FACES OF VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA
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MEDIA: THE PROBLEM
A week after the terror in New York, 4-year-old Kia asked her
mom when the planes would stop crashing and the buildings stop falling.
Her mother reassured her that it was all over. No, Mom, it happened
again last night and this morning, said Kia. Honey, its over,
her mother said with a hug. No! Come look, Kia insisted and her
mother once again saw the familiar images appear on the TV screen.
But thats the same plane and the same building. That happened last
week, her mother explained. Oh, said Kia, still convinced that
hundreds of planes had attacked hundreds of buildings. (What Happened
to the World, Bright Horizons Family Solutions)
All children are impressionable. But children under the age of 7
are especially influenced by what they see in the media. The experience
of Kia and her mother demonstrates the impact news can have on children.
It may create stress and anxiety, especially in situations where television
channels and Internet sites report detailed and repetitive visual
coverage and broadcast live events as they unfold. Chronic and persistent
exposure to such violence can lead to fear, desensitization and, in
some children, to aggressive behaviors. Adults, parents, teachers,
and broadcasters must assume responsibility for protecting children
from potentially harmful effects of exposure to violence through the
media television, movies, video games, and the Internet.
Violence in the movies and on TV is common. The
Center for Media and Public Affairs reports that TV viewers and moviegoers
are exposed to scenes of serious violence every four minutes and that
even the most serious violence is often portrayed as harmless or justified.
In the United States, an average child will see 100,000 acts of TV
violence, including 8,000 murders, by the time he or she reaches 18
years of age, according to the National Institute on Media and the
Family.
More than 1,000 scientific studies and reviews
point to a casual connection between media violence and aggressive
behavior in some children. One factor in how much violence a child
is exposed to is the number of hours of TV the child watches. German
and Swedish studies show children from lower socio-economic groups
watch significantly more than average levels of TV. In America, the
average youth spends 1,023 hours per year watching TV but only 900
hours per year in school. Overall, the children most likely to be
affected by media violence are the most vulnerable.
DEVELOPMENTAL IMPACT OF MEDIA
Six prominent US medical groups (American Academy of Pediatrics,
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological
Association, American Medical Association, American Academy of Family
Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association) warn of these
effects of media violence on children:
- Children will increase anti-social and aggressive behavior.
- Children may become less sensitive to violence and those who suffer
from violence.
- Children may view the world as violent and mean, becoming more
fearful of being a victim.
- Children will desire to see more violence in entertainment and
real life.
- Children will view violence as an acceptable way to settle conflicts.
(US Congressional Public Health Summit, 2000)
In studies in Canada, children were found to have become significantly
more aggressive two years after television was introduced in the community.
Studies also show that children who prefer violent shows tend to watch
more and more violent programming, as they get older, thus increasing
its effect on them over time. (Media Awareness Network)
Other Canadian studies have shown that children
are more likely to imitate aggression when the perpetrator is rewarded
or at least not punished and when the violence is portrayed as being
justified. Cross-cultural studies in Australia, Finland, Poland and
the United States showed that childrens identification with TV characters
and their perception of how realistic they thought the programs were
correlated with their aggressiveness. The more realistic the children
believed the scenes to be, and the more the characters seemed to be
like them, the more likely they were to try out the behavior. (Health
Canada.)
As influential as TV and the movies are, recent studies indicate
that violent video games may be even more harmful to children. 60-90%
of the most popular video games have violent themes. Two American
Psychological Association studies say that playing video games such
as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Mortal Kombat can increase the players
aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings
and in real life. Because the games are interactive and engrossing,
they require the player to identify with the aggressor.
Impact across developmental stages
Although some effects of media violence seem to span all ages, others
are specific to certain ages based on stage of development, according
to Media Awareness Network in Canada.
Infants and toddlers:
Although no research has focused specifically on infants, some evidence
indicates that if behavior from television is presented simply, infants
can imitate it. As children grow into toddlers, they begin to become
more interested in television and imitate what they see. The viewing
patterns children establish, as toddlers will influence them throughout
their lives. Since they prefer cartoons and programs that have characters
who move quickly, toddlers are likely to be exposed to many violent
programs.
Preschool age children:
By preschool, children begin to actively search for meaning in the
content, but are still especially attracted to vivid production features.
Because vivid production features often accompany television violence,
preschoolers are predisposed to seek out and pay attention to violence,
especially cartoon violence. They are unlikely to be able to put
the violence in context since they lack developmental skills to see
the subtlety conveying mitigating factors. (Media Awareness Network)
Elementary school age children:
Elementary school is a critical period for understanding the effects
of television on aggression. These children develop the attention
span and cognitive ability to follow plots, make inferences about
implicit content and recognize motivations of consequences of the
characters actions. By age eight, children are typically more sensitive
to moderating influences in television content and will not become
more aggressive if they see violence portrayed as evil. However,
they are likely to become aggressive if they believe the violence
reflects real life, identify with a violent hero or have aggressive
fantasies. (Media Awareness Network)
Adolescents:
During adolescence, children are able to reason and think abstractly,
although they rarely invest much mental effort in watching TV. Adolescents
in middle school and high school are much more likely than younger
children to doubt the reality of television content and much less
likely to identify with television characters. The small percentages
of those who continue to believe in the reality of television and
to identify with its violent heroes are the ones likely to be more
aggressive, especially if they continue to fantasize about aggressive-heroic
themes.
STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESSFUL INTERVENTIONS
Parenting
Parents are the best mediators of their childrens viewing. They
also can affect how their children learn from the media by discussing
the content with them, as well as through the kinds of punishments
they use and the role models they portray in resolving conflicts.
Programs impacting the general social culture
The Media Violence Network focuses on the need for programs that
address the impact of promoting aggression has the general social
culture. It presents research findings that show the preference for
watching violent media, in combination with existing tendencies to
aggressive and antisocial behavior produces the highest levels of
aggressive behavior in childhood and into adult life.
The Center for Media Literacy also believes that media violence has
a major effect on society, and it calls on us to take responsibility
for the culture we are creating and passing on to our children. This
includes the media industry: writers, producers and networks; advertisers;
and parents. As a tool for achieving reform, the Center has developed
a community education resource package – Beyond Blame: Challenging
Violence in the Media.
Recent UNICEF initiatives have focused on media workshops. Materials
that encourage the development of a fairer, more caring society have
been used in these workshops in Albania, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique,
Nepal, Romania, Sri Lanka, East Asia and the South Pacific. In 1996,
the International Save the Children Alliance submitted ideas to the
Committee on the Rights of the Child for a series of child-focused
media guidelines for journalists, advertisers, NGOs and other organizations
concerned about children. Ombudspersons from Norway are leading the
Oslo Challenge Project, working with media professionals to draw up
an Implementation Guide on Media and Children.
Earlier this year, representatives of leading television, advertising,
corporate, government and civil society organizations in the East
Asia-Pacific region agreed to and adopted recommendations for quality
childrens television. The recommendations, which will be widely disseminated
throughout the region and at the Fourth World Summit on Media for
Children to be held in 2004, in Rio de Janeiro, included:
- Making existing producers of quality productions aware of child
rights issues and urging them to incorporate these issues in programs
they are already producing.
- Encouraging and ensuring authentic participation of children and
youth in the production of quality childrens programming.
- Using integrated media to ensure maximum reach and relevance.
- Supporting training/production workshops in technical and storytelling
techniques as well as exchange programs for childrens program producers
from developing countries with their counterparts in industrialized
countries. (UNICEF)
