“ROLE OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA IN PROMOTING
VIOLENT BEHAVIOR AMONG YOUTH”
ABSTRACT
The objective of study is to explore the role of media in promoting violent behavior among
youth. Mainly the role of entertainment shows, dramas, ads, criminals programs,
documentaries and music in promoting violent behavior is focused. The purpose of study is to
find out those channels which are promoting violent behavior in reality.
The study is focused on to investigate the role of electronic media in promoting the violent
behavior among youth. 80 samples will be taken with the use of convenient sampling from
Sargodha University. Data will be collected with help of a well-designed questioner. Collected
information will be analyzed through SPSS software.
Objectives of study
1. To explore the role of media in promoting violent behavior among youth.
2. To find the impact of extent of media exposure on youths behavior.
3. To explore the role of electronic media in developing violent behavior among youths
while viewing different channels.
4. To explore the role of dramas in promoting violent behavior.
5. To examine the impact of criminals documentary which play a role to teach criminal
technique
6. To study the role of movies in promoting violent behavior among youth.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Electronic Aggression. Electronic aggression is any kind of aggression perpetrated
through technology—any type of harassment or bullying (teasing, telling lies, making fun of
someone, making rude or mean comments, spreading rumors, or making threatening or
aggressive comments) that occurs through e-mail, a chat room, instant messaging, a website
(including blogs), text messaging, or videos or pictures posted on websites or sent through cell
phones.
September 20–21, 2006 in Atlanta, Georgia entitled Electronic Media and Youth
Violence. The expert penal The panel consisted of 13 members (see addendum for list of
panelists) who came from academic institutions, federal agencies, a school system, and non-
profit organizations who were already engaged in work focusing on electronic media and youth
violence.
Forty years ago in 1954, a United States Senate (Judiciary) Committee held a series of
hearings into the impact of television programs on juvenile crime (see Huston et al., 1992)
Violence can be watched in many ways: on TV, on the Cinema screen, on Video, on the Internet
and in other forms. To take TV as an example, more than and this was at a time in the United
States when only one person in ten owned a television set. One might well ask what is the state
of the debate in 1997, when according to a recent survey (Media scope, 1996), 54% of
American children have separate television sets in their bedrooms? Watching violence is now
heavily a part of how the media entertains. As a psychologist, former film critic and past Chair
of the Commonwealth Films Board of Review, I have been very much aware of the stages of
the debate: the frustration of the research enterprise and the non-causal effects that exist for
investigators to interpret; the complexities of making those interpretations fit multiple,
interacting influences; and the passions and vested interests of the debaters themselves.
Media Theories
There are theories that have proved the fact that the media have some effects on the
ways their audiences behave. The major assumption underpinning these theories are that the
media have a role to play in society to set the norms that society lives on. The theories try to
explore the link between media and society. The theories that are going to be looked at are:
The Hypodermic or Bullet Theory
The Cultivation Theory
The Modeling Theory
Hypodermic Theory
Kwaramba (2002) says this theory was credited with considerable power to shape
opinion and belief, to change habits of life and to mould behavior according to the will of those
in control of the medial and their contents. In this theory the media is regarded as all-powerful
having strong effects over a passive and powerless audience this means it presumed a direct
behavioral effect on an individual in line with the intended goal of the communicator. For
example, if the communicator intends to make the audience change their behavior towards an
issue, the theory was that this would be achieved. This theory can be associated with
campaigns. Some politicians may use propaganda to try and win support or to undermine the
opposition side.For example, if the audiences are constantly bombarded with information on
the evils or benefits of imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe, they would end up disliking or liking
the idea.
The researchers have seen this theory working very well with teenagers. For example,
they are constantly bombarded with ideas on the goodness of the western culture and in
response they have taken this to be their culture, viewing it as superior to theirs. They no longer
want to be associated with their culture that they now view as inferior. This is seen in the type
of music they want, they are into Rhythm and Blues (B ‘n B) and Ragga, the way dress, they
like heap-stars, spaghetti-tops etc. They do not eat things like derere, madora muboora,
matumbu, guru etc. They are now imitating the American popular culture portrayed on T.V
called “Ape Culture”
The Cultivation Theory to Pfukwa (2001) specifically focused on the effects of the T.V
on the audiences The theory propounds that if the viewer is greatly exposed to television, the
effect is the cultivation of a certain social perception and world-view.
Awujo (2012) also points out that the theory holds that T. V., among modern media,
has acquired such a central place in daily life that it dominates our symbolic environment,
substituting its (distorted) message about reality for personal experience and other means of
knowing about the world. Therefore, television-viewing gradually leads to the adoption of
beliefs about the nature of the social world which conform to the stereotyped, distorted and
very selective view of reality as portrayed in a systematic way in T.V. fiction. This is why we
see teenagers imitating what they see on television. For example, they are always wrestling and
playing cricket on the streets.
They associate more to the things they watch on television. Cricket has been
screened heavily on T. V. so much that it has become very popular with teenagers. Even if one
may ask the teenagers about their favorite sport, you will hear them say cricket. But how did
they come to know about such a game called cricket? It is of the television. Cultivation theory
differs from the hypodermic theory mainly because of its gradual and cumulative character. It
involves first, learning and secondly, the construction of a view of social reality dependent on
personal circumstances and experiences. It is also an interactive process between messages and
audiences unlike the hypodermic theory that is one way. Those who watch increasing amounts
are predicted to show increasing divergence of perceptions of reality away from the known
picture of the world.
Modeling Process
Pfukwa (2001), the modeling process is the application of the general social learning
theory to the acquisition of new behavior from media presentations. The media are said to be
readily accessible and attractive sources of models. They give symbolic modeling of almost
every conceivable form of behavior. Young people acquire attitudes and emotional responses
and new styles of conduct from television, for example, from the films they watch. They
acquire new types of behavior from exposure to multimedia communications. Teenagers
usually want to identify with models whom they view as attractive and with of imitation. For
example, they may emulate the T.V. character Walker Texas Ranger as a role model. Teenagers
may emulate an international popular musician or the way a T.V. character dresses, behaves
and the kind of food they eat. Also a lot of teenage girls are dieting to try to maintain what they
call a super figure.
Zimbabwean youths want to imitate the Western models they see on T.V. for example,
Super Model, Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss Malaika. They want to look like these
beauty queens. Therefore, it is very clear from this theory that television has great powers to
shape the way children/ teenagers behave Kwaramba (2002) says, three kinds of effects are
generally identified. These are:
cognitive, to do with knowledge and feelings,
affective, to do with attitude and feelings, and finally,
behavior, which is the main focus of the duty to do the with behavioral change. Pfukwa
(2001), theories around media effect have been grouped into two, that is, effects
resulting in short-term change and those resulting in long-tearm change.
Television violence and advertisements
A 2000 report from the Federal Trade Commission confirmed what parents
have long suspected: that the advertising for violent movies, television shows, video games,
and music CDs intentionally targets young audiences (Condon, 2002). Television makes
children passive recipients of hundreds of thousands of images of violence every day. Children
receive the most exposure to television in the home. A 1992 study by TV Guide concluded that
“violence is a pervasive major feature of contemporary television programming and is coming
from more sources and in greater volume than ever before” (Hickey, 1992, pp. 10–12). A major
longitudinal study done by ERON concluded that television violence affects youngsters of all
ages, of both genders, at all socio economic levels, and at all levels of intelligence.
On January 27, 1994, a full-page advertisement appeared in the Washington Post urging the
entertainment industry to take voluntary steps to reign in television violence before Congress
does it for them. At that time polls showed that violence was our nation’s number one concern,
even before the economy. In 1998, violence was holding at the number two position. Violence
is now a public health issue.
Imitation (Social Learning Theory)
Cedric Cullingford (1984) most of the research on television violence is designed to
demonstrate a clear connection between what is seen on the screen and what is enacted in real
life. Social learning theory suggests that viewing any content leads children to reproduce this
content when there is good reason to reproduce it in their environment (Dorr, 1986). It rests on
the hypothesis that children imitate what they see: that they model their behavior from
television (Cullingford, 1984). Human social behavior is learned, and much of this process
occurs through trial and error, especially in the earliest years of life (Siegel,
1974).Observational learning takes place when children pattern their behavior to that of
models. By watching television, a child can learn new forms of behavior (Van der Voort,
1986).only does learning from television consist of improving one’s knowledge of what is
going on in the world—that is political, economic, industrial, and foreign affairs—but
television is also a major source of social learning (Gunter & McAleer, 1997). According to
Gunter and McAleer (1997), through television, children may learn about themselves, about
life, about how to behave in different situations, about how to deal with personal and family
problems, and so on.
Age and violent behavior
Ling & Thomas, 1986; Murray 1995; Freshback & Singer, 1971) Children are
affected by violence in the media. The “average child,” between the ages of six and eighteen,
will have spent 4,000 hours listening to radio and CDs, watched 16,000 hours of television,
and watched several thousand more hours of movies (Sanders, 1994). This means that children
will spend more time with the media than with their parents or in the classroom. Ling and
Thomas (1986)conducted a study of children who were shown two videotapes of aggressive
and non-aggressive play behavior. Only the children who viewed the aggressive video
exhibited an increase in the amount of aggressive play. Film, rock music, and even the Internet
amplify and reinforce the damaging content television pours into our consciousness (Medved
& Medved, 1998).
President Bill Clinton, in his 1996 State of the Union address, called on Congress to
adopt legislation to establish the V-chip (violence chip) as a means of helping parents limit
their children’s exposure to television violence (Kunkel, 2003). The V-chip was a result of the
1966 Telecommunication Act that mandated which new television sets are manufactured with
the Vchip. This will allow parents to block out TV programs with objectionable content.
However, parents have problems with the technology. During a Senate Commerce Committee
hearing in July 1995, a Zenith television executive was going to demonstrate how the V-chip
worked. He struggled for more than ten minutes and was not able to get the technology to work
until his aide helped him.
Music and violence
Lull (1992) has stated, “Music promotes experiences of the extreme for its makers
and listeners, turning the perilous emotional edges, vulnerabilities, triumphs, celebrations, and
antagonisms of life into hypnotic, reflective tempos that can be experienced privately or shared
with others.” Given the importance of music and its central role in adolescence, it is clear that
it has a number of important effects. Yet although there has been concern for decades about
possible deleterious effects of popular music, for most children, the effects are not deleterious.
While this chapter cannot describe in detail the uses of music, we will describe briefly three
major uses: affective uses, social uses, and the uses of lyrics (for a detailed review, see
Christenson & Roberts, 1998). It also should be noted that the research on music videos appears
to show different effects from music alone; thus music videos will be discussed
later in this chapter.
Roe (1985) presented possible reasons for listening to music and asked students
to indicate how often each applied to their listening. Factor analyses revealed three general
trends: (1) atmosphere creation and mood control, (2) silence filling and passing the time, and
(3) attention to lyrics. Of the three types of uses, atmosphere creation and mood control
emerged as the most important, with time-filling second and attention to lyrics a distant third.
Summarizing the research on adolescent uses of music, Christenson & Roberts (1998, p. 48)
Gentile, Pick, Flom, & Campos, 1994; Gentile, Stoerzinger, Finney, & Pick, 1996; Sullivan,
Gentile, & Pick, 1998). Studies of mood induction often use music in order to change people’s
moods (e.g., Kenealy, 1988; Pignatiello, Camp, Elder, & Rasar, 1989; Pignatiello, Camp, &
Rasar, 1986). Because of the affective efficacy of music, when adolescents want to be in a
certain mood, when they seek reinforcement for a certain mood, when they feel lonely, or when
they seek distraction from their troubles, music tends to be the medium of choice to accomplish
the task.
Roberts, 1998; Fedler, Hall, & Tanzi, 1982; Roberts, Henriksen, & Christenson,
1999). Articles have even been written with headlines like “Hard rock music creates killer
mice!” based on high school science-fair experiments in which groups of mice were trained to
run mazes. Groups of mice listened to classical music, hard rock, or no music. The classical
mice became faster in running the maze, whereas the hard rock mice became slower. The
student performing the study stated, “I had to cut my project short because all the hard-rock
mice killed each other. None of the classical mice did that” (Eaton, 1997; Health, Wealth, &
Happiness, n.d.)
Martin’s and his colleagues’ data (1993) from more than 200 Australian high
school students showed that those who preferred heavy metal or hard rock music reported
feelings of depression, suicidal thoughts, and deliberate infliction of self-harm more frequently
than others in the sample. For instance, 20 percent of the male and more than 60 percent of the
female heavy metal/ hard rock fans reported having deliberately tried to kill or hurt themselves
in the last six months, compared with only 8 percent and 14 percent, respectively, of the pop
music fans. Anderson and his colleagues (2003), using the theoretical framework of the General
Aggression Model , hypothesized that violent lyrics would be most likely to show short-term
effects on aggressive emotions and aggressive thoughts. These hypotheses were confirmed in
a series of five studies with undergraduate students (both males and females). The songs were
matched for style but varied in terms of violent content (e.g., violent versus nonviolent songs
from the same rock group, humorous violent versus humorous nonviolent songs). Across the
studies, violent song lyrics were associated with increases in aggressive thoughts. Aggressive
thoughts were measured in a number of manners that are typical when studying aggressive
cognition.
Movies
Besley and Burgess (2002), Stromberg (2004), Gentzkow (2006), and
DellaVigna and Kaplan (2007) provide evidence that media exposure affects political
outcomes. Card and Dahl (2008) show that emotional cues provided by local NFL football
games (in the form of unexpected upset losses) cause a spike in family violence. Relative to
this media literature which emphasizes the effect of content, our paper stresses the impact of
time use. In our context, the substitution in activities induced by violent movies dominates the
effect of content. This mechanism also operates in Gentzkow and Shapiro (2008), who show
the introduction of television during pre-school had positive effects on test scores for children
of immigrants, who otherwise would have had less exposure to the English language. (Friday
through Sunday) observations, covering the time period from January 1995 to December 2004.
Criminal documentary
Johnny Adair grew up in a neighborhood surrounded by violence. Consequently
he was subjected to violence from a young age which desensitized him from the terror. Adair
recalls the violence; speaking of listening to gun fire from his bed at night ‘it was
frightening and exciting at the same time' (Adair, 2009). Adair’s upbringing was
troubled; he was raised in a disadvantaged neighborhood which accepted crimes and acts
of violence. This therefore allows for The Social Disorganization theory to explain his
terrorist behavior. The Social Disorganization Theory states that your surroundings
affect your behavior more than your individual characteristics. This relates to Adair’s
criminality as his acts of terrorism were committed in his close, surrounding
neighborhoods. Adair watched numerous criminal acts without witnessing the penal
consequences that should have been applied. Auguste Comte states that it is not material
interests that promote criminal acts it is the lack of moral authority persuading them to do
otherwise. Additionally stating that without the creation of moral authority human beings
will not strive to reach the perfection they inherently desire. (Comte, 1976, p111)
Ressler, Burgess & Douglas (1988) found that offenders often experience
childhoods of physical and emotional abuse, caretaker instability, and perceptions of unfair
treatment within the family. One can also include cases such as Harvey Louis Carignan, who
was an illegitimate child, never knowing his father and being shuffled pillar to post by his
negligent mother. Carignan suffered from a facial twitch and bed wetting up to the age of
thirteen. By the age of 22 Carignan committed his first murder and was eventually being
convicted of three. Arthur John Shawcross created imaginary friends as he was bullied
from a young age and was said to have a complex mother-son relationship’ (Berry-Dee,
2003, p36) Burger (1988) however, do provide a comprehensive examination based on
interviews and analysis of over 400 cases of serial murder. From their research they deciphered
four types of serial murderer (Wilson, 2007, p38). The hedonistic killer, the person motivated
by power and control, the visionary killer and the person on a mission.
Burger (1988) however, do provide a comprehensive examination based on
interviews and analysis of over 400 cases of serial murder. From their research they deciphered
four types of serial murderer (Wilson, 2007, p38). The hedonistic killer, the person motivated
by power and control, the visionary killer and the person on a mission. Burger (1988) however,
do provide a comprehensive examination based on interviews and analysis of over 400 cases
of serial murder. From their research they deciphered four types of serial murderer (Wilson,
2007, p38). The hedonistic killer, the person motivated by power and control, the visionary
killer and the person on a mission.
Questionnaire
Gender …………………….. Age………………. Education………………..
Questions Strongl Agree neutral disagree Strongly
y agree disagree
1 Does electronic media Is a source of information?
2 Do you think that high user of electronic media
are violent than low user of media?
3 Does electronic media increases the level of
criminal’s activities?
4 Does electronic media is the cause of violent
attitude of youth?
5 Does an electronic medium increase the family
violence?
6 Are you agree that in songs wording is based on
violent themes?
7 Are music video promote violent seen?
8 News is full with criminal actions instead of
informational news?
9 Do you think that news on media increase the fear
among youth?
10 Pakistani media is presenting violent movies?
11 Violent movies can play important role in
destruction character building of youth?
12 Movies are promoted thrill and advancer in
among youth?
13 Criminals learn more form of criminal action due
to news?
14 Movies are mostly based on the theme of
revenge?
15 Dramas on media promoting violent behavior?
16 Dramas on media mostly finished our traditional
values?
17 Do you agree that dramas on media are full of
moral lesson?
18 Do you think that the dramas are fully avoiding
the violent action?
19 Are you agreeing that our dramas deeply affect
the mind of youth?
20 Do you agree that add on media promote the
violent action?
