TELEVISION VIOLENCE AND THE AUDIENCE BEHAVIOUR:  A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS ON ADULTS AND CHILDREN IN ENUGU METROPOLIS

ABSTRACT

 

Violence on television affects children negatively, according to psychological research.

The three major effects of seeing violence on television are:

• Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others.
• Children may be more fearful of the world around them.
• Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive ways toward others.

FACT:        The average American child may have watched 100,000 of dreaded televised violence, including 8,000 depictions of murder, by the time he or she finishes sixth grade (approximately 13 years old).

We lived in an era where both parents are often working and children have more unsupervised time.  It is essential that you make time for children and regularly inform yourself of their day to day experiences, including while they are at school if they attend school.

If you think wall to wall violence on television has no effect, why would you imagine that one-minute advents in the breaks do have an effect?

CHAPTER ONE

1:0     An Introduction

1:1     Background of Study

1:2     Statement of Research Problem

1:3     Objectives of Study

1:4     Significance of Study

1:5     Hypotheses

1:6     Research Question

1:7     Limitation of Study

1:8     Conceptual Definitions

1:9     Theoretical frameworks

 

CHAPTER TWO

2:0     Literature Review

2:1     The Review

2:2     Short-term Influences

2:3     Longer-Term Influences

2:4     Violence in Society

2:5     Media

2:6     Summaries

 

CHAPTER THREE

3:0     Methodology

3:1     The Population of the study

3:2     The survey sample

3:3     Research Instruments

3:4     Method of Data Analysis

3:5     Expected Results

CHAPTER FOUR

4:0     Presentation and Analysis of Data

4:1     Data Presentation and Analysis of Date and Summary of Findings

4:2     Result of Hypotheses test

 

CHAPTER FIVE

5.0     Summary, Conclusion, Recommendation

5:1     Summary

5:2     conclusions

5:3     Recommendations

References

Appendix

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

1:0    INTRODUCTION

It is certain that the television broadcasting sometimes play conflicting role because of their special power to influence and affect the way people think, feel and behave.  The Television had been credited with incredible persuasive ability to change attitudes and behaviour.

Most Nigerian children/adults spend a substantial amount of time watching films and news on the television, the child and even an adult catches a glimpse of foreign cultures as well as the adult world.  People have blamed the increase in violent crimes among the youths on the types of violent films on the screams.

This has made the media a source of worry, especially to governments.  Over the years, it was feared, for instance, that exposure to violent films/ programmes on television would directly cause the members of the audience to behave in violent ways in the society that is media violence-violent social behaviour.

There were many other fears which people had about the negative influence which it felt would arise from exposure to television film violence.  In all these fears, the exposure to television film violence is believed to have powerful and direct effect on people, since our dependency depends on the number and importance of information delivered by the media as well as the degree of change and conflict present in society.

This work of study is to expose the many ways “television film violence affect the audience behaviour and a comparative analysis of the effects on adults and children through the questionnaire method and to proffer or suggest solutions by which television film violence could be reduced to the barest minimum

 

1.1:   Background of Study:

Concerning about children and popular Media has a long history.  Plato proposed to ban poets from his ideal republic, because he feared that their stories about immoral behaviour would corrupt young minds.  In modern times, moral pressure group0s have tried to ‘protect’ children from popular literature, the music hall, the anema, conuics, television and video masties.  It is important to see the issue of television violence and children’s behaviour in a broader social  cultural and historical context.  Why is it such a popular subject? This is not often the fate of academic research issues.  Well, it may be partly that it is a convenient scapegoat.  Blaming three media can only direct attention from other causes of change, and so claims about the effects of television can be massively exaggerated.

At the same time, we can hardly ignore the fact that television does feature aggressive and violent behaviour.  One commentator notes that by the age of 14 the average American child has seen 11,000 murders on television (Aarris, 1989).

In fact, studies have shown that violence is much has prevalent on British television than on American television (Gunter & McAleer 1990).

However, the type of programme matters: there are more violence in cartoons than in many other fictional programmes, but children do discriminate between cartoon violence and more ‘realistic’ violence.  Nevertheless, violence is commonplace even in British television.

 

 

1.2     STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM:

There has been a considerable amount of research into inter-relationship between the viewing of violent films, videos and television programmes and aggressive behaviour by the viewers of such materials especially the behaviour of children.  My words are carefully chosen in that description.  More commonly, research is framed as being concerned with what are called the ‘effects’ of television.  This analysis represents the dominant paradiging in television research.  In its crudest form, the relationship between children and television is portrayed as a matter of single cause and direct effect, which puts this kind of research firmly in the behaviourist tradition: based on what is sometimes referred to as the magic bullet theory.  Approaches  have become more sophisticated in resent decades, stressing such complicating factors as the variety of audiences, individual differences and the importance of intervening variables.

The early survey work in the 1950s by Vilbur Schramm (1961) and his colleagues in the US as well as Hillder Aimmelweit (1958) and her colleagues in Britain are remarkably cautious compared with many later studies.  Both present children as active agents rather than passive victims, unlike most of the research in the 1960s.  Both Schramm and Himmelveit suggest that the effects of television violence vary according to the personal and social characteristics of viewers, and according to how violent acts were portrayed.  Sociological research has infact tended to stress longer-term changes in behaviour and the enmeshing of television with the rest of social life, whereas psychological research has trended to focus on short-term changes in behaviour, treated in isolation in the laboratory.

The famous psychological studies of children and aggressive behaviour are Alber Bandura’s Bobo Doll studies, which are now widely regarded as early research classics in the field.  These were experimental studies in which children of nursery school age observed a playroom in which an adult was hitting, punching, kicking and throwing a large inflatable doll.  Particular actions were used (such as using a hammer and say ‘pow . . . boom . . . boom’) which children would be unlikely to perform spontaneously.

The children were then observed, as they played alone in the playroom with the doll for 10 to 20 minutes.  A control group of children was allowed to play with the doll without observing the aggressive adult behaviour.

As one might expect, the children who withnessed the adult aggression performed similar acts, the others did not.  In a series of studies, Bandura (1961) and his collegues have shown that children display novel acts of aggressive behaviour which they have actured simply through observing someone else engaged in these acts.

In a later version of experiment (1965) the children were divided into three groups one group went straight into the playroom.  The second group saw the model being rewarded for aggressive actions before they went in.  the third saw the model being punished.  Those who saw the model being punished showed significantly less aggression than those who saw the model rewarded or who saw no consequences.  This suggests that seeing a model punished leads to less learning of the model’s behaviour.  However, after all, the children had played in the playroom with the doll, they were offered rewards to behave in the playroom like the adult model had done.  In the first stage of the experiment the consequences for the adult attested the children’s behaviour.  This second stage showed that they had in fact learnt the behaviour because they were able to perform it.  So those children who had seen the model punished had learnt the behaviour but would only behave like that it offered an incentive.

Bandura (1965) suggests that we should distinguish clearly between the acquisition of aggressive responses and the performance of aggressive acts: observation of modeling is sufficient for aggressive behaviour to be learned, but reinforcement is necessary for aggressive acts to be actually performed.

 

1:3    OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDIES

This studies wishes to expose the many ways television film violence had affected audience behaviour especially on children and more so, it suggests or proffers solutions by which television film violence could be reduced to the barest minimum in the society in-order.

• To avoid ‘television film violence;
• To protect the lives and moral values in our societies.
• To encourage non-television film violence
• The audience to resort to a responsible media.
• To mark an end to ‘television film violence in our societies;

1:4    SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The findings of this work will add to previous studies carried out in the same subject matter by other research scholars.  Conversely, it will also open more avenues for further research on ‘Television film violence and the audience behaviour.

Going by the world order, there is the need for the entire populace to know about the impact of film violence in the society.  It is only when this is done that the influence of film violence on the behaviour of adults and children will be reduced.

 

 1:5   HYPOTHESIS

(i)        Hi:   There is difference in the effects of ‘television film violence between the adults and the children in the society.

Ho:    There is no difference in the effects o f ‘television film violence between the adult and children in the society.

(ii)     H₂:     Television film do have violence effect on the audience effect on the audience.

Ho:    Television film do not have violence effect on audience

(iii)    H₃:     Television programmes do offer good programmes to the audience.

Ho:    Television programmes do not offer good programmes to the audience.

(iv)    H₄:     The media is responsible for television film violence.

Ho:    The media is not responsible for television film violence.

 

1.6     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In the light of the foregoing this study is now supported with the following research questions.

• Does television film violence affects and influence audience behaviour
• Who does television film violence affect most?
• Is the media responsible for television film violence?
• What suggestions can be given to stop or reduce television film violence?
• How does the audience feel and react to television film violence?

 

 

1:7    LIMITATION OF STUDY

Due to time constraints and poor findings for the project, it becomes impossible for the researcher to reach out to so many research scholars on this topic: ‘Television film violence and audience behaviour’.  However the study had been limited to adults and children drawn from the inhabitants of Enugu metropolis.

 

1:8    CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION MAGIC BULLET THEORY:

It is a theory of the homogeneity of the audience.  This theory was propounded by these communication scholars: Pavil Lazar Fed, Bernad Berelsen and Mazel Gauilet.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE THEORY:  These are the categories that believes in distinguishment categories.  These differences are: Thought patterns, Psychological make-up (No two individuals are alike especially in the approach to selectivity), Physiological frame work and Behavioural traits.

 

 

1:9    THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Many theories about children’s behaviour and the influence of television are in the behaviouristic tradition:  where the emphasis is on the passive learning of habitual behaviour through conditioning.  They tend to ignore the active meaning – (ie.) mnaking the children to engage in, and the variety o f meanings which they construct with television (Dorr & Kovaric, 1980).  The Magic bullet theory which is the theory of the homogeneity of the audience.  Pavil Lazar Fed. Bernad Berelsen and Nagel Gaudict (1940) are communication scholars that followed the election of academic and they wrote a book called the “people choice”.  They discovered that advertisement commercials does not change people opinion that what matters is the opinion leaders, the intermediaries who bring the information from the source and then go back to the people under them and disseminate the information.  They concluded that opinion leaders matter very much information dissemination. Opinion leaders are the people whom lower class people respect because of one knowledge or the order they have above the other class.  They believe that (scholars) people do not value the information coming from the source rather the intermediary (opinion leaders).

 

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES THEORY:

There are the categories that believes in distinguishment categories.  They are against the mass society culture, norms, values of other group.

Irrespective of group, cohension through values, norms and on, social groups comprise still different individuals.  No matter how uniform their ideas about life about society and the media are, these people still have some differences in their overall physical and psychological attributes (personality traits or idiosyncracies), and use these differences to affect the media content (in the uses and creation) even if minimally.

These differences are:

1. Thought patterns
2. Psychological make-up (No two individuals are alike especially in the approach to selectively).

• Physiological frame work

1. Behavioural traits.

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