a public health threat. The answer seems to be “yes.” Two calculations support this conclusion. First, according to the best meta-analyses [ 18 , 19 ] the long term size of the effect of exposure to media violence in childhood on later aggressive or violent behavior is about equivalent to a correlation of .20 to .30. While some might argue that this explains only 4% to 9% of the individual variation in aggressive behavior, as several scholars have pointed out [ 39 , 40 ], percent variance explained is not a good statistic to use when predicting low probability events with high social costs. For example, a correlation of 0.3 with aggression translates into a change in the odds of aggression from 50/50 to 65/35 -- not a trivial change when one is dealing with life threatening behavior[ 40 ].

Secondly, the effect size of media violence is the same or larger than the effect size of many other recognized threats to public health. In Figure 1 from Bushman and Huesmann [ 41 ], the effect sizes for many common threats to public health are compared with the effect that media violence has on aggression. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer.

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The Relative Strength of Known Public Health Threats.

In summary, exposure to electronic media violence increases the risk of children and adults behaving aggressively in the short-run and of children behaving aggressively in the long-run. It increases the risk significantly, and it increases it as much as many other factors that are considered public health threats. As with many other public health threats, not every child who is exposed to this threat will acquire the affliction of violent behavior, and many will acquire the affliction who are not exposed to the threat. However, that does not diminish the need to address the threat.

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Essay on Media and Violence

Introduction

Research studies indicate that media causes violence and plays a role in desensitization, aggressive behavior, fear of harm, and nightmares. Examples of media platforms include movies, video games, television, and music. Violence in media has also been associated with health concerns. The youth have been the most common victims of media exposure and thus stand higher chances of exposure to violence (Anderson, 2016). In the contemporary world, violence in media platforms has been growing, reaching heightened levels, which is dangerous for society. When you turn on the television, there is violence, social media platforms; there is violence when you go to the movies; there is violence. Studies indicate that an average person in the United States watches videos for nearly five hours in a day. In addition, three-quarters of television content contain some form of violence, and the games being played today have elements of violence. This paper intends to evaluate the concept of media messages and their influence on violent and deviant behaviors. Television networks and video games will be considered.

The Netflix effect involves the behavior of staying home all day, ordering food, and relaxing the couch to watch Netflix programs (McDonald & Smith-Rowsey, 2016). Netflix and binge-watching have become popular among the younger generation and thus are exposed to different kinds of content being aired. Studies indicate that continuous exposure to violent materials has a negative effect on the aggressive behavior of individuals. Netflix is a global platform in the entertainment industry (Lobato, 2019). Although, the company does not have the rights to air in major countries such as China, India, and Japan, it has wide audience. One of the reasons for sanctions is the issues of content being aired by the platform, which may influence the behaviors of the young generation. The primary goal of Netflix is entertainment; it’s only the viewers who have developed specific effects that affect their violent behaviors through imitation of the content.

Television Networks

Television networks focus on feeding viewers with the latest updates on different happenings across the globe. In other instances, they focus on bringing up advertisements and entertainment programs. There is little room for violent messages and content in the networks unless they are airing movie programs, which also are intended for entertainment. However, there has been evidence in the violence effect witnessed in television networks. Studies called the “Marilyn Monroe effect” established that following the airing of many suicidal cases, there has been a growth in suicides among the population (Anderson, Bushman, Donnerstein, Hummer, & Warburton, 2015). Actual suicide cases increased by 2.5%, which is linked to news coverage regarding suicide. Additionally, some coverages are filled with violence descriptions, and their aftermath with may necessitate violent behaviors in the society. For instance, if televisions are covering mass demonstrations where several people have been killed, the news may trigger other protests in other parts of the country.

Communications scholars, however, dispute these effects and link the violent behaviors to the individuals’ perception. They argue that the proportion of witnessing violent content in television networks is minimal. Some acts of violence are associated with what the individual perceives and other psychological factors that are classified into social and non-social instigators (Anderson et al., 2015). Social instigators consist of social rejection, provocation, and unjust treatment. Nonsocial instigators are physical objects present, which include weapons or guns. Also, there are environmental factors that include loud noises, overcrowding, and heat. Therefore, there is more explanation of the causes of aggressive behaviors that are not initiated by television networks but rather a combination of biological and environmental factors.

Video games

Researchers have paid more attention to television networks and less on video games. Children spend more time playing video games. According to research, more than 52% of children play video games and spend about 49 minutes per day playing. Some of the games contain violent behaviors. Playing violent games among youth can cause aggressive behaviors. The acts of kicking, hitting, and pinching in the games have influenced physical aggression. However, communication scholars argue that there is no association between aggression and video games (Krahé & Busching, 2015). Researchers have used tools such as “Competition Reaction Time Test,” and “Hot Sauce Paradigm” to assess the aggression level. The “Hot Sauce Paradigm” participants were required to make hot sauce tor tasting. They were required to taste tester must finish the cup of the hot sauce in which the tester detests spicy products. It was concluded that the more the hot sauce testers added in the cup, the more aggressive they were deemed to be.

The “Competition Reaction Time Test” required individuals to compete with another in the next room. It was required to press a button fast as soon as the flashlight appeared. Whoever won was to discipline the opponent with loud noises. They could turn up the volume as high as they wanted. However, in reality, there was no person in the room; the game was to let individuals win half of the test. Researchers intended to test how far individuals would hold the dial. In theory, individuals who punish their opponents in cruel ways are perceived to be more aggressive. Another way to test violent behaviors for gamer was done by letting participants finish some words. For instance, “M_ _ _ ER,” if an individual completes the word as “Murder” rather than “Mother,” the character was considered to possess violent behavior (Allen & Anderson, 2017). In this regard, video games have been termed as entertainment ideologies, and the determination of the players is to win, no matter how brutal the game might be.

In this paper, fixed assumptions were used to correlate violent behaviors and media objects. But that was not the case with regards to the findings. A fixed model may not be appropriate in the examination of time-sensitive causes of dependent variables. Although the model is applicable for assessing specific entities in a given industry, the results may not be precise.

Conclusion .

Based on the findings of the paper, there is no relationship between violent behaviors and media. Netflix effect does not influence the behavior of individuals. The perceptions of the viewers and players is what matters, and how they understand the message being conveyed. Individuals usually play video games and watch televisions for entertainment purposes. The same case applies to the use of social media platforms and sports competitions. Even though there is violent content, individuals focus on the primary objective of their needs.

Analysis of sources

The sources have been thoroughly researched, and they provide essential information regarding the relationship between violent behaviors and media messages. Studies conducted by various authors like Krahé & Busching did not establish any relationship between the two variables. Allen & Anderson (2017) argue that the models for testing the two variables are unreliable and invalid. The fixed assumptions effect model was utilized, and its limitations have been discussed above. Therefore, the authors of these references have not been able to conclude whether there is a connection between violence and media messages.

Allen, J. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). General aggression model. The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects , 1-15.

Anderson, C. A. (2016). Media violence effects on children, adolescents and young adults. Health Progress , 97 (4), 59-62.

Anderson, C. A., Bushman, B. J., Donnerstein, E., Hummer, T. A., & Warburton, W. (2015). SPSSI research summary on media violence. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy , 15 (1), 4-19.

Krahé, B., & Busching, R. (2015). Breaking the vicious cycle of media violence use and aggression: A test of intervention effects over 30 months. Psychology of Violence , 5 (2), 217.

Lobato, R. (2019). Netflix nations: the geography of digital distribution . NYU Press.

McDonald, K., & Smith-Rowsey, D. (Eds.). (2016). The Netflix effect: Technology and entertainment in the 21st century . Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

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Thesis Statements about Social Media: 21 Examples and Tips

by Judy Jeni
January 27, 2024

Writing Thesis Statements Based On Social Media

A thesis statement is a sentence in the introduction paragraph of an essay that captures the purpose of the essay. Using thesis statements about social media as an example, I will guide you on how to write them well.

It can appear anywhere in the first paragraph of the essay but it is mostly preferred when it ends the introduction paragraph. learning how to write a thesis statement for your essay will keep you focused.

A thesis statement can be more than one sentence only when the essay is on complex topics and there is a need to break the statement into two. This means, a good thesis statement structures an essay and tells the reader what an essay is all about.

A good social media thesis statement should be about a specific aspect of social media and not just a broad view of the topic.

The statement should be on the last sentence of the first paragraph and should tell the reader about your stand on the social media issue you are presenting or arguing in the essay.

Reading an essay without a thesis statement is like solving a puzzle. Readers will have to read the conclusion to at least grasp what the essay is all about. It is therefore advisable to craft a thesis immediately after researching an essay.

Throughout your entire writing, every point in every paragraph should connect to the thesis. In case it doesn’t then probably you have diverged from the main issue of the essay.

How to Write a Thesis Statement?

Writing a thesis statement is important when writing an essay on any topic, not just about social media. It is the key to holding your ideas and arguments together into just one sentence.

The following are tips on how to write a good thesis statement:

Start With a Question and Develop an Answer

If the question is not provided, come up with your own. Start by deciding the topic and what you would like to find out about it.

Secondly, after doing some initial research on the topic find the answers to the topic that will help and guide the process of researching and writing.

Consequently, if you write a thesis statement that does not provide information about your research topic, you need to construct it again.

Be Specific

The main idea of your essay should be specific. Therefore, the thesis statement of your essay should not be vague. When your thesis statement is too general, the essay will try to incorporate a lot of ideas that can contribute to the loss of focus on the main ideas.

Similarly, specific and narrow thesis statements help concentrate your focus on evidence that supports your essay. In like manner, a specific thesis statement tells the reader directly what to expect in the essay.

Make the Argument Clear

Usually, essays with less than one thousand words require the statement to be clearer. Remember, the length of a thesis statement should be a single sentence, which calls for clarity.

In these short essays, you do not have the freedom to write long paragraphs that provide more information on the topic of the essay.

Likewise, multiple arguments are not accommodated. This is why the thesis statement needs to be clear to inform the reader of what your essay is all about.

If you proofread your essay and notice that the thesis statement is contrary to the points you have focused on, then revise it and make sure that it incorporates the main idea of the essay. Alternatively, when the thesis statement is okay, you will have to rewrite the body of your essay.

Question your Assumptions

Before formulating a thesis statement, ask yourself the basis of the arguments presented in the thesis statement.

Assumptions are what your reader assumes to be true before accepting an argument. Before you start, it is important to be aware of the target audience of your essay.

Thinking about the ways your argument may not hold up to the people who do not subscribe to your viewpoint is crucial.

Alongside, revise the arguments that may not hold up with the people who do not subscribe to your viewpoint.

Take a Strong Stand

A thesis statement should put forward a unique perspective on what your essay is about. Avoid using observations as thesis statements.

In addition, true common facts should be avoided. Make sure that the stance you take can be supported with credible facts and valid reasons.

Equally, don’t provide a summary, make a valid argument. If the first response of the reader is “how” and “why” the thesis statement is too open-ended and not strong enough.

Make Your Thesis Statement Seen

The thesis statement should be what the reader reads at the end of the first paragraph before proceeding to the body of the essay. understanding how to write a thesis statement, leaves your objective summarized.

Positioning may sometimes vary depending on the length of the introduction that the essay requires. However, do not overthink the thesis statement. In addition, do not write it with a lot of clever twists.

Do not exaggerate the stage setting of your argument. Clever and exaggerated thesis statements are weak. Consequently, they are not clear and concise.

Good thesis statements should concentrate on one main idea. Mixing up ideas in a thesis statement makes it vague. Read on how to write an essay thesis as part of the steps to write good essays.

A reader may easily get confused about what the essay is all about if it focuses on a lot of ideas. When your ideas are related, the relation should come out more clearly.

21 Examples of Thesis Statements about Social Media

Recently, social media is growing rapidly. Ironically, its use in remote areas has remained relatively low.
Social media has revolutionized communication but it is evenly killing it by limiting face-to-face communication.
Identically, social media has helped make work easier. However,at the same time it is promoting laziness and irresponsibility in society today.
The widespread use of social media and its influence has increased desperation, anxiety, and pressure among young youths.
Social media has made learning easier but its addiction can lead to bad grades among university students.
As a matter of fact, social media is contributing to the downfall of mainstream media. Many advertisements and news are accessed on social media platforms today.
Social media is a major promoter of immorality in society today with many platforms allowing sharing of inappropriate content.
Significantly, social media promotes copycat syndrome that positively and negatively impacts the behavior adapted by different users.
In this affluent era, social media has made life easy but consequently affects productivity and physical strength.
The growth of social media and its ability to reach more people increases growth in today’s business world.
The freedom on social media platforms is working against society with the recent increase in hate speech and racism.
Lack of proper verification when signing up on social media platforms has increased the number of minors using social media exposing them to cyberbullying and inappropriate content.
The freedom of posting anything on social media has landed many in trouble making the need to be cautious before posting anything important.
The widespread use of social media has contributed to the rise of insecurity in urban centers
Magazines and journals have spearheaded the appreciation of all body types but social media has increased the rate of body shaming in America.
To stop abuse on Facebook and Twitter the owners of these social media platforms must track any abusive post and upload and ban the users from accessing the apps.
Social media benefits marketing by creating brand recognition, increasing sales, and measuring success with analytics by tracking data.
Social media connects people around the globe and fosters new relationships and the sharing of ideas that did not exist before its inception.
The increased use of social media has led to the creation of business opportunities for people through social networking, particularly as social media influencers.
Learning is convenient through social media as students can connect with education systems and learning groups that make learning convenient.
With most people spending most of their free time glued to social media, quality time with family reduces leading to distance relationships and reduced love and closeness.

The Media and Sexual Violence Among Adolescents: Findings from a Qualitative Study of Educators Across Vietnam

Original Paper
Open access
Published: 10 May 2024

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Katherine M. Anderson ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9675-3653 1 ,
Alicia Macler 1 ,
Irina Bergenfeld ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2601-2854 2 ,
Quach Thu Trang 3 &
Kathryn M. Yount ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1917-1574 2 , 4

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Growing access to technology and media has presented new avenues of influence on youth attitudes and norms regarding sexuality and sexual violence, as well as new technological pathways through which to perpetrate sexual violence. The aim of this research was to understand contextual influences on and needs for scale-up of sexual violence prevention programming in the media-violence context of Vietnam. We conducted 45 interviews with high school teachers ( n = 15), university lecturers ( n = 15), and affiliates from youth-focused community service organizations ( n = 15) from across Vietnam. Additionally, we conducted four sector-specific focus groups with a sub-sample of interview participants ( k = 4, n = 22). Media and technology were brought up consistently in relation to sexual violence prevention and sexual health information. Key informants noted that, in Vietnam, generational differences in acceptability of sex and lack of comprehensive sexuality education intersect with new technological opportunities for exposure to sexual information and media. This creates a complex landscape that can promote sexual violence through priming processes, instigate mimicry of violent media, and presents new opportunities for the perpetration of sexual violence though technology. Development of comprehensive sexual education, including violence prevention education, is imperative, with consideration of age-specific needs for Vietnamese youth.

A Rights-Based Approach to Youth Sexting: Challenging Risk, Shame, and the Denial of Rights to Bodily and Sexual Expression Within Youth Digital Sexual Culture

Protecting Youth from Sexualized Media: Media Literacy

Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence Perpetration and Victimization Among Adolescents: A Network Analysis

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Prevalence of sexual violence globally in asia/pacific and in vietnam.

Sexual violence, defined as a sexual act committed or attempted in the absence of freely given consent, is a worldwide public health challenge (Basile et al., 2014 ). Sexual violence includes contact-based acts, such as non-consensual sexual intercourse, and non-contact-based acts, such as sexual harassment, unwanted exposure to sexual situations, and non-consensual filming and/or dissemination of explicit photographs (Basile et al., 2014 ). Globally, at least 35.6 percent of all women ages 15 years or older have reported experiencing sexual violence (World Health Organization (WHO), 2021 ). Men also may experience sexual violence; however, the global prevalence of exposure to sexual violence for men is much lower than for women (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation [IHME], 2017 ). Moreover, men are shown to perpetrate the majority of instances of sexual violence (James-Hawkins et al., 2019 ). Survivors of sexual violence are at heightened risk of experiencing immediate and long-term negative physical and mental health outcomes, as well as adverse social outcomes, such as diminished academic achievement (Amar & Gennaro, 2005 ; Fielding-Miller et al., 2021 ; Gonzales et al., 2005 ).

Southeast Asia has a high lifetime prevalence of physical or sexual violence by a partner or sexual violence by a non-partner; over 34% of women ages 15 to 49 in Southeast Asia report at least one of these experiences (WHO, 2021 ). In select countries of the Asia–Pacific region, 24.3% of men reported ever perpetrating sexual partner violence, and 10.9% of men had perpetrated non-partner rape in their lifetime (Fulu et al., 2013 ). Of men who reported non-partner rape, 57.6% reported perpetrating rape more than one time (Fulu et al., 2013 ). In Vietnam, sexual violence remains understudied and likely under-reported, though the available data suggest that sexual violence victimization is widespread (Pham, 2015 ; Winzer et al., 2019 ). According to the 2019 Vietnam survey of violence against women, 13.3% of women reported ever experiencing sexual violence by a husband or partner, and 9.0% reported ever experiencing sexual violence by a non-partner (MOLISA & UNFPA, 2020 ). However, other estimates gauge sexual violence victimization as more pervasive, with almost 20% of women 20 to 24 years reporting sexual violence victimization since the age of 15 (Le et al., 2019 ). Across age groups, adolescent women 15–19 years and young women 20–24 years are reported to experience the highest and second highest rates of non-partner sexual violence since age 15, at 24% and 17%, respectively (MOLISA & UNFPA, 2020 ).

Theories of Media and Violence

Several theories exist to explain how media influences cognition and behavior (Valkenburg et al., 2016 ), with variation by context, modality of the media, and predisposing personal factors. These include routine activity theory, which posits that individuals can be motivated to enact violence or another crime when an available victim, an offender, and the absence of a protective force or guardian for the potential victim converge (Aizenkot, 2022 ; Kumar et al., 2021 ; Madero-Hernandez & Fisher, 2012 ; Räsänen et al., 2016 ; Van Ouytsel et al., 2018 ) and social ecology theory, which emphasizes the role of the social environment (Lou et al., 2012 ; Stokols, 1992 ).

For purposes of the current analysis, we are informed by a combination of theories that conceptually overlap and build upon each other, including mimicry, sexual script theory, social cognitive theory, and cultivation theory. In the immediate aftermath of media exposure to violence, enacted violence is thought to operate through priming processes, arousal processes, and mimicking behaviors (Huesmann, 2007 ). The third of these, mimicry, is the imitation of behaviors seen in media (Huesmann, 2007 ), and is a common theme in theories of violence. Sexual script theory embraces the concept of mimicry by asserting that individuals model their sexual expectations, norms, desires, and decisions after portrayals of sex in their culture, such as in media (Wiederman, 2015 ), while social cognitive theory and social learning theory employ the similar concept of observational learning (Bandura, 2001 ; Bandura & Walters, 1977 ). Both social cognitive theory and social learning theory have been applied to the context of media, sexual activity, and violence (Brem et al., 2021 ; Hedrick, 2021 ; Hust et al., 2019 ; Marshall et al., 2021 ; Sun et al., 2016 ; Walker, 2021 ). Youth employ observational learning regularly as part of development (Fryling et al., 2011 ), including in cases of observed violence (Flannery et al., 2007 ). Observational learning typically occurs over time (Bandura, 2008 ), with replication of observed behaviors lasting well beyond the observed event (Fryling et al., 2011 ). According to cultivation theory, which also has been applied to media-violence research (Hedrick, 2021 ; Moorman, 2022 ), greater and repeated use of media is associated with greater acceptance of the norms and beliefs conveyed by that media (Morgan et al., 2014 ). Compounding this, repeated observation of arousing content can, in turn, cause desensitization, in which negative reactions to events like violence can become dampened over time, allowing viewing or participation in violence without negative affect (Huesmann, 2007 ). Notably, these theories lack significant consideration of youth as critical thinkers, with the assumption that they absorb witnessed behaviors with limited processing prior to reenactment. Literature supports more complex processes, such as emotion regulation and rumination (Brimmel et al., 2023 ; Felix et al., 2022 ; McComb & Mills, 2021 ), which we acknowledge and consider in our theoretical approach.

Pathways to Sexual Knowledge and Violence: Media Exposure and Use

Paradoxically, the global rise of technological connectivity has created new pathways to access sexual information and to execute sexual violence, the impacts of which may not be fully captured by existing data. Technology increasingly is used to access mass media sources, including informational media, such as news and informational websites, social media, such as social networking sites, or entertainment media, such as films. Most adolescents and young adults use the internet for health information-seeking (Buhi et al., 2009 ; Santor et al., 2007 ), with sexual health searched more often than any other health topic (Buhi et al., 2009 ). For many, the internet is the primary source of information, even with recognition that schools and medical professions may be better sources of information (Shih et al., 2015 ).

In Southeast Asia, an estimated 17% of individuals have used media to learn about sex (Gesselman et al., 2020 ). This gathering of information may lead to positive, neutral, or negative information about sex, to the extent that informational media and entertainment media may contribute indirectly to sexually violent behaviors, wherein content may reinforce harmful normative beliefs about sexual violence and may normalize or even promote contact- and non-contact forms of sexually violent behavior. This is aligned with theory of priming processes, wherein associations made in media are impressed upon viewers. Mobile sex-tech is technology used to enhance sexuality through information and connections with other people, such as through dating apps, among other activities (Gesselman et al., 2020 ). Sex-tech can be used for finding dating or sexual partners, and sending sexual images, videos, or message to others, known as sexting. In one study, an estimated 28.3% of individuals in Southeast Asia reported ever using sex-tech to find a sexual partner, and 60.1% had engaged in sexting, with approximately 45% having sent images and 28% having send videos (Gesselman et al., 2020 ). The anonymity of some of these platforms, as well as the independence with which they can be accessed by youth may lead to circumstances described by routine action theory, in which a lack of authority represents an opportunity for unhealthy action.

The rapid proliferation of internet and phone access also has vastly increased access to media that may contain biased framing of sexual violence, or sexually explicitly material (SEM), media demonstrating sexual acts, but not necessarily violent sexual acts (Owens et al., 2012 ; Peter & Valkenburg, 2016 ). An analysis of representation of sexual violence in German online news media found the perpetuation of rape myths and the portrayal of victims as weak and passive women (Schwark, 2017 ). In a study of English-language news articles from Pakistan, India, and the UK, it was found that gender-based violence messaging focused on rape, rather than sexual violence more broadly (Manzoor et al., 2023 ). Both studies demonstrate how prevailing ideologies normalizing sexual violence and minimizing different types of sexual violence may be perpetuated. While estimates of adolescent exposure to SEM vary globally (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016 ), studies in urban Vietnam confirm that large majorities of adolescents and emerging adults access SEM. A recent national study found that 84% of adolescents 15–18 years had ever been exposed to SEM (Nguyen et al., 2021 ), and a study of first-year male University students in Hanoi found that 41% had been exposed to media-based violent SEM in the prior 6 months (Bergenfeld et al., 2022a ). Direct viewing of this content may provoke mimicry of violence by viewers, in alignment with sexual script theory. Notably, exposure to SEM may occur through passive intake or through active seeking of explicit materials. A 2011 analysis demonstrated that 83% of the top 20 Nielsen-rated adolescent television shows contained SEM (Neilsen Company, 2011 ), while a more recent content analysis of popular Western television shows watched by teens and young adults reached similar conclusions about the common nature of sexual violence and sexual abuse (Kinsler et al., 2019 ). Other avenues for passive exposure to SEM include video games, music, music videos, and films (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016 ). In studies of pornography, which is inherently explicit and often actively sought out, 88% of videos included physical aggression or violence towards women (Bridges et al., 2010 ; Foubert et al., 2011 ). These represent additional opportunities for priming of the association of sex with violence, with cultivation theory suggesting that repeated use increases the likelihood of adopting the beliefs presented in media.

Some of these paths of exposure to media on sexual violence also are tools for sexually violent behavior. Initially consensual sexting may quickly transition to unwanted exposure to sexual images or videos if one party does not seek consent. Informational and social media forums to share comments can become a vehicle for written sexual harassment of an individual. Images or videos shared consensually with a partner can be harnessed for blackmail or nonconsensual sharing via media. These direct, non-contact forms of sexually violent behavior are known as Technology Facilitated Sexual Violence (TFSV). They may include the distribution of explicit photographs and videos without consent, the sharing of unsolicited explicit content, and the use of online platforms for sexual harassment (Powell & Henry, 2019 ). In some western countries, lifetime TFSV exposure may be as high as 17% (Patel & Roesch, 2022 ), with higher prevalence among youth (Gámez-Guadix et al., 2015 ; Powell & Henry, 2019 ). Moreover, social media provides opportunities to facilitate in-person contact and non-contact sexual violence. Conversations on social media, both anonymous and not, may become an opportunity to convince someone to have an in-person meeting, either consensually or through manipulation of power dynamics; one party may have the intent of perpetrating sexual violence, physically, through nonconsensual documentation of sexual behavior, or through other means.

Harms of Media/Technology on Violent Attitudes and Behavior

A growing body of evidence supports the harmful outcomes related to sexual material in media/technology, including the perpetuation of inequitable gender roles, rape mythology, negative self-worth, and sexually violent behavior. Several harmful outcomes also are associated with TFSV victimization, including technology use related to sex generally, such as sexting. In a Hong Kong-based study, individuals who took part in sexting had higher levels of body surveillance and shame than those who did not (Liong & Cheng, 2019 ); in some settings, youth may frame TFSV in dating relationships, such as demands to engage in sexting, as requests for “proof of love” (Fernet et al., 2023 ). Sexting itself has been associated with risky sexual behavior, substance use, depression (Gesselman et al., 2020 ) and self-harm among adolescents (Wachs et al., 2021 ).

In Western countries, exposure to SEM and especially violent SEM has been associated with more accepting attitudes about sexual violence and with sexually violent behavior (Rodenhizer & Edwards, 2019 ). In the global West and Asia, such exposure is associated with permissive sexual attitudes and gender-stereotypical sexual beliefs among adolescents (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016 ). Across studies, male study participants’ attitudes and behaviors regarding sexual and domestic violence were more strongly affected by exposure than females’ (Rodenhizer & Edwards, 2019 ). A recent meta-analysis found that greater overall media consumption was associated with higher rape myth acceptance (Hedrick, 2021 ), with general pornography, violent pornography, and sports media accounting for most of this association. In a recent longitudinal study in Vietnam, a dose–response relationship was observed between the frequency of exposure to violent SEM with non-contact and contact sexually violent (Bergenfeld et al., 2022a ).

Benefits of Media/Technology for Violence Prevention

Conversely, access and exposure to information on safe sexual behavior and the prevention of sexual violence can lead to positive outcomes among adolescents. Qualitative studies of women in the USA, Canada, and India have suggested that women who access non-violent sexual content associated this exposure with positive sexual exploration and development of sexual identity, opportunities for sex-positive education and exploration of readiness for sex, improved sexual connectedness in relationships, normalization of sexual desires, and improved acceptance of their bodies and sexualities (Arrington-Sanders et al., 2015 ; Attwood et al., 2018 ; Chowkhani, 2016 ; McKeown et al., 2018 ). Two qualitative studies conducted in urban Thailand and Vietnam found that adolescent girls use social media to develop their sexuality, express desires, and exercise sexual agency in settings where female expressions of sexuality are restricted and access to accurate sexual information is limited (Boonmongkon et al., 2013 ; Fongkaew & Fongkaew, 2016 ; Ngo et al., 2008 ). In a Hong Kong-based study, individuals who had participated in sexting had more comfort with nudity (Fernet et al., 2023 ), and sexting generally may contribute to increased emotional connection and satisfaction in relationships as well as freedom of sexual expression (Gesselman et al., 2020 ).

Social media also may provide a space for people to share sexual experiences and to seek support. In Hong Kong, “confessional” social media pages have enabled users to ask questions, seek advice around sex from peers, and receive peer support (Yeo & Chu, 2017 ). Social support, in turn, may indirectly reduce the risk of sexual violence victimization (Ybarra et al., 2015 ). In recent years, social media has been used strategically to disclose experiences of sexual violence and to provide social support to survivors (Alaggia & Wang, 2020 ), though some studies find that survivors of sexual violence do not reap the same benefits of public sharing of experiences as much as individuals who experienced less stigmatized trauma, such as a natural disaster (Delker et al., 2020 ). Also, the survivors of sexual violence may interpret and identify their experiences differently based on prevalence of sexual violence cases in the media (Newins et al., 2021 ).

Various forms of media have served as a tool to disseminate widely accurate and relevant information about sex and sexual violence to teen audiences (Todaro et al., 2018 ). Young people have cited increased comfort accessing information about sex online compared to other mediums (Lim et al., 2014 ), and reduced embarrassment for adolescents who are uncomfortable discussing sex with their parents (Lou et al., 2012 ). Qualitative research in Vietnam has found that parents would like accessible information about sex on the internet (Do et al., 2017 ). Numerous technology-based interventions relating to sexual violence exist, however, only a portion include content relating to violence prevention, rather than identification or survivor support, and those that do are largely focused on North America (Huang et al., 2022 ). In one systematic review of mobile sex-tech, which included 15 articles of technology-related interventions with sexual violence information, only 27% contained content on sexual violence prevention, and none contained information on the impacts of sexual violence (Huang et al., 2016 ). Nevertheless, two systematic reviews of tech-based interventions for intimate partner violence (IPV) found that IPV prevention in combination with access to telehealth services showed promise to reduce the risk of violence victimization (Anderson et al., 2021 ; El Morr & Layal, 2020 ), while a third did not identify any significant effects (Linde et al., 2020 ). Notably, the reviewed studies focused on interventions with women as potential victims, rather than men as potential perpetrators (Huang et al., 2022 ). While careful development is essential to prevent unintended consequences, such as increasing adherence to rape myths (Nicolla & Lazard, 2023 ), online programming in the U.S. and Vietnam have been successful in decreasing sexually violent behavior among university men (Yount et al., 2023b ; Salazar et al., 2014 ; Yount et al., 2020 ). In a randomized controlled trial of an “edutainment” program to reduce sexual violence, program participants had increased knowledge of the illegality of sexual violence and increased victim empathy (Yount et al., 2022 ), through which Vietnamese men had lower odds of past-year sexually violence behavior after program participation (Yount et al., 2023b ; Yount et al., 2020 ). This may demonstrate a pathway to reduced sexually violent behavior through the effective use of media with young people.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate the state of media usage relating to sexual violence among Vietnamese youth, according to educational and programmatic partners across Vietnam, using the research question “What is the perceived influence of social media on sexual violence among youth according to educators in Vietnam?” Further, we seek to describe the implications of media usage relating to sex and sexual violence, both positive and negative, and identify lessons and pathways to improve sexual health and sexual violence programming for Vietnamese youth. While literature is available on media, sex, and sexual violence globally and broadly in Southeast Asia, little of this research focuses on Vietnam specifically, and little from the perspective and framing of implementation of sexual violence prevention. This information may allow for effective, targeted programming and/or engagement in media to reduce sexual violence and promote gender equitable attitudes among youth.

Vietnam, located in Southeast Asia, is home to 96 million people, and 13.70% of the population are aged 15 to 24 years (General Statistical Office [GSO] of Vietnam, 2020 ). Fifty-four recognized ethnic groups are represented within the population of Vietnam, with 85% of individuals self-identifying as Kinh (Hiwasaki & Minh, 2022 ). Currently classified as a lower middle-income country, Vietnam’s population typically still resides in rural areas (70%) (World Bank, 2022 ); however, Vietnam has seen steady economic growth and diversification over the past 20 years, alongside declines in poverty (Do et al., 2021 ; Nguyen et al., 2020 ). Literacy is almost universal, and the gender gap in number of years of schooling is relatively narrow (United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 2022 ) though women less often participate in the workforce than men (69% v. 79%), and working women earn substantially less than their male counterparts (United Nations Development Program [UNDP]), 2022 ).

Nearly all individuals in urban and rural settings have access to electricity, and most (70%) of the Vietnamese population has access to the internet (Mobile Marketing Association, 2019 ). In 2019, there were 141 phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, and nearly all internet users are estimated to own a smartphone, such that over 80% of the population over age 15 is connected to online content (Mobile Marketing Association, 2019 ). Approximately 68% of the rural population own a smartphone, and as of 2019, was connected to the internet an average of 3 hours per day; of which 40% was spent on messaging apps in communication with others (Mobile Marketing Association, 2019 ).

As of 2019, 90% of young adults (18–29 years old) in Vietnam were using smartphones (Silver et al., 2019 ), while 72 million people (accounting for 73.7% of the population) use social media in Vietnam. Between January 2020 and January 2021 alone, the number of Vietnam’s social media users increased approximately by 10.8% (2021). Approximately 65% of Vietnamese youth (aged 16–30, N = 1200) use the internet daily; a study of social media use among Vietnamese youth engage with social media for an average of 4.3 hours a day and primarily use it to talk with friends and receive updated news (Doan et al., 2022 ). Commonly used applications include Facebook, YouTube, and Zalo, with interactivity on YouTube and Zalo being highest with news and entertainment accounts (Doan et al., 2022 ; Hanns Seidel Foundation, 2021 ).

Social media in Vietnam is currently regulated under the Law on Cyber Security (National Assembly of Vietnam, 2018 ), and the Decision 874/QD-BTTTT (2021) on the Code of Conduct on social media, to protect “the national security,” relating to “moral values, culture, and traditions of Vietnamese people” (Ministry of Information & Communications, 2021 ; My, 2022 ) While no specific definition of these terms is provided, Decree 15/2020/ND-CP outlines financial punishment of 10 million VND to 20 million VND ($500—$1,000) for violation of regulations on use of social media, including “promoting bad customs, superstition, lustful materials which are not suitable for the nation’s fine customs and traditions.” In sum, access to smartphones, online media, and networking apps are widespread in Vietnam, particularly among youth, and laws regulating access to online content are nascent.

Participants

Recruitment strategies are described elsewhere (Yount et al., 2023a ). In brief, a multi-pronged approach was used to identify key informants from universities, high schools, and civil society organizations (CSOs) who conduct programs related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Once initial potential participants were contacted, the research team employed snowball sampling to diversify the participant pool, with consideration to institutional setting (university, high school, CSO), region of Vietnam in which the institution was located (North, Central, South), and gender.

Participants were invited via email to complete interviews until a total sample of 45 was achieved, with an even distribution of 15 participants each from university, high school, and CSO settings. Of 45 interviewed participants, 32 were invited to participate in focus groups, based on their knowledge of sexual violence programming. A total of 22 individuals agreed to participate in focus group discussions, resulting in four focus groups: one with high school teachers ( n = 7), two with university lecturers ( n = 6 and n = 3), and one with key informants from CSOs ( n = 6).

Measures and Procedure

We conducted a qualitative study of key informants from high schools, universities, and civil society organizations (CSOs) across all regions of Vietnam, which included in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, a mixed-methods approach which is useful for research that has multiple objectives (Hennink et al., 2020 ). Overarching findings from the parent study are presented elsewhere (Yount et al., 2023a ). This analysis focuses on narrative segments related to the media, which was identified as a highly salient theme worthy of a separate, in-depth analysis.

In the parent qualitative study, the binational research team developed three guides for data collection. A semi-structured key informant interview guide contained open-ended questions about sexual violence among youth populations; gender and sexual norms among youth populations; causes, effects, and strategies to prevent sexual violence among youth; and factors influencing sexual violence prevention programming. Interviews were chosen to reduce social desirability bias, as recommended when discussing sensitive topics (Hennink et al., 2020 ). Two guides were developed for use in focus group discussions. Focus groups were selected for this objective as they allow for the identification of a range of perspectives and facilitate the justification of ideas (Hennink et al., 2020 ). First, a viewing guide elicited opinions and responses to the web-based sexual violence prevention program, GlobalConsent (Yount et al., 2022 ). The guide asked participants to rate on a five-point scale the feasibility and acceptability of program elements, and to elaborate upon their reasoning for the rating. The focus group facilitator collected the completed guides and used them in combination with a focus group guide to prompt discussion during the focus groups. The focus group guide aligned with the domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) (Damschroder et al., 2009 ). Questions were open-ended and assessed facilitators and barriers to sexual violence prevention programming, with prompts drawn from feedback in the viewing guide. This method was used to ascertain consensus, when possible. Of note, none of the data collection guides contained direct questions about social media, internet use, or technology-based sexual violence information dissemination other than reference to GlobalConsent. When participants raised these topics, facilitators asked follow-up questions to elucidate their opinions and experiences. All data collection forms have been previously published and are publicly available (Yount et al., 2023a ).

All data were collected using audio calls through the Zoom videoconferencing system. Two research staff members trained in qualitative research methods from the Center for Creative Initiatives in Health and Population completed data collection. At the beginning of each interview or focus group, the staff members explained the purpose of the study and reminded participants that they would not be asking for any private or potentially sensitive personal information. All interviews and focus groups were recorded using the Zoom videoconference platform. Interviews lasted 45–90 min, and focus groups lasted 120–150 min. Upon completion of data collection, interview participants were compensated with $20 USD. Focus group participants were compensated $30 USD for viewing GlobalConsent and completing the viewing guide materials, and $20 USD for participating in the focus group discussion.

Data Analysis

Data collectors saved digital recordings on a password-protected cloud-based research drive, and a professional transcription service transcribed all recordings verbatim. The research team verified random sections of the Vietnamese transcriptions against the original recordings. Verified Vietnamese transcripts then were translated into English, and a research team member proficient in the Vietnamese and English languages and cultures checked random segments of the English transcripts against the Vietnamese transcripts for accuracy of the translation and its meaning as intended in the original Vietnamese. Audio recordings were destroyed following quality checks of the written transcripts and translations.

Study team members analyzed the English transcripts using deductive and inductive techniques to identify initial themes and media-related sub-themes. Two doctoral-level study team members developed a codebook based on the interview guides and CFIR domains, inclusive of definitions, and revised it iteratively following repeated readings by other study team members. Team-based coding was used to code each transcript in MaxQDA.

All content related to media originally was coded using a single broad inductive code in the first round of coding. For this analysis, all coded segments related to media then were extracted and saved in a single document. Two graduate-level trained researchers independently reviewed this document to identify inductive sub-themes applicable to the data. The researchers then met to discuss the inductive sub-themes, reconcile discrepancies through inter-coder agreement, and to review the need for further theme identification. This latter step ultimately was not taken due to the high level of concurrence between the initially identified inductive subthemes. Inter-coder reliability was not calculated to avoid implied objectivity or undue precision (O’Connor & Joffe, 2020 ).

Finally, the coders created a salience matrix to visualize the presence or absence of each theme within each transcript, in order to qualitatively and quantitatively represent the salience of each them across all transcripts. Representative quotes for each sub-theme were identified to contextualize the findings with sector and gender of interview participants, and sector only for focus group participants, as statements were not individually identifiable in the focus groups. Participant characteristics are reported in Table 1 .

Accessibility and Quality of Information about Sex and Sexual Relationships

Many community partners, including more than half of participants employed as university lecturers or CSO affiliates, noted that media is highly accessible to young people in Vietnam, particularly through the internet, such that information about sex and sexual relationships can be easily found. Further, according to many participants, students seek out information independently, rather than rely upon schools to provide information. According to one participant, “Young people now have access to information easily, so they can learn things themselves. When we …distribute free condoms to advocate for safe sex, it comes to my surprise that students actually know about condoms” (University Lecturer, Woman). Another participant clarified that easy access to information about sex was generally a benefit of media access, specifically for young women, “ … nowadays, I think with the age of technology development, it would be easy for [young people] to look for information to help protect themselves [from unwanted pregnancy]” (University Lecturer, Woman).

A few participants described this high general access to information about sex as empowering for young people in Vietnam. One participant stated, for example, that “When they [the youth] need information, they are very proactive and find it very quickly themselves” (University Lecturer, Woman). However, several participants, and particularly participants affiliated with CSOs, expressed concern that the quality of available information on sex and sexual relationships is variable, and some “unregulated” available content may be inaccurate and may lack the comprehensiveness that adolescents need. One participant shared, “In recent years, access to the internet makes it easy for people to retrieve a lot of information, including unregulated ones, especially for adolescents and youth. People are not fully informed” (CSO Affiliate, Woman). Elaborating on this potential for youth to gain incomplete knowledge through internet sources, another participant noted, “…I can see that the young generation has learnt on their own via the internet … even though the young have somewhat an understanding about safer sex, their source of information is not adequate and they still lack orientation” (University Lecturer, Woman). This lack of orientation was seen as an important barrier to the practice of safe and consensual sex.

A few participants expressed additional concern about the volume and appropriateness of information available online, given the lack of formal sex/sexuality education, and given the willingness of students to actively see information themselves: “…sometimes the information is too much for them. …there really isn't anyone to teach them the skills to say no. So really they mostly depend on their instinct or information that they find out on their own rather than having orientation” (University Lecturer, Woman). When the information availabe online is “too much,” according to some participants, students may experience potentially harmful outcomes. Participants discussed how the abundance of ostensibly tempting, unregulated, and confusing information could overwhelm youth seeking information, with one participant explaining, “[online] we also receive many opinions, different kinds of feedback, even some pages, organizations, and activists …. I think it [creates] a rather chaotic environment …[Youth] can feel confused since they don't know which side to take, they are not sure which side is the right one” (CSO Affiliate, Woman).

About one third of participants from high school and university settings attributed this confusion to the lack of up-to-date “official” information, with one lecturer noting, “they have too much information and couldn’t find any official information,” calling the available official sources of information “extremely limited and old school” (University Lecturer, Woman). Many paricipants believed such official information was vital to provide young people with accurate information about sex. A CSO-affiliated participant shared,

Now it's easy, everyone has a smartphone. Google does not charge, so just google it. ... However, [youth] are not sure which document is official and standard. What they need the most is the most up-to-date materials with information and knowledge constantly updated. The source of information must be official and in accordance with the standards. (CSO Affiliate, Woman )

Despite substantial agreement across participants that youth needed more access to “official” information about sex, the meaning of “official” in the context of information on sex in the media varied. One participant distinguished information from medical sources and that from the government and schools, with the latter sources being indicated as preferrable, while medical sources, such as hospitals, may contribute to the potentially overwhelming, “unregulated” information online: “There are also many video clips or guideline on other social networks… Some hospitals also post these contents, both foreign and Vietnamese. [It’s] available, but maybe there’re too many, with no sources from the Government or schools.” (CSO Affiliate, Woman)

Other participants echoed the idea of “official” sources originating with the government, with one stating, “…online, I have not seen much. Besides, I think there is no official training program [on this topic] by the Ministry of Education yet” (CSO Affiliate, Woman). The absence of an official training program complicated the role of schools and universities, who were noted as potentially playing a significant role in the dissemination of information, but only once it exists: “And when the information is official, it will be shared by the school, the university, or the student community. It is also considered an official channel” (CSO Affiliate, Woman). Only one participant discussed non-governmental organizations as a source for “official” information: “If we talk about official sources of information, it is definitely the type of absolutely official sources like UNWOMEN or …multinational organizations working on gender. They provide much more credible information” (CSO Affiliate, Woman).

Media Depictions of Sexual Activity and Normalization of Sexual Violence

Some participants noted the lack of official information regarding sex and sexual relationships as intersecting meaningfully with narrow, sensational depictions of sexual violence and the normalization of sexual coercion, non-consent, and sugar-daddy relationships in the media. These depictions were described as occurring in the news media, television, and in online media content, including but not limited to pornography. One participant shared that the news media was not adept at conveying the complex nuances of sexual consent, arguing that this source of information was “unable to distinguish at a more delicate level, that things may start out as consensual, but could become non-consensual later” (University Lecturer, Woman). Only extreme cases of sexual violence were cited as worth covering by news media, masking other forms of sexual violence. As a focus-group discussion participant explained, “[the news media] only care about the major events … if there is a case where the students …make a girl to drink and it leads to a rape, and that spreads among students… [the media] will immediately jump in to investigate and interview” (University Lecturer). Further, according to another participant, the news media’s presentation of information on cases of sexual violence often ignore the voices and experiences of women and experts in the field.

Some participants also described the silencing of women’s experiences relating to sex and sexual violence as common in the movies. Some participants described movies from Southeast Asia as reinforcing rigid gender stereotypes, including women’s passivity and submission to masculine coercion, as well as the normalization of non-consent. A CSO affiliate shared, “…for example, in Chinese and Korean dramas, we may see scenes where the female character doesn't like it, but the male keeps kissing, and then, in the end, those two have a sweet night. I feel such things are injected into girls’ heads” (CSO Affiliate, Woman). One high-school teacher corroborated the above depiction of sex in Southeast Asian movies in this way:

…in Korean/Chinese movies or love novels that the young usually read and watch, the main characters typically force their partner into having unwanted sex or physical contacts, such as hugs or kisses. Consequently, the readers form a notion that it is okay for the male to force such activities, and the female does like it. (High School Teacher, Woman)

Reinforcing the normalization of sexual violence and non-consent in mainstream movies available to Vietnamese youth, some participants, particularly university lecturers, discussed how pornography contains harmful depictions of sexual activity that they believe drives a desire among men to imitate, including violent behaviors or behaviors that would make female partners uncomfortable. As demonstrated by the experiences of one university lecturer, exposure to pornographic material was expansive, and occurred from a young age:

…men from old to young have seen this type of [sexually explicit] film and are influenced by the erotic and sadistic elements in the film. These factors often stimulate the curiosity of men and make them want to try more. Young people are especially curious about this issue. I once did a project to provide computers for elementary schools …after 6 months of operation, when I accessed the search history, there were many pornographic websites in it. The 5th graders at that school watched sex movies. Even though they did not type the right words, they still watched and even discussed the contents of the movies. (University Lecturer, Man)

Some participants believed that youth generally were not aware that violent actions portrayed in such movies would be considered sexual violence, but rather normal sexual encounters that should be used as a guide. One university lecturer stated, “…young people think that if they do the same thing [as pornography], they will be professional, and this mindset causes young people to commit acts of sexual violence that they themselves do not know,” (University Lecturer, Woman). Several participants emphasized that the risk of imitating sexually explicit material, and at times violent sexually explicit material, was heightened because official information about healthy sexual relationships was lacking and so could not counter adolescents’ interpretations of SEM as normal forms of sexual interaction.

Concurrently, some participants, and particularly high school teachers, perceived a rise in portrayals of transactional sex in online media that capitalize on gender-stereotypical roles and economic power imbalances, particularly manifesting in “sugar-daddy” relationships among young people. One CSO affiliate shared, “… the most current trend [on dating apps] is sugar-daddy and sugar-mommy, which is why people nowadays joke that formerly, you could only purchase a single ticket for one-night stands, but now you can purchase a multiple-round ticket.” (CSO Affiliate, Woman). According to one high school teacher’s experience, sugar-daddy and sugar-mommy relationships were normalized in online media: “Last year, for example, there were so many cases of sugar babies—sugar daddies. They even made short clips to gain views and likes and created videos to post on YouTube to make money.” (High School Teacher, Woman). Another participant from a CSO contrasted her own personal experiences with those of youth only a few years younger: “My age is pretty close to them [but] when I was their age, those types of [transactional] relationships weren’t that common around me and not on the media either. Now it’s much more popular in the media…. These things are normalized because it’s common among young people” (CSO Affiliate, Woman).

Mixed Consequences and Opportunities from Young People’s Engagement with Media

To many focus group and interview participants, including many of high school teachers and university lecturers, increased access to and interaction with media, the lack of reliable information on sexual relationships and sexual violence, and media portrayals and normalization of non-consensual and violent relationships led to increased risk of sexual violence victimization among youth. The accessibility of communication with unknown persons provided by internet access was viewed as facilitating these cases of violence by providing opportunities for youth to be taken advantage of. A CSO affiliate spoke to this point, saying, “They [youth] often use communication apps to date or have sex (slang). Even those children of 15, 16 age… showed their bodies online as requested by older men” (CSO Affiliate, Man).

Several participants elaborated that youth they were familiar with also were at risk of non-consensual recording and distribution of content. Over one-third of high school teachers discussed these risks, and a participant who worked with a youth-centered CSO detailed them, saying, “…some people lure students into the toilet to secretly film them. … [some are] paying students to go to their living space to perform sex, then record clips…. On paid sex viewing websites, many videos with private sex scenes are posted to get money" (CSO Affiliate, Man). This non-consensual sharing of explicit sexual material was not limited to circumstances of non-consensual recording but could also originate in the consensual sharing of videos or images among youth, or between youth and adults. This content was described as potential material for blackmail and manipulation: “Four cases that I handled last year had to do with online erotic messaging via Zalo or text messages: boys and girls, they exchanged erotic images, but the boy saved those images and used them to blackmail the girl." (University Lecturer, Man) According to some participants, they didn’t believe youth understood the risks of content sharing, even to a single person: “The images uploaded on the Internet can be viewed by millions of people. People do not think of it as a danger to themselves. There are cases where private pictures/videos are spread out right in the school. Students did not think that it could be able to be exposed.” (CSO Affiliate, Man).

Conversely, some participants acknowledged benefits to increased access and exposure to media. The internet provides forums where youth who had experienced sexual violence could connect with other survivors, fostering social support: “Nowadays, the young can share their story with some groups or forums on the Internet. …though talking about their situations on the Internet didn’t get them the professional support they needed, they did receive a certain level of empathy and emotional support” (CSO Affiliate, Woman). Another participant noted that the internet provided a layer of privacy that could not be achieved through in-person contact, easing feelings of embarrassment or discomfort in seeking support: “I think they would talk to their friends… [but] talking [in person] could be embarrassing, and they would be afraid that someone might overhear them, so I think they would send messages over Zalo, Facebook.” (University Lecturer, Woman)

Furthermore, social forums on the internet were seen by some participants as providing space for young people to ask questions, to be exposed to different opinions, and to gather a variety of perspectives to inform themselves better: “In this era, information is very accessible. However, what really helps is a space where they feel safe to share their views on this topic. And after sharing, they can also listen to other people's opinions to conclude what is right, what is reasonable, what is not reasonable, and what is needed to be changed?” (University Lecturer, Woman).

Media as a Tool for Sexual Education and Sexual Violence Prevention

Despite participants’ perceptions of the mixed outcomes related to high accessibility of heterogeneous information about sex and sexual relationships and the high use by young people of media for this information, many participants noted that media was a powerful and important tool for disseminating information about sex and sexual violence and for engaging youth. One high school teacher shared, “…with the advance of technology in today's society, we can create websites, Facebook pages, or TikTok channels…to share information about sexual violence and ways to prevent it. I think this is a way for the young to access reliable sources of information more easily” (High School Teacher, Woman). How information is presented in media also was discussed, with some participants highlighting that media can be a tailored medium of information to youth. The flexibility of media as a medium, and particularly online media was noted as a major facilitator or tailoring information. An CSO-based participant shared: “We can run several media projects that propagate sex education content such as talk shows, minigames, etc.… There are certain levels of flexibility for communicating with students of this age, especially in a time when sex education is still something we are aiming at" (CSO Affiliate, Woman). Finally, some participants, particularly those affiliated with CSOs, noted a key feature of media as a potentially effective tool was the ability to reach large populations:

The biggest advantage of youth groups like us, or young NGOs working in the social field, we know about social media, and we use it quite proficiently… Hence, I feel that is our huge advantage, especially if we want to spread the knowledge about sexual violence on the media and social networks. That's quite true because, among our 150,000 followers, 78 - 80% of them are young people aged from 18-20 years old. (CSO Affiliate, Woman)

Other participants echoed these sentiments, with one university lecturer suggesting that existing institutional resources could be leveraged, saying, “I think the best method would be using websites, the ones that are familiar to students, or pages of the student community " (University Lecturer, Woman). This strategy was cited as providing the sense of an “official” channel of information, and more clearly delineating between “official” and “unofficial.” Other partnerships also were discussed, including working with media channels: “I think we can also use the help of media news channels and authorities to spread more awareness and attract attention to the topic of sexual violence.… By doing this, the young do not have to actively learn about it … their mindset about sexual violence can be formed unconsciously" (High School Teacher, Woman). By these means, participants recognized media as potentially facilitating norms change through the efforts of activists and educators, underscoring the perceived power of media as a tool, “…not just to inform people, but also advocate for public opinions.” (University Lecturer).

Despite the numerous positive features of media as an educational tool, a few participants noted limitations. One participant shared, “I can't force them to visit only this page, go to that page, or tell them that they can only read materials related to learning and mustn’t watch movies. That is very difficult" (High School Teacher, Woman). Another participant pointed out that, despite the accessibility of information on the internet, neither access to nor use of the internet to seek out information were universal, potentially leaving vulnerable populations out of media-based programming:

Not everyone can have access to social media, or to the internet. Not everyone has time…. For me, the people who don't … have the conditions to do it are the people we need to approach most. Because those people are people who don't have much access to the mass media, to both information and knowledge sources on gender and sexual violence. (CSO Affiliate, Woman)

Even with these limitations, several of participants acknowledged that media already has shifted norms in Vietnam. One participant said of the youth with whom they work, “With the influence of social media such as YouTube, Tiktok, or Facebook, young people view sexual intercourse at this age as something normal. They think it is no longer a shame as in older times; they even openly share about it instead of keeping it a secret as before" (CSO Affiliate, Woman). Another key informant shared the impact of media on independent decision-making among youth, stating that media has given youth freedom through access to information. Finally, one participant commented on the increasing globalization allowed by media, and the profound impacts of exposure to different ideas:

I believe that the power of media and other means of connecting people, such as social networks, is quite large… There is also the openness of social media, where Vietnamese adolescents are more exposed to Western culture through concepts like freedom of expression and self-expression. Furthermore, girls are no longer constrained by the old concept of virginity. Boys, on the other hand, have more opportunities to study abroad and interact with people from different cultures, resulting in more cultural exchange. There are also an increasing number of reality shows on television about love and romance. As a result, they have a wealth of resources at their disposal to learn more about sex. (CSO Affiliate, Woman)

Leveraging of these resources, participants agreed, could be used to promote sexual health and decrease sexual violence among Vietnamese youth, empowering adolescents to shift social norms and promote increased gender equity.

Summary and Interpretation of Findings

In interviews and focus groups regarding sexual violence prevention among adolescents in Vietnam, high school teachers, university lectures, and affiliates of youth-focused CSOs expansively discussed the role of media and technology in the context of sexual violence and sexual education for Vietnamese youth. Primarily, interview and focus group participants expounded upon the high availability of access to media through technology, and particularly media relating to sex. However, the information presented in this media varies widely, according to participants, with some media that is incorrect or inappropriate for youth, and few available sources of information that were classified as “official.” Respondents shared that the available media—including news media, informational websites, social networking platforms, video streaming platforms, and mobile applications—depict sexual activity that is coercive or violent, normalize transactional sex, reinforce normative beliefs about inequitable gender roles, and prompt mimicry of sexual violence.

Given the high prevalence of youth information-seeking about sex through media (Buhi et al., 2009 ; Santor et al., 2007 ), including in Southeast Asia (Gesselman et al., 2020 ; Ngo et al., 2008 ; Nguyen, 2007 ) and Vietnam, specifically, the availability of accurate and appropriate information on sex and sexual violence is imperative to the education of youth globally. In line with behavioral health theories that integrate mimicry and observational or social learning, such as sexual script theory (Wiederman, 2015 ) and social cognitive/social learning theory (Bandura, 2001 ; Bandura & Walters, 1977 ), participants stated that youth they were familiar with imitated the sexual situations and actions they viewed in media, including violent sexual acts without the consent of their partner. This echoes previous findings of the role of observational learning in the contexts of media, violence, and sexual activity, previously identified associations between exposure to SEM, sexual attitudes, and gender-stereotypical sexual beliefs in the global West and Asia (Gesselman et al., 2020 ; Peter & Valkenburg, 2016 ), and recent findings on a dose–response relationship between SEM and sexually violent behavior among young men in Vietnam (Bergenfeld et al., 2022a ). Participants stated that non-consent was normalized in movies and television, passively reinforcing the violent and coercive sexual behaviors, while news media both sensationalized and neglected to portray the nuances of sexual violence and consent. According to cultivation theory, repeated exposure to portrayals and normalization of sexual violence may promote greater acceptance of and desensitization to violence (Morgan et al., 2014 ), which may provide insight into why some participants reported that youth did not know that nonconsensual sexual acts were in fact sexual violence.

Participants also discussed the implications of this increased access to media relating to sex, with both negative and positive outcomes delineated. Media was cited as increasing opportunities for sexual violence in two main ways. First, youth were put at risk through connecting with unknown people via messaging or networking sites, leading to vulnerable in-person meetings. Indeed, almost 30% of individuals in Southeast Asia are thought to have used sex-tech for finding sexual partners (Gesselman et al., 2020 ), indicating willingness to put oneself in situations that may be conducive to sexual violence. Second, youth were put at risk through the sharing of their own sexually explicit media with others, either privately or publicly. An estimated 60.1% of individuals in Southeast Asia report sending sexually explicit messages, including images and videos (Gesselman et al., 2020 ), which have the potential to then be shared beyond the original recipient without consent. Non-sexually explicit photos posted on social media were also described as a pathway for sexual harassment or TFSV.

By contrast, media also provided forums for learning, exploration, and social support, which participants noted is promising for sexual education and prevention of sexual violence. Social media and blogs were cited as potential sources of diverse opinions and experiences, corroborating previous findings of young women in Southeast Asia using the internet to explore and develop sexual identities and gain accurate information about sex (Boonmongkon et al., 2013 ; Fongkaew & Fongkaew, 2016 ; Ngo et al., 2008 ), and seek advice and social support about sex and sexual violence (Alaggia & Wang, 2020 ; Yeo & Chu, 2017 ). The significant portion of Vietnamese young adults on social media (Silver et al., 2019 ) also marks this as an ideal pathway for education and prevention of sexual violence, as identified by interview and focus group participants.

Interestingly, while participants recognized the diversity of the sources of information on the internet and the impossibility of "forcing" students to view "official” channels, they did not discuss the importance of media literacy education, which may help students to identify the useful/good vs. harmful information. It may be important to emphasize students as agents for change—once they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to analyze media sources with discernment and more accurate knowledge of sexual violence and consent. Media literacy education in high school and university contexts may offer a normatively acceptable pathway to increased critical analysis of sexual and sexually violent content in media, and may not face the same barriers that have been outlined to implementing sexual violence prevention education in Vietnam (Yount et al., 2023a ). This strategy may complement ongoing violence prevention efforts, particularly in high schools given that average educational attainment is projected to exceed 12 years in Vietnam among children of school-entry age (United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2022 ). Such programs that have been successfully implemented in the United States may be appropriate for adaptation to the context of Vietnam (Scull et al., 2018 , 2022 ).

Limitations and Strengths of Analysis

Some limitations and several strengths of this analysis are notable. First, qualitative research is not generalizable but generates salient themes that may be explored more systematically in future surveys involving representative samples of young people. Second, the data are perceptions of the behavior of young people from high-school teachers, university lecturers, and CSO affiliates and should not be interpreted as the actual behavior of young people. Relatedly, there is a possibility of polysemy in interpretation of media, wherein messaging may be interpreted semantically differently by different individuals (Ewoldsen et al., 2022 ), with implications for processing and actions taken following viewing. Educators may not only interpret media they see differently from their students, but students in one cultural group, class, or educational environment may view or interpret media differently from others, limiting the interpretations educators may be privy to. Only comprehensive inclusion of diverse educators—for the circumstances of this analysis—or youth can capture these multiple interpretations. While significant efforts were made to engage educators from across geographic regions and genders, these efforts may not be sufficient to capture all educator interpretations, let alone those of youth. Despite these caveats, the sample of participants is highly diverse, representing men and women living in urban and rural areas and key informants from diverse youth-serving institutions across all regions of Vietnam. Moreover, the participants in the study, because of their profession and high degree of interaction with young people, are important key informants to query, as knowledgeable adults from their own vantage point. Finally, the team used theory on media and violence to inform a nuanced interpretation of the data and its alignment with results from prior empirical research. The findings provide important insights about possible next steps to understand and to address young people’s use of the media and the diverse and sometimes countervailing ways in which it may help or harm young people’s encounters with sexual violence.

Implications for Research and Sexual Violence Prevention Programming

The findings from this analysis are a strong call for more research among youth in Vietnam, especially surrounding the needs for comprehensive sex education and TFSV. The increased prevalence of TFSV also warrants including this outcome in measures of sexual violence, such as those used in population-based surveys. Thus, large-scale surveys among high-school studies and university studies to document in representative school-based samples the various ways in which media and violence intersect, and at what developmental ages, would provide critical groundwork for developing educational programming that meets the most salient needs at each developmental stage. Expanded research is needed on youth media literacy and the needs of educational systems to facilitate implementation of sexual violence programming (Yount et al., 2023a ). Finally, given increasing access among youth globally to media-related technology and the internet, more work is needed to understand the implications of this access for sexual violence and sexual health, particularly among youth in low- and middle-income countries.

From the perspective of sexual health and sexual violence programming, the findings from this analysis are suggestive of some common and some age-specific needs of young people in Vietnam. First, there is a clear call for official, science-based curricula on sex and sexual violence that is developmentally tailored to high school and university students. A stronger need may exist for comprehensive sexuality education at the high-school level, including education on healthy relationships and media literacy. It may be beneficial to incorporate international standards, such as those suggested in the UNESCO Comprehensive Sexuality Education Implementation Toolkit (UNESCO, 2023 ), into newly developed curricula. Existing effective programs delivered through technology to university students (Yount et al., 2022 ) may be adaptable for the context of high school students, facilitating continuous sexual health and sexual violence education through high school and university. At the university level, there may be a more salient need for sexual violence prevention programming that educates adult students about the nature and scope of sexual violence, the importance of obtaining active consent for sex, the role of (media disseminated) gender norms in perpetuating myths about rape, masculine privilege, and ideas that are harmful to healthy sexual relationships (Bergenfeld et al., 2022b , 2022c ). Notably, peers themselves are an important source of norms about sexual violence alongside media; as such, comprehensive sexual violence prevention programming must address both media- and peer-related risk factors for sexually violent behavior (Yount et al., 2022 ). Furthermore, there is a need for education at both the high-school and university levels about the safety of online dating and social networking so that students are better informed about the risks at the outset of their engagement with online social-network and dating aps. Finally, there is a need for comprehensive education about the types of sexually explicit material that may heighten risks of sexually violent behavior for both groups, given the high prevalence of exposure at a young age in Vietnam (Bergenfeld et al., 2022a ).

Conclusions

The rise in availability and exposure to media among youth globally and in Vietnam has raised new educational needs on sexual violence prevention and sexual health information. New and adapted curricula, with age-specific programmatic elements, may help to mediate the impacts of media on perpetration of violence.

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Yount, K. M., Minh, T. H., Trang, Q. T., Cheong, Y. F., Bergenfeld, I., & Sales, J. M. (2020). Preventing sexual violence in college men: A randomized-controlled trial of GlobalConsent. BMC Public Health, 20 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09454-2

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participants who generously contributed their time and thoughts to this research, as well as Dr. Minh Tran Hung, the site principal investigator for this research.

Funding was provided by the Anonymous Foundation.

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Ethical Approval and Informed Consent

This research was approved by the Hanoi University of Public Health Institutional Review Board (021–393/DD-YTCC) and was determined to be exempt by the Institutional Review Board of Emory University (STUDY00003496) under 45 CFR 46.104(d)(2) (1). We obtained documented informed consent from all participants.

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Anderson, K.M., Macler, A., Bergenfeld, I. et al. The Media and Sexual Violence Among Adolescents: Findings from a Qualitative Study of Educators Across Vietnam. Arch Sex Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02869-7

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Gun Violence — Thesis Statement On Gun Violence

Thesis Statement on Gun Violence

Categories: Gun Violence

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Words: 659 |

Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 659 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Introduction, causes of gun violence, impacts of gun violence, solutions to gun violence, 1. easy access to firearms, 2. illegal gun trafficking, 3. mental health issues, 4. stigma surrounding mental health, 5. socioeconomic factors, 1. strengthening gun laws, 2. investing in mental health resources, 3. addressing root causes of violence.

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Opinion: an open letter to the board of trustees from former students of professor annelise orleck, condemning beilock's response on may 1, posted on may 24, 2024 by the history department. written by claire dunning '08 , nova robinson '08 and justine modica '09..

The undersigned alumni are former students of history professor Annelise Orleck and have subsequently pursued advanced degrees in history or adjacent fields.

Annelise Orleck. Credit: Caleb Kenna for The New York Times, May 2024.

Annelise Orleck, who has taught at Dartmouth College for more than three decades, was knocked to the ground and arrested at a protest on the night of May 1, 2024. Credit: Caleb Kenna for The New York Times, 2024. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/us/dartmouth-professor-police-protest...

Shanties on the Green: Fall-Winter 1985-86

Shanties on the Green: After The Dartmouth Review attacks (January 1986)

Shanties on the Green: After the Dartmouth Review attacks (1986)

May 1, 2024. Police line opposite a peaceful circle of student protesters. Over the evening, 90 arrests were made, in an unprecedented use of law enforcement on campus.

May 1, 2024. Police line opposite a peaceful circle of student protesters. Over the evening, 90 arrests were made in an unprecedented deployment of law enforcement on campus.

Published in The Dartmouth May 23, 2024

To the Board of Trustees:

We write to you as alumni who, thanks to the training and mentorship we received from Dartmouth's history department, have all pursued doctorate degrees in the humanities. Now, as teachers and researchers at universities across the country, we cannot help but use the very skills we learned at Dartmouth — particularly from history professor Annelise Orleck — to consider the recent events on campus.

In November 1985, Dartmouth students erected a shantytown on the Green to bring attention to the living conditions of Black South Africans under apartheid. The shantytown complemented other efforts — including an occupation of Parkhurst Hall — to get the College to divest from companies with ties to racially segregated South Africa. Students lived in the shanties until January 1986, when 12 students armed with sledgehammers destroyed three of the four structures before campus police intervened. The students sleeping inside the structures at the time were unharmed. The students who attacked were affiliated with The Dartmouth Review and called themselves "The Dartmouth Committee to Beautify the Green Before Winter Carnival." With Winter Carnival a month away, many viewed the timing of the attack — which occurred the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — as racist. On Feb. 12, after three weeks of deliberations, a committee of students, faculty and administrators decided to suspend the students involved in the attack. In a separate decision handed down the same day, the College decided to dismantle the last remaining shanty, which it previously had protected as an expression of free speech. Eighteen student protesters, who blocked the arrival of the flatbed truck that was supposed to haul away the structure, were arrested for criminal trespass.

We share the above history to encourage the College to reflect on its past and present response to student and faculty protesters. The parallels between the February 1986 and May 2024 arrests on the Green are striking. In both instances, students inspired to action by knowledge of injustice in other parts of the world — apartheid in South Africa and mass civilian casualties in Gaza — used the Green as a site of peaceful protest where they were subsequently met with violence. A crucial difference between the two protests is the agent of the violence. In 1986, College security guards stepped in to protect students from the shantytown aggressors' violent attacks. In 2024, the College's Safety and Security officers, the Hanover Police and New Hampshire State Troopers were authorized by the College to dismantle the protests and used force against peaceful protesters to do so. Dartmouth, like any institution of higher education, is entitled to have rules for how its spaces are used and by whom, and it is entitled to enforce those rules. However, the scale of force and speed of escalation used — with the Beilock administration's consent — to disband student protesters is what alarms us as alumni and as educators. It was surreal to see riot police on the Green armed with truncheons and supported by armored cars and klieg lights.

The Green has been the canvas upon which generations of Dartmouth students have staged protests against the Vietnam War, violence against women, apartheid in South Africa and in support of civil rights and climate justice — among other issues. Even if they did not agree with their message or methods, many Dartmouth administrators have not resorted to violence to deal with student protesters. Beilock broke with tradition and set a dangerous precedent when she allowed violent arrests to take place on the Green. Another lesson drawn from such comparative historical analysis is that the disproportionate use of violence against peaceful protests rarely has the intended effect of squashing movements for justice. We find it hard to believe there were no other means of enforcing College policy. To militarize the Green is to lose the heart of the College, figuratively and literally.

As scholars, alumni of Dartmouth and professionals who spend our days in college classrooms, we ask Beilock to do the following:

1. Pledge to never again call in the police on peaceful protesters. After the 1986 shantytown incident, the College reviewed its policies regarding student protests. In the wake of the May 1 violent crackdown on student protests on campus, the College must again reckon with its actions and commit to non-violence — including an agreement not to call in the police — in its engagement with peaceful protesters. We never again want to see militarized police vehicles parked in front of Baker-Berry Library. We never again want to see faculty members pushed to the ground by riot police. We never again want to see terror on the faces of students as they are forced into custody for peacefully protesting against injustice.

2. Drop all charges, issue an apology to the students and professors who were arrested and reaffirm the Green as a space where all are welcome by reinstating all-campus access to those arrested on May 1. We acknowledge these are fraught times on college campuses, and we do not envy the job of the College President. We also recognize that Beilock saw her actions in calling in the police as supporting Jewish students on campus, many of whom are alarmed by rising rates of antisemitism in the United States. Yet, her actions traumatized the peaceful protesters, including Jewish students, who were critical of the wanton violence of the Netanyahu government in Gaza. Beilock's actions did, however, alienate Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students on campus. Beilock shared in her letter published in The Dartmouth that she does not believe it is an appropriate use of institutional power to request that all charges be dropped. We find this position inconsistent with her decision to call in police and to offer Dartmouth College property in the form of DOC vans to facilitate the transportation of peaceful protesters to jail. Requesting that the prosecutor drop charges would help to correct the injustices of May 1 and the role that Beilock and the College played in them.

3. Issue a public apology to Orleck, whose tireless commitment to supporting student research has inspired our own pedagogical styles in university classrooms around the country. Her research on the history of labor organizing in the United States, especially the role of Black and immigrant women in that movement, has also influenced our own research trajectories. Orleck's contributions have revealed the importance of recovering the efforts of activists often left out of the historical narrative. By standing as a buffer between the student protesters and the riot police, Orleck manifested her deep and inspiring commitment to student learning in and outside the classroom.

As Trustees, you are charged with ensuring that Dartmouth lives up to its highest ideals. We ask that you use your authority to ensure that the harms committed earlier this month are redressed and prevented from ever happening again. Let this most recent incident be an isolated one, rather than the start of a new era where peaceful protest is not tolerated and student safety is uncertain.

Claire Dunning '08, Ph.D

Eagle Glassheim '92, Ph.D

David Glovsky '08, Ph.D

Taja-Nia Y. Henderson '97, JD/Ph.D

Aimee Loiselle '92, Ph.D

Justine Modica '09, Ph.D

Allison Puglisi '15, Ph.D

Matt Richardson '91, MFA, Ph.D

Nova Robinson '08, Ph.D

Karen M. Tani '02, JD/Ph.D

Original post: Claire Dunning '08 , Nova Robinson '08 and Justine Modica '09 . "Dunning, Modica and Robinson: An Open Letter to the Board of Trustees from Former Students of Professor Annelise Orleck." May 23, 2024. The Dartmouth. https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/05/dunning-modica-and-robinson-an-open-letter-to-the-board-of-trustees-from-former-students-of-professor-annelise-orleck# .

A man examines a handgun in a California gun store.

California is about to tax guns more like alcohol and tobacco − and that could put a dent in gun violence

Professor of Economic Development & Peacebuilding, University of San Diego

Disclosure statement

Topher L. McDougal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Starting in July 2024, California will be the first state to charge an excise tax on guns and ammunition. The new tax – an 11% levy on each sale – will come on top of federal excise taxes of 10% or 11% for firearms and California’s 6% sales tax.

The National Rifle Association has characterized California’s Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Act as an affront to the Constitution. But the reaction from the gun lobby and firearms manufactures may hint at something else: the impact that the measure, which is aimed at reducing gun violence, may have on sales.

As a professor who studies the economics of violence and illicit trades at the University of San Diego’s Kroc School of Peace Studies, I think this law could have important ramifications.

One way to think about it is to compare state tax policies on firearms with those on alcohol and tobacco products. It’s not for nothing that these all appear in the name of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, also known as ATF.

What alcohol, tobacco and firearms have in common

That agency, part of the Justice Department, is tasked with making American communities safer . The ATF focuses on those products because, while legal, they can cause significant harm to society – in the form of drunken driving, for example, or cancer-causing addictions. They also have a common history: All have been associated with criminal organizations seeking to profit from illicit markets.

Alcohol and tobacco products are thus usually subject to state excise taxes. This policy is known as a “ Pigouvian tax ,” named after 20th-century British economist Arthur Pigou. By making a given product more expensive, such a tax leads people to buy less of it, reducing the harm to society while generating tax revenue that the state can theoretically use to offset those harms that still accrue.

California, for instance, imposes a US$2.87 excise tax on each pack of cigarettes. That tax is higher than the national average but much lower than New York’s $5.35 levy . California also imposed a vaping excise tax of 12.5% in 2021.

Of the three ATF product families, firearms have enjoyed an exemption from California excise taxes. Until now.

The costs of gun violence

Anti-gun advocates have long called for the firearm industry to lose the special treatment it receives, given the harms that firearms cause. The national rate of gun homicides in 2021 was 4.5 per 100,000 people . This is eight times higher than Canada’s rate and 77 times that of Germany. It translates into 13,000 lives lost every year in the U.S.

Additionally, nearly 25,000 Americans die from firearms suicide each year. This implies a rate of 8.1 per 100,000 per year , exceeding Canada’s by more than four times. Moreover, more people suffer nonfatal firearm injuries than die by guns.

Gun deaths and injuries aren’t just tragic – they’re expensive, too . One economist estimated the benefit-cost ratio of the U.S. firearms industry at roughly 0.65 in 2009. That means for every 65 cents it generates for the economy, the industry produces $1 of costs.

And that back-of-the-envelope calculation may be an underestimate. It included the cost of fatal gun violence committed within the U.S. But the estimate didn’t include nonfatal injuries , or the cost of firearm harms occurring outside the U.S. with U.S.-sold weapons.

Mexico pays a steep price for US gun trade

America has been called the world’s gun store . No country knows this better than Mexico. The U.S. endured roughly 45,000 firearms deaths in 2019 , while the rest of the world combined saw 200,000. Mexico, which shares a long, permeable border with the U.S., contributed 34,000 to that grisly total.

Mexico’s government estimates that 70% to 90% of traceable guns used in crimes seized in the country come from the United States. Other examples abound. For instance, U.S.-sold guns fuel gang violence in a lawless Haiti.

No investor would back such an industry if they were forced to pay its full cost to society. Yet U.S. gun sales have grown fourfold over the past 20 years to about 20 million guns annually, even though they’re now deadlier and more expensive.

What alcohol, tobacco and firearms don’t have in common

Across the U.S., there’s not a single state where firearms are taxed as much as alcohol and tobacco. I think guns should probably be taxed at a higher level than both of them. That’s because unlike alcohol and tobacco – consumable products that disappear as soon as they’ve been used – firearms stick around. They accumulate and can continue to impose costs long after they’re first sold.

Starting in July, California will tax firearms at about the level of alcohol. But the state would have to apply an excise tax of an additional 26% to equal its effective tax on tobacco.

It’s unclear how the new tax will affect gun violence. In theory, the tax should be highly effective. In 2023, some colleagues and I modeled the U.S. market for firearms and determined that for every 1% increase in price, demand decreases by 2.6%. This means that the market should be very sensitive to tax increases.

Using these estimates, another colleague recently estimated that the California excise tax would reduce gun sales by 30% to 44%. If applied across the country, the tax could generate an additional $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion in government revenue.

One possible problem will come from surrounding states: It’s already easy to illegally transport guns bought in Nevada, where laws are more lax, to the Golden State.

But there’s some evidence that suggests California’s stringent policies won’t be neutralized by its neighbors.

When the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, making it much easier to buy AR- and AK-style rifles across much of the U.S., gun murders across the border in Mexico skyrocketed. Two studies show the exception was the Mexican state of Baja California, right across the border with California, which had kept its state-level assault weapons ban in place.

Gun seizures in Mexico show that all four U.S. states bordering Mexico rank in the top five state sources of U.S.-sold guns in Mexico. But California contributes 75% less than its population and proximity would suggest.

So, California laws seem to already be making a difference in reducing gun violence. I believe the excise tax could accomplish still more. Other states struggling against the rising tide of guns will be watching closely.

This article has been updated to correct the extent of U.S. gun sales growth over the past 20 years.

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Sean Combs' apology falls short for many Black women, who face higher rates of domestic violence

Sean "Diddy" Combs arrives for the 2018 Met Gala.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ apology for the 2016 beating of his ex-girlfriend Cassie is falling short among domestic violence groups — and on the internet.

Combs, 54, uploaded the apology to Instagram on Sunday after a video was released that appeared to show him beating Cassie, now 37, a singer whose name is Cassandra Ventura.

In his apology, Combs called his behavior “inexcusable” and said he was going through a difficult time in his life when the attack happened. He said he had sought therapy and entered rehab shortly afterward and was working to “be a better man.”

The violent video matched the description of an incident Ventura detailed in a lawsuit settled in November. Combs had denied Ventura’s allegations. His attorneys said at the time that the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing.”

As the video made its way online, one person wrote in a post on X , “There’s absolutely nothing genuine about that apology video Diddy just dropped.” Another added : “What yall witnessed was manipulation. The first thing he did was center himself.”

Aubrey O’Day, a former member of the Combs-created girl group Danity Kane, shared a photo of Combs’ previous denial in her own critical post on X. “Diddy did not apologize to Cassie. He apologized to the world for seeing what he did.”

The footage showed Combs chasing a woman down a hotel hallway, pulling her to the ground and beating and kicking her before dragging her by her sweatshirt.

“This is the classic cycle of domestic violence,” Joanna Otero-Cruz, president of the Philadelphia-based Women Against Abuse domestic violence center, said of the apology. Otero-Cruz, who said she has worked in the field for at least 15 years, said apologies are common in gender violence situations and are often used to manipulate victims and the public.

“They’re apologizing and they want to create sympathy from others, apathy from others, all of those things,” Otero-Cruz said. “This is the typical behavior of someone who perpetuates abuse. We’re just seeing it in public now.”

The release of the video came just six months after Ventura sued Combs, alleging that the music mogul had sexually and physically abused her during the course of their relationship. Ventura alleged that, from 2007 to 2018, Combs raped her, beat her, trafficked her and controlled her life. She filed her lawsuit on Nov. 16, 2023, under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act, which gives adult alleged victims of sexual violence a one-year window to file civil claims regardless of the statute of limitations.

He denied the allegations and called them “sickening.” They settled the suit a day after it was filed. Combs faces lawsuits from three other women in New York accusing him of sexual assault, sexual trafficking and other criminal activity. His former producer has also accused him in a lawsuit of sexually harassing, drugging and threatening him. He is also the subject of a federal investigation related to multiple allegations including sex trafficking and sexual assault. Combs has previously denied all of the sexual assault allegations.

The accusations against Combs have renewed conversations about abuse carried out by powerful men and the difficulties Black women face when seeking to hold their abusers accountable.

Research has shown that Black women experience domestic violence at disproportionate rates compared with other ethnic and racial groups. They are killed by men at three times the rate of white women, for example, according to the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

“Black women as a whole experience domestic violence and intimate partner violence higher than any other ethnicity. Yet, oftentimes, Black women are faced with various biases. They don’t look like the perfect victim,” said Nel-Sylvia Guzman, deputy director of The Safe Sisters Circle, a center for domestic violence survivors in Washington, D.C.

“For Black women survivors, they’re battling so many parts of culture, the system fighting against them. That’s why many of them don’t come forward and, if they do, it’s so many years later, like Cassie did.”

Meredith Firetog, an attorney for Ventura, said in a statement Sunday that Comb’s apology was “more about himself than the many people he has hurt.” She added: “That he was only compelled to ‘apologize’ once his repeated denials were proven false shows his pathetic desperation, and no one will be swayed by his disingenuous words.”

Aaron Dyer, Combs’ attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Along with social media users and advocates for domestic abuse victims, Combs’ apology has also prompted criticism from public relations experts who have detailed the flaws in it. Daniel Brackins, of the global marketing company Interpublic Group, said Combs’ apology seemed to lack empathy, skirted accountability and did not include plans to “ make things right .”

Valese Jones, founder of the Texas-based Sincerely Nicole Media public relations company, shared similar sentiments.

“I believe the video has done more harm than good,” Jones told NBC News. “The apology just doesn’t come across as sincere at all. He was apologizing to the general public because it was about his public image. I don’t think this apology was smart.”

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Blog Home Office in the media

https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2024/05/21/independent-review-of-political-violence-and-disruption-home-secretary-statement/

Independent Review of political violence and disruption: Home Secretary Statement

Home Secretary statement following the publication of Lord Walney's independent review of political violence and disruption.

Home Secretary James Cleverly said:

“The right to protest is a vital part of democracy, but there is absolutely no place for criminality or harassment on our streets. Too often, we have seen vile displays of hate crime and aggressive tactics used by so-called protesters.

“Lord Walney’s report raises important questions on the cumulative impact of disruptive and extremist activity on our communities. I thank Lord Walney and his team for this extensive and compelling report.

“This year, the government has taken swift action to protect our democratic processes from disruption and intimidation.

"In light of disorderly and dangerous protest activity, we are giving police the powers they need to tackle criminal acts; we have provided an extra £31 million to enhance security for elected representatives; and we have set out an updated extremism definition, which will be used to ensure extremists are not lent legitimacy by government funding or engagement.

“But that does not mean we will stop there. As Home Secretary, I will take every possible step to safeguard the UK and the people who live here.

“In the coming weeks, I will carefully consider Lord Walney's recommendations, in particular those that deal with public order and how to tackle the cumulative impact of protests on communities and police resources.”

Background:

The Home Secretary’s letter of thanks to Lord Walney can be found here: Independent review: Political violence and disruption - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Home Secretary’s Written Ministerial Statement on Lord Walney’s report can be found here: Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament

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88 Media Violence Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
Media Violence Effect on Youth and Its Regulation. It is also important to note that the more important the media puts on violence, the more people are tempted to engage in it for the sake of attention. Media Violence and Importance of Media Literacy. Media literacy is the public's ability to access, decode, evaluate and transmit a message ...
Media Violence Effects on Children, Adolescents and Young Adults
The main ways that media violence exposure increases aggression in the short term are: Direct imitation of the observed behavior. Observational learning of attitudes, beliefs and expected benefits of aggression. Increased excitation. Priming of aggression-related ways of thinking and feeling.
Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior
Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior Essay. It is said that television and media brought about new problems that are evident in the modern day and age. Mostly, these influences are harmful in relation to violence and people's general behavior, which is characterized as careless, destructive and unpredictable. We will write a custom essay on ...
PDF Is the Influence of Media Violence Exposure on Adolescent
Media violence is typically defined as visual. portrayals of acts of aggression by a human or human-like character against another. (Huesmann, 2007), with the intent of causing physical or emotional pain (Berkowitz, 1993). While a large body of research has identified a positive association between media.
The Impact of Media Violence on Child and Adolescent Aggression
Results: Child-reported media violence exposure was associated with physical aggression after multivariable adjustment for sociodemographics, family and community violence, and child mental health ...
Violence, Media Effects, and Criminology
There have been over 1000 studies on the effects of TV and film violence over the past 40 years. Research on the influence of TV violence on aggression has consistently shown that TV violence increases aggression and social anxiety, cultivates a "mean view" of the world, and negatively impacts real-world behavior. (Helfgott, 2015, p.
How Violent Media Can Impact Your Mental Health
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Media Violence Effects on Children, Adolescents and Young Adults

Also in this Issue

ST. LOUIS OFFICE

We Will Empower Bold Change to Elevate Human Flourishing SM

Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior Essay

Works Cited

Article contents

Media Exposure, Violence, and Aggression

Media Exposure and Copycat Crimes

Media Exposure and Violent Crimes

Theoretical Perspectives on Media Effects

Criminology and the “Media/Crime Nexus”

Further Reading

Related Articles

How Violent Media Can Impact Your Mental Health

When to Seek Therapy

Does Consuming Violent Content Lead to Increased Aggression?

Evidence for a Link Between Violent Content and Aggression

There Varying Degrees of Aggression

Consuming Violent Media During Childhood May Result in Adult Aggression

Why Is This Topic So Controversial?

Does Consuming Violent Media Lead to Mental Health Issues?

Consumption of Violent Media May Lead to Anxiety

Constant Exposure to Violent Media Via Technology May Lead to Poorer Mental Health

How to Cope With the Impact of Media Violence

How You Can Help Your Child

The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research

Background for the Review

Theoretical Explanations for Media Violence Effects

Short-term Effects

Long-term Effects

Observational learning

Desensitization

Enactive learning

The Key Empirical Studies

Violence in Television, Films, and Video Games

Experiments

Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies

Moderators of Media Violence Effects

Mediators of Media Violence Effects

Essay on Media and Violence

Cite this page

Thesis Statements about Social Media: 21 Examples and Tips

How to Write a Thesis Statement?

Start With a Question and Develop an Answer

Be Specific

Make the Argument Clear

Question your Assumptions

Take a Strong Stand

Make Your Thesis Statement Seen

21 Examples of Thesis Statements about Social Media

The Media and Sexual Violence Among Adolescents: Findings from a Qualitative Study of Educators Across Vietnam

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A Rights-Based Approach to Youth Sexting: Challenging Risk, Shame, and the Denial of Rights to Bodily and Sexual Expression Within Youth Digital Sexual Culture

Protecting Youth from Sexualized Media: Media Literacy

Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence Perpetration and Victimization Among Adolescents: A Network Analysis

Introduction

Theories of Media and Violence

Pathways to Sexual Knowledge and Violence: Media Exposure and Use

Harms of Media/Technology on Violent Attitudes and Behavior

Benefits of Media/Technology for Violence Prevention

Participants

Measures and Procedure

Data Analysis

Accessibility and Quality of Information about Sex and Sexual Relationships

Media Depictions of Sexual Activity and Normalization of Sexual Violence

Mixed Consequences and Opportunities from Young People’s Engagement with Media

Media as a Tool for Sexual Education and Sexual Violence Prevention

Summary and Interpretation of Findings

Limitations and Strengths of Analysis

Implications for Research and Sexual Violence Prevention Programming

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Author information

Corresponding author

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval and Informed Consent

Additional information

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