Re: Children and Media Violence, by Ulla Carlsson
Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:37 pm
Children and Violence on the Screen
Research Articles
Introduction
CECILIA VON FEILITZEN
Scientific Co-ordinator of the Clearinghouse
Children and violence on the screen
The debate about media violence has fluctuated heavily at the same time as the media have been introduced and spread. In the context of this debate, different media have been more or less in focus during different periods -- from books, popular press and film in earlier centuries, to radio, comics, national TV, video, mediated music and satellite-TV during the course of the 20th century, to digital and so-called interactive media such as electronic games, the Internet and "virtual reality" now as we approach the millennium.
But whereas indignant voices are more seldom raised about violence in the print and audio media today, the concern for violence in the visual media has remained. As a consequence, the research on media violence that started in the 1920s and has been intensified during later decades, has, above all, applied to film and television, with the addition, during the last fifteen years, of studies on video, electronic games and Internet.
With more media, the amount of media violence has increased. This is due not only to the cumulative effects of the creation of new media, but also to the increased competition between the media and their globalisation and privatisation. Compared to the field of media and telecommunications, since the 1980s, hardly any other area has experienced such rapid globalisation, record growth and concentration of power. The market is now dominated by a minority of extensive conglomerates or of whole commercial worlds. U.S.-based conglomerates are the largest and most numerous, but there are also considerable transnational enterprises based in Asia and the partly deregulated Europe (Herman & McChesney 1997).
The fact that the U.S. distributes most of the media violence in the world, leads, among other things, to the circumstance that American programmes on German television contain four times as much violence as the German programmes, according to a content analysis (Groebel & Gleich 1993). In a Swedish content analysis of all programmes except the news on six TV channels (Cronstrom & Hoijer 1996), 62 per cent of the violent time (i.e., pure sequences of violence) consisted of violent scenes of U.S. origin. In this case, the sequences of violence in trailers were not taken into account; they made up 15 per cent of the total violent time. Since trailers often are advertisements for coming action films and the like, one can estimate that about 70 per cent of the violent time might have been of U.S. origin.
The concentration of media ownership is not only valid for television programmes, video and cinema films, but also for comics, electronic games, etc. Thus, this power concentration does not result in manifoldness, cultural variation and freedom of expression where most people can be heard, but in one-sidedness and a kind of private censorship.
Many countries are worried about the one-sidedness of imported programmes and films which they cannot counterbalance with own production, although it is, of course, impossible to generalise between nations, as conditions and prerequisites are different (e.g., Japan and India export many TV programmes and films to other Asian countries; Brazil many programmes in Latin America; Australia several programmes to Asia and English-speaking countries, etc.). One example is the situation in former Eastern Europe. Here the relief felt after the liberation from censorship, after the collapse of the Wall in 1989, has been obscured by the surprise and distaste currently experienced by parts of the population due to the flood of violent and pornographic programmes and films pouring over the nations' borders. More and more, voices urging for media legislation have been raised there (see, e.g., Larsson 1997, Minichova 1997), and new national rules and laws about media violence, passed in the 1990s, exist in most Eastern European countries (Irving & Tadros 1997).
At the same time, it is important to note that persons, on the average, prefer to watch TV programmes without violence, at least according to an American analysis (Gerbner 1997). From many nations in the world, it is also reported that the average inhabitant prefers to watch home-produced programmes, if there are home-produced alternatives -- national soap operas, national fiction, etc. (Goonasekera 1995, Sancho 1995, Lamb 1997). However, such alternatives are often lacking or are few. Drama and fiction are expensive to produce and, in most countries, expenditures cannot be expected to result in big export incomes, as in the U.S. which dominates world export.
What drives media violence, then, is not primarily popularity but global marketing (Gerbner 1997). Concentration of media ownership also makes it difficult for newcomers, smaller firms and alternative production companies to succeed on the home market. They are therefore forced into the video branch and foreign sales. Their products need a dramatic ingredient that requires no translation and fits as many cultures as possible. That ingredient is often violence. A study in the U.S. indicated that American programmes exported to other countries contain more violence than American programmes shown in the U.S. (Gerbner 1997).
This all means, among other things, that almost 90 per cent of 12-year-old school children are acquainted with violent action characters such as Terminator and Rambo, according to a global study in 23 countries (see the article in this book by Jo Groebel).
In some nations, not least the Western ones, criminological research indicates that violence in society has increased during the latest decades. Furthermore, statistics have recently been published showing that violence has become more common among children under 15 years of age.
What, then, does research say about the relationship between media violence and violence in society? This is the theme of the first section of research articles -- Children and Violence on the Screen -- in this book.
It must be stressed that research about media violence is most unevenly distributed in the world. Such research has primarily been done in countries with plenty of media -- in North America and, next, Western Europe (more often in Northern than Southern Europe), as well as in Japan and Australia. Overviews of such research results are presented in the book by Ellen Wartella, Adriana Olivarez and Nancy Jennings, USA, Barbara Wilson and her team, USA, Sachiko I. Kodaira, Japan, and Kevin Durkin and Jason Low, Australia. The two last-mentioned overviews also deal with the still relatively scanty research on video and computer games. In most other countries, studies about media violence are fewer or lacking. Interesting examples of existing studies are, however, given in the book by Dafna Lemish, Israel, and Tatiana Merlo-Flores, Argentina.
Taken together, the articles show that it is difficult to generalise the research results across different countries and cultures. As Olga Linne, UK, stresses in her discussion of the research development in Europe, each country must therefore be given the opportunity to carry out research on its own terms and within its own cultural context. As does the Japanese contributor Sachiko Kodaira in the book, I would also like to emphasise that far more future research on children and the media must be performed on an International level, i.e., comparatively and in various countries simultaneously, in order to gain a proper understanding of the role of media, and media violence, in children's lives. Kodaira mentions one of several concrete examples in this connection: Comparative content analyses of violent portrayals in Japanese and U.S. television have shown, that although media violence is extensive in both cultures, it is represented in different ways. Among other differences, violence in Japanese as compared to U.S. dramas is much more often followed by scenes showing the after-effects of violence on victims and the process of their suffering. This factor, in combination with the different societal contexts, could possibly be of importance for the fact that causal relationships between TV violence and aggression among viewers have been found in the U.S. but not in Japan.
Apart from the cultural and national variation in research which limits researchers' abilities to generalise and summarise results, many journalists, TV producers, politicians, teachers, parents, etc., in the public debate in each single country often perceive the research results on the influences of media violence as being "contradictory" or that "the researchers are at odds". I do not think that these perceptions represent the truth of the matter. The situation is, rather, that even different studies within a given country are performed in different contexts -- the studies have varying aims, perspectives and questions as starting points and elucidate, consequently, different parts of the complex of problems. Neither can any study comprise "the whole reality". Further, different viewers receive different impressions from media violence. On thinking it over and after a more careful analysis, the perspectives and the results complement each other as do the pieces in a puzzle. At the same time, it is a question of understanding that reality is complicated and that the media only are one part of people's environment, of culture and society. Media are not, and cannot be, the sole and/or direct cause of influence but function within a nexus of other decisive factors.
As regards the different research perspectives, research on media violence has -- as does other social scientific and human research -- among other things, its roots in the basic philosophical question about human beings' free will. To what degree are we products of the environment -- of parents, school, peers, media, religion and social structure -- and to what degree do we choose and act independently? Even if most people agree that both elements play a role, some of us lay greater stress on the role of structure and others greater stress on the role of the agent. This is valid for researchers, too. Some, therefore, analyse how we are influenced by media violence (in interplay with the rest of the environment). Others, instead, illustrate how we (having different needs, motives, conflicts and interests) choose and use media violence. But these perspectives are not in themselves contradictory; they highlight different aspects of the existential circumstances of human beings and lie, therefore, on different places on the theoretical map. Thus, the researchers contributing to this book also have different theories, besides the fact that their research has been carried out in differing national contexts.
There is, thus, no contradiction in the fact that certain persons actively search out media violence to, e.g., get excitement, become fascinated, express their masculinity, experience power on a symbolic level, try to strengthen their identity in protest against the adult world, get compensation for conflicts in their personal relations, etc. -- while others get impressions of negative art. Different children, young people and adults react differently. Also, the same person reacts differently on differing occasions. He or she can even simultaneously seek media violence and be influenced by it in an intricate interplay.
Similarly, different studies investigate different types of influence. In those countries where much research has been done, one can discern various such unwanted influences of media violence as, for example, imitation; getting "tips" and models about how violence can be used; aggression; fear; anxiety and uneasiness about a threatening surrounding; biased conceptions about violence in society; and habituation to media violence. There are also complicated relationships between these types of influences. It is, for instance, likely that for some individuals media violence has contributed to feelings of fear, misconceptions about real violence, and experiences of threatening surroundings that, in a situation of crisis, can turn into destructive aggression (for a more detailed analysis of negative and positive consequences of media violence, see von Feilitzen 1993).
Generally, children and media violence should also be seen in a wider perspective. Research has mostly defined media violence as the physical, manifest violence on the screen, and this is primarily valid also for the articles in this book. There are, however, other forms of symbolic and structural oppression and misuse of power that are at least as essential. We hope to come back to such definitions in later Clearinghouse publications. Here, I will restrict myself to only a couple of examples: The fact that children are heavily under-represented in the media output as a whole, is a symbolic oppression of children. They are seldom seen, their voices are seldom heard, and adult media characters seldom talk about them. With the spread of commercial satellite television, this under-representation of children seems to have been reinforced, and when children now appear in the media contents they seem to be more often portrayed to support adult roles than in their own rights. The only medium where children seem to be frequently represented is advertising. This is in line with the fact that children and young people have from a Western societal viewpoint (disregarding their value for the parents), a primarily economic-consuming function (von Feilitzen in progress).
The area of children and media violence also includes those cases where children are at the mercy of media news -- when they are portrayed as victims of violence, abuse, catastrophes and starvation without respect for their integrity. Children and media violence also includes child pornography.
Children's media situation
It is important to emphasise that children are not a small minority group "on the side". If we -- in keeping with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- by children mean all persons under the age of 18, they constitute approximately 37 per cent of the total world population.
Children are unevenly distributed across the various countries. Estimates indicate that, on the average, children under 18 in richer countries make up ca. 24 per cent of the population and in the developing countries ca. 40 per cent of the population. In certain countries the population is composed of up to 55 per cent children (see the statistical section Children in the World in this book).
The uneven distribution of children in the world becomes clearer, if we leave adults out of the picture: Of the more than two billion children on the globe, ca. 13 per cent live in the richer countries and ca. 87 per cent in the developing countries (UNICEF 1997).
Children's access to TV and other media is very unevenly distributed, too -- but in a diametrically opposite way. In many European countries, and in North America, Japan and Australia, most children have all thinkable media technology in their homes. Not only do they have TV, but often two or more TV apparatuses at home, of which often one is in their own room. At the same time, there are frequently a video, personal computer and electronic computer and/or video games. More and more, children can also use CD-ROM and the Internet. In these countries, the parents -- who traditionally have had the greatest influence on children's media use -- therefore also have less and less insight into how much and what children watch. Media use is becoming more and more individualised and it is increasingly difficult for adults to serve as models for and accompany and discuss children's viewing.
In some countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America it is, on the other hand, common to watch together using the only generator driven TV or video in the village. One basic reason is that there is so little electricity in the rural areas, where most people live. Nor is it unusual that children have never watched TV at all (Jahangir 1995). The TV and video apparatuses are, however, forcing their way into all corners of the world, parallel to the explosion of satellite-TV channels and video films of the 1980s and 90s, with more and more advertising, fiction and media violence (see also Robert Lamb's article in this book).
As expected, children's TV programming is most unevenly distributed, as well. In some countries, hardly any children's programmes are produced. Even in the richer countries, however, the conditions of children's programming vary. In the U.S., the traditional TV networks seldom broadcast children's programmes which are tailored to different age groups and they seldom broadcast informative children's programmes (Chong 1995). The number of newly produced children's programmes in the U.S. has also clearly decreased since the deregulation of TV in the 1980s (Palmer 1995). In Europe, Japan and Australia, countries which normally have had a long tradition of production of children's programmes, these programmes on the national public service channels are threatened by competition from the many satellite-TV channels, which mostly contain fiction and animation.
A marked trend in the world is the introduction of special "niche" channels for children such as Nickelodeon, Disney, Fox and National Geographic. But these are American based pay-TV channels to which only some children have access. Some glimpses of children's media situation in the world are presented in the second section of research articles in this book -- Children's Media Situation. It must be stressed, however, that here, too, the articles are, primarily, about countries where research has been performed and where statistics on children's media access and media use are available. The articles by Anura Goonasekera, Singapore, Sun Yunxiao, the People's Republic of China, Stephen Nugent, Australia, Nadia Bulbulia, South Africa, and Keith Roe, Belgium, point out important variations in children's media, media access and media use in different regions.
The future goal of the Clearinghouse is to give a more diverse picture of children's media situation from a greater spectrum of countries -- potential and interested authors are welcome to contact us. In this connection we have also contacted media research institutes in 40-50 nations to, if possible, obtain comparable statistics on children's media use. However, if continuous ratings or the like do exist in the country, they do not always include children. When child figures are included, methods as well as age groups vary in a way that make the data difficult to compare. We will continue to work with these figures and hope to return to them in a later publication. The statistical section Media in the World in this book gives an illustrative background, with facts on the distribution of TV, video, television programming for children and youth, cinema screens, computers, electronic games, radio and books, etc, in different countries, as well as a list of the largest International entertainment companies in the world.
A growing global awareness
Even if it is sometimes easy to feel resigned, especially on a national plane, to the drawbacks brought by the global media expansion, there are also positive features in the form of a counter-movement -- the growing global awareness of children's media situation (see the Clearinghouse newsletters News on Children and Violence on the Screen No. 1-3 1997). An essential support for this movement is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. One function of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is to follow up the various member nations' observance of the Convention. The Committee has in this connection entered the child and the media as a particularly important issue on the agenda. Within the Committee there is at present a working group on children and media, and the Committee has set down a range of recommendations on how implementation of articles 17 and 13 in the Convention can be realistically and practically regarded and facilitated (see the introductory section in the book, Children and Media on the UN and UNESCO Agendas).
The counter-movement is, for example, characterised by several recent International and regional meetings intended to support the vacillating state of children's TV programming, such as the film festival in Bratislava in 1994, the World Summit on Television and Children in Melbourne in 1995, the corresponding Asian Summit on Child Rights and the Media in Manila, 1996, and the African Summit on Children's Broadcasting in Accra, 1997. Resolutions and declarations on children's programmes have been one result; these are circulated to the world's TV companies as a means of pressure and for endorsement. These documents are reproduced in the section International Declaration and Resolution in the book. The Children's Television Charter resulting from the World Summit in Melbourne has, together with the Asian and African regional declarations, been discussed at the Second World Summit on Television for Children in London in March, 1998. A regional Summit on children's television for the Americas is planned for the year 2000, and a third World Summit is to be expected the year thereafter.
Furthermore, an International association for child and media researchers (IRFCAM, International Research Forum on Children and Media) was established in Melbourne, 1995, and the first large International forum ever for child and media researchers was held in 1997 in Paris, arranged by GRREM (Groupe de la recherche sur la relation enfants/medias).
The UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen is also a part of this growing global awareness. The same applies for other UNESCO activities related to children and the media (see the introductory section in the book, Children and Media on the UN and UNESCO Agendas).
Moreover, a World Council for Media Education was created in the mid-1990s, which will meet for the second time in Sao Paolo in May 1998. Media education is regarded by many as a solution -- through education children and young people can learn to reflexively handle the media (therein could lie a "solution" to the problem of media violence, too). Even if good media education partly can have this function, there is reason for pessimism, however, since media education in the schools is seldom fully realised. Despite the fact that media education in some form has long been included in the curricula in many countries, and despite the fact that the importance of media education has been stressed in many national, regional and International governmental reports and other contexts, very few children have in practice any media education at all. Apart from the efforts of lone fiery spirits among some teaching-staff, the fine phrases about media education have mostly been on paper, especially when it comes to visual media.
Nor has media education -- or information on children and the media -- for parents and producers always found effective forms. Realising this kind of media education has also become more and more complicated due to the individualisation of media use in the homes and due to the deregulated, globalised media market where national politicians have less and less say, and the media, to a greater extent, turn to an expanding industry of private research institutes rather than to university researchers.
In the future, the Clearinghouse will also seek to stimulate exchange of knowledge about media education in the schools, and for parents and producers worldwide.
At the same time, there is need for other types of initiatives to improve children's relations to the media. Among other things, children should be actively included in the actual media production, something which also will mean a better platform for children's voices and opinions and a more just representation of children in the media. The section Children's Participation in the Media in this book presents a few, by no means exhaustive, examples of such initiatives which further children's rights -- it is hoped that these examples can inspire similar activities. Among the examples are: UNICEF's media activities for children, the news agency Children's Express in the UK and USA, and children's and young people's participation in radio, television and video production, as well as on the Internet, in a range of countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and North America. The Clearinghouse is interested in collecting and publishing more comments and articles on positive and practical experiences of active child participation in the media world-wide, and hope that persons and organisations engaged in other projects related to children's media participation contact us about them.
In the growing global movement -- in addition to these mentioned meetings, declarations, associations, fora and other activities -- many voluntary International and national organisations exist which in various and other ways are engaged in issues related to children and media.
In the light of the fact that the discussion on children and media in several countries was heated during the 1970s, at least in those countries where the media are widely spread, but diminished during the deregulation in the 1980s, it is, in sum, gratifying to observe that the discussion has increased again and now also is carried on at the necessary global level. It is essential that the new discussion should partly focus on negative aspects -- for example, to limit gratuitous media violence by encouraging the media to impose self-regulation. These regulations and measures could include that the media stipulate water-sheds before which times media violence shall not be transmitted; that the media classify media violence (by age limits and/or contents) and inform the viewers by means of, e.g., visible icons on the screen; perhaps that, as in the USA and Canada, V-chips are put into the TV-sets; that parents are offered different blocking devices for the Internet, etc. (see further under the headline Regulations and Measures in this book with contributions by Titti Forsslund, Sweden, and Joanne Lisosky, USA). It is of vital importance, however, that the discussion also focus on the positive possibilities of the media -- for example, to increase manifoldness and quality in children's and adult programming, by means of, among other things, financial and other production support, and exchange of programmes between countries via special programme banks; to work for children's own participation in the media; and, not least, to realise all children's right to access to media.
Changing children's media situation also means that the circumstances in their personal environments and in society must be improved. Firstly, the risk of unwanted media influences is far less for children who are growing up in safe conditions and who have good relations to parents, school and peers. Secondly, it is necessary that children and young people are allowed to participate actively in shaping their society's future. Statements about how we adults need to hear children's voices and how we must listen to them will remain empty words unless children are given more opportunities to affect their own conditions. If children and young people become involved in activities that both are meaningful for themselves and are important for the decision making process in society -- then they will also automatically be represented and heard in the media.
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References
Chong, Rachelle (1995) Speech at the World Summit on Television and Children, 12-17 March, 1995, Melbourne, Australia, cited in von Feilitzen, Cecilia & Hammatberg, Thomas Toppmotet -- om TV:s och barns rattigheter [The Summit -- on the rights of television and the child). Kulturdepartemenret, Valdsskildringsddet, nr 16. (In Swedish)
Cronstrom, Johan & Hoijer, Birgitta (1996) 40 timmar vald i veckan -- en studie av vald i sex svenska TV-kanaler [40 hours of violence per week -- a study of violence on six Swedish TV channels). Kulturdepartemenret, Va;dsskildringsddet, nr 14. (In Swedish)
von Feilitzen, Cecilia (1993) "Vald -- serr pa olika satt. Perspektiv pa medievaldets paverkan och berydelse [Violence -- regarded in different ways. Perspectives on the influence and meaning of media violence]", in von Feilitzen, Cecilia, Forsman, Michael & Roe, Keith (Eds.) Vald fran alia hall. Forskningsperspektiv pa vald i rorliga bilder. Stockholm/Stehag, Brutus Ostlings bokforlag Symposion, pp. 25-48. (In Swedish)
von Feilitzen, Cecilia (in progress) Barnen i TV [Children on television]. Research project at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, Stockholm university. (In Swedish)
Gerbner, George (1997) "Violence in TV Drama", News on Children and Violence on the Screen, No. 3, pp. 6-7.
Goonasekera, Anura (1995) Speech at the World Summit on Television and Children, 12-17 March, 1995, Melbourne, Australia, cited in von Feilitzen, Cecilia & Hammarberg, Thomas Toppmotet -- om TV:s och barns rattigheter [The Summit -- on the rights of television and the child). Kulturdepartemenret, Valdsskildringsddet, nr 16. (In Swedish)
Groebel, Jo & Gleich, Uli (1993) Gewaltprofil des deutschen Fernsehprogramms: Eine Analyse des Angebots privater und offentlich-rechtlicher Sender. Schriftenreihe Medienforschung der Landesanstalt fur Rundfunk Nordthein-Westfalen, 6. Opladen, Leske+Budrich.
Herman, Edward S. & McChesney, Robert W. (1997) The Global Media. The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism. London, Cassel.
Irving, Joan & Tadros, Connie (1997) Creating a Space for Children. Volume 2. Children's Film and Television in Central and Eastern Europe. Montreal, International Centre of Films for Children and Young People (CIFEJ).
Jahangir, Asma (1995) Speech at the World Summit on Television and Children, 12-17 March, 1995, Melbourne, Australia, cited in von Feilitzen, Cecilia & Hammarberg, Thomas Toppmotet -- om TV:s och barns rattigheter [The Summit - on the rights of television and the child). Kulrurdepartementer, Valdsskildringsrader, nr 16. (In Swedish)
Lamb, Robert (1997) The Bigger Picture: Audio-visual Survey and Recommendations. UNICEF.
Larsson, Mika (1997) "Polish-Swedish Seminar 1996 -- Media Violence on Polish Agenda 1997", News on Children and Violence on the Screen, No. 1-2, pp. 18-19.
Minichova, Kararina (1997) "Stop Violence in TV Programmes!", News on Children and Violence on the Screen, No. 3, pp. 16.
News on Children and Violence on the Screen, No. 1-3 1997. Newsletters from The UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen, Nordicom, Goteborg University.
Palmer, Ed (1995) Speech at the World Summit on Television and Children, 12-17 March, 1995, Melbourne, Australia, cited in von Feilitzen, Cecilia & Hammarberg, Thomas Toppmotet -- om TV:s och barns rattigheter [The Summit -- on the rights of television and the child). Kulrurdepartementer, Valdsskildringsradet, nr 16. (In Swedish)
Sancho, Neila (1995) Speech at the World Summit on Television and Children, 12-17 March, 1995, Melbourne, Australia, cited in von Feilitzen, Cecilia & Hammarberg, Thomas Toppmotet - om TV:s och barns rattigheter [The Summit -- on the rights of television and the child). Kulturdepartementer, Valdsskildringsrader, nr 16. (In Swedish)
UNICEF (1997) The State of the World's Children 1997. UNICEF, Oxford University Press.
Research Articles
Introduction
CECILIA VON FEILITZEN
Scientific Co-ordinator of the Clearinghouse
Children and violence on the screen
The debate about media violence has fluctuated heavily at the same time as the media have been introduced and spread. In the context of this debate, different media have been more or less in focus during different periods -- from books, popular press and film in earlier centuries, to radio, comics, national TV, video, mediated music and satellite-TV during the course of the 20th century, to digital and so-called interactive media such as electronic games, the Internet and "virtual reality" now as we approach the millennium.
But whereas indignant voices are more seldom raised about violence in the print and audio media today, the concern for violence in the visual media has remained. As a consequence, the research on media violence that started in the 1920s and has been intensified during later decades, has, above all, applied to film and television, with the addition, during the last fifteen years, of studies on video, electronic games and Internet.
With more media, the amount of media violence has increased. This is due not only to the cumulative effects of the creation of new media, but also to the increased competition between the media and their globalisation and privatisation. Compared to the field of media and telecommunications, since the 1980s, hardly any other area has experienced such rapid globalisation, record growth and concentration of power. The market is now dominated by a minority of extensive conglomerates or of whole commercial worlds. U.S.-based conglomerates are the largest and most numerous, but there are also considerable transnational enterprises based in Asia and the partly deregulated Europe (Herman & McChesney 1997).
The fact that the U.S. distributes most of the media violence in the world, leads, among other things, to the circumstance that American programmes on German television contain four times as much violence as the German programmes, according to a content analysis (Groebel & Gleich 1993). In a Swedish content analysis of all programmes except the news on six TV channels (Cronstrom & Hoijer 1996), 62 per cent of the violent time (i.e., pure sequences of violence) consisted of violent scenes of U.S. origin. In this case, the sequences of violence in trailers were not taken into account; they made up 15 per cent of the total violent time. Since trailers often are advertisements for coming action films and the like, one can estimate that about 70 per cent of the violent time might have been of U.S. origin.
The concentration of media ownership is not only valid for television programmes, video and cinema films, but also for comics, electronic games, etc. Thus, this power concentration does not result in manifoldness, cultural variation and freedom of expression where most people can be heard, but in one-sidedness and a kind of private censorship.
Many countries are worried about the one-sidedness of imported programmes and films which they cannot counterbalance with own production, although it is, of course, impossible to generalise between nations, as conditions and prerequisites are different (e.g., Japan and India export many TV programmes and films to other Asian countries; Brazil many programmes in Latin America; Australia several programmes to Asia and English-speaking countries, etc.). One example is the situation in former Eastern Europe. Here the relief felt after the liberation from censorship, after the collapse of the Wall in 1989, has been obscured by the surprise and distaste currently experienced by parts of the population due to the flood of violent and pornographic programmes and films pouring over the nations' borders. More and more, voices urging for media legislation have been raised there (see, e.g., Larsson 1997, Minichova 1997), and new national rules and laws about media violence, passed in the 1990s, exist in most Eastern European countries (Irving & Tadros 1997).
At the same time, it is important to note that persons, on the average, prefer to watch TV programmes without violence, at least according to an American analysis (Gerbner 1997). From many nations in the world, it is also reported that the average inhabitant prefers to watch home-produced programmes, if there are home-produced alternatives -- national soap operas, national fiction, etc. (Goonasekera 1995, Sancho 1995, Lamb 1997). However, such alternatives are often lacking or are few. Drama and fiction are expensive to produce and, in most countries, expenditures cannot be expected to result in big export incomes, as in the U.S. which dominates world export.
What drives media violence, then, is not primarily popularity but global marketing (Gerbner 1997). Concentration of media ownership also makes it difficult for newcomers, smaller firms and alternative production companies to succeed on the home market. They are therefore forced into the video branch and foreign sales. Their products need a dramatic ingredient that requires no translation and fits as many cultures as possible. That ingredient is often violence. A study in the U.S. indicated that American programmes exported to other countries contain more violence than American programmes shown in the U.S. (Gerbner 1997).
This all means, among other things, that almost 90 per cent of 12-year-old school children are acquainted with violent action characters such as Terminator and Rambo, according to a global study in 23 countries (see the article in this book by Jo Groebel).
In some nations, not least the Western ones, criminological research indicates that violence in society has increased during the latest decades. Furthermore, statistics have recently been published showing that violence has become more common among children under 15 years of age.
What, then, does research say about the relationship between media violence and violence in society? This is the theme of the first section of research articles -- Children and Violence on the Screen -- in this book.
It must be stressed that research about media violence is most unevenly distributed in the world. Such research has primarily been done in countries with plenty of media -- in North America and, next, Western Europe (more often in Northern than Southern Europe), as well as in Japan and Australia. Overviews of such research results are presented in the book by Ellen Wartella, Adriana Olivarez and Nancy Jennings, USA, Barbara Wilson and her team, USA, Sachiko I. Kodaira, Japan, and Kevin Durkin and Jason Low, Australia. The two last-mentioned overviews also deal with the still relatively scanty research on video and computer games. In most other countries, studies about media violence are fewer or lacking. Interesting examples of existing studies are, however, given in the book by Dafna Lemish, Israel, and Tatiana Merlo-Flores, Argentina.
Taken together, the articles show that it is difficult to generalise the research results across different countries and cultures. As Olga Linne, UK, stresses in her discussion of the research development in Europe, each country must therefore be given the opportunity to carry out research on its own terms and within its own cultural context. As does the Japanese contributor Sachiko Kodaira in the book, I would also like to emphasise that far more future research on children and the media must be performed on an International level, i.e., comparatively and in various countries simultaneously, in order to gain a proper understanding of the role of media, and media violence, in children's lives. Kodaira mentions one of several concrete examples in this connection: Comparative content analyses of violent portrayals in Japanese and U.S. television have shown, that although media violence is extensive in both cultures, it is represented in different ways. Among other differences, violence in Japanese as compared to U.S. dramas is much more often followed by scenes showing the after-effects of violence on victims and the process of their suffering. This factor, in combination with the different societal contexts, could possibly be of importance for the fact that causal relationships between TV violence and aggression among viewers have been found in the U.S. but not in Japan.
Apart from the cultural and national variation in research which limits researchers' abilities to generalise and summarise results, many journalists, TV producers, politicians, teachers, parents, etc., in the public debate in each single country often perceive the research results on the influences of media violence as being "contradictory" or that "the researchers are at odds". I do not think that these perceptions represent the truth of the matter. The situation is, rather, that even different studies within a given country are performed in different contexts -- the studies have varying aims, perspectives and questions as starting points and elucidate, consequently, different parts of the complex of problems. Neither can any study comprise "the whole reality". Further, different viewers receive different impressions from media violence. On thinking it over and after a more careful analysis, the perspectives and the results complement each other as do the pieces in a puzzle. At the same time, it is a question of understanding that reality is complicated and that the media only are one part of people's environment, of culture and society. Media are not, and cannot be, the sole and/or direct cause of influence but function within a nexus of other decisive factors.
As regards the different research perspectives, research on media violence has -- as does other social scientific and human research -- among other things, its roots in the basic philosophical question about human beings' free will. To what degree are we products of the environment -- of parents, school, peers, media, religion and social structure -- and to what degree do we choose and act independently? Even if most people agree that both elements play a role, some of us lay greater stress on the role of structure and others greater stress on the role of the agent. This is valid for researchers, too. Some, therefore, analyse how we are influenced by media violence (in interplay with the rest of the environment). Others, instead, illustrate how we (having different needs, motives, conflicts and interests) choose and use media violence. But these perspectives are not in themselves contradictory; they highlight different aspects of the existential circumstances of human beings and lie, therefore, on different places on the theoretical map. Thus, the researchers contributing to this book also have different theories, besides the fact that their research has been carried out in differing national contexts.
There is, thus, no contradiction in the fact that certain persons actively search out media violence to, e.g., get excitement, become fascinated, express their masculinity, experience power on a symbolic level, try to strengthen their identity in protest against the adult world, get compensation for conflicts in their personal relations, etc. -- while others get impressions of negative art. Different children, young people and adults react differently. Also, the same person reacts differently on differing occasions. He or she can even simultaneously seek media violence and be influenced by it in an intricate interplay.
Similarly, different studies investigate different types of influence. In those countries where much research has been done, one can discern various such unwanted influences of media violence as, for example, imitation; getting "tips" and models about how violence can be used; aggression; fear; anxiety and uneasiness about a threatening surrounding; biased conceptions about violence in society; and habituation to media violence. There are also complicated relationships between these types of influences. It is, for instance, likely that for some individuals media violence has contributed to feelings of fear, misconceptions about real violence, and experiences of threatening surroundings that, in a situation of crisis, can turn into destructive aggression (for a more detailed analysis of negative and positive consequences of media violence, see von Feilitzen 1993).
Generally, children and media violence should also be seen in a wider perspective. Research has mostly defined media violence as the physical, manifest violence on the screen, and this is primarily valid also for the articles in this book. There are, however, other forms of symbolic and structural oppression and misuse of power that are at least as essential. We hope to come back to such definitions in later Clearinghouse publications. Here, I will restrict myself to only a couple of examples: The fact that children are heavily under-represented in the media output as a whole, is a symbolic oppression of children. They are seldom seen, their voices are seldom heard, and adult media characters seldom talk about them. With the spread of commercial satellite television, this under-representation of children seems to have been reinforced, and when children now appear in the media contents they seem to be more often portrayed to support adult roles than in their own rights. The only medium where children seem to be frequently represented is advertising. This is in line with the fact that children and young people have from a Western societal viewpoint (disregarding their value for the parents), a primarily economic-consuming function (von Feilitzen in progress).
The area of children and media violence also includes those cases where children are at the mercy of media news -- when they are portrayed as victims of violence, abuse, catastrophes and starvation without respect for their integrity. Children and media violence also includes child pornography.
Children's media situation
It is important to emphasise that children are not a small minority group "on the side". If we -- in keeping with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- by children mean all persons under the age of 18, they constitute approximately 37 per cent of the total world population.
Children are unevenly distributed across the various countries. Estimates indicate that, on the average, children under 18 in richer countries make up ca. 24 per cent of the population and in the developing countries ca. 40 per cent of the population. In certain countries the population is composed of up to 55 per cent children (see the statistical section Children in the World in this book).
The uneven distribution of children in the world becomes clearer, if we leave adults out of the picture: Of the more than two billion children on the globe, ca. 13 per cent live in the richer countries and ca. 87 per cent in the developing countries (UNICEF 1997).
Children's access to TV and other media is very unevenly distributed, too -- but in a diametrically opposite way. In many European countries, and in North America, Japan and Australia, most children have all thinkable media technology in their homes. Not only do they have TV, but often two or more TV apparatuses at home, of which often one is in their own room. At the same time, there are frequently a video, personal computer and electronic computer and/or video games. More and more, children can also use CD-ROM and the Internet. In these countries, the parents -- who traditionally have had the greatest influence on children's media use -- therefore also have less and less insight into how much and what children watch. Media use is becoming more and more individualised and it is increasingly difficult for adults to serve as models for and accompany and discuss children's viewing.
In some countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America it is, on the other hand, common to watch together using the only generator driven TV or video in the village. One basic reason is that there is so little electricity in the rural areas, where most people live. Nor is it unusual that children have never watched TV at all (Jahangir 1995). The TV and video apparatuses are, however, forcing their way into all corners of the world, parallel to the explosion of satellite-TV channels and video films of the 1980s and 90s, with more and more advertising, fiction and media violence (see also Robert Lamb's article in this book).
As expected, children's TV programming is most unevenly distributed, as well. In some countries, hardly any children's programmes are produced. Even in the richer countries, however, the conditions of children's programming vary. In the U.S., the traditional TV networks seldom broadcast children's programmes which are tailored to different age groups and they seldom broadcast informative children's programmes (Chong 1995). The number of newly produced children's programmes in the U.S. has also clearly decreased since the deregulation of TV in the 1980s (Palmer 1995). In Europe, Japan and Australia, countries which normally have had a long tradition of production of children's programmes, these programmes on the national public service channels are threatened by competition from the many satellite-TV channels, which mostly contain fiction and animation.
A marked trend in the world is the introduction of special "niche" channels for children such as Nickelodeon, Disney, Fox and National Geographic. But these are American based pay-TV channels to which only some children have access. Some glimpses of children's media situation in the world are presented in the second section of research articles in this book -- Children's Media Situation. It must be stressed, however, that here, too, the articles are, primarily, about countries where research has been performed and where statistics on children's media access and media use are available. The articles by Anura Goonasekera, Singapore, Sun Yunxiao, the People's Republic of China, Stephen Nugent, Australia, Nadia Bulbulia, South Africa, and Keith Roe, Belgium, point out important variations in children's media, media access and media use in different regions.
The future goal of the Clearinghouse is to give a more diverse picture of children's media situation from a greater spectrum of countries -- potential and interested authors are welcome to contact us. In this connection we have also contacted media research institutes in 40-50 nations to, if possible, obtain comparable statistics on children's media use. However, if continuous ratings or the like do exist in the country, they do not always include children. When child figures are included, methods as well as age groups vary in a way that make the data difficult to compare. We will continue to work with these figures and hope to return to them in a later publication. The statistical section Media in the World in this book gives an illustrative background, with facts on the distribution of TV, video, television programming for children and youth, cinema screens, computers, electronic games, radio and books, etc, in different countries, as well as a list of the largest International entertainment companies in the world.
A growing global awareness
Even if it is sometimes easy to feel resigned, especially on a national plane, to the drawbacks brought by the global media expansion, there are also positive features in the form of a counter-movement -- the growing global awareness of children's media situation (see the Clearinghouse newsletters News on Children and Violence on the Screen No. 1-3 1997). An essential support for this movement is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. One function of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is to follow up the various member nations' observance of the Convention. The Committee has in this connection entered the child and the media as a particularly important issue on the agenda. Within the Committee there is at present a working group on children and media, and the Committee has set down a range of recommendations on how implementation of articles 17 and 13 in the Convention can be realistically and practically regarded and facilitated (see the introductory section in the book, Children and Media on the UN and UNESCO Agendas).
The counter-movement is, for example, characterised by several recent International and regional meetings intended to support the vacillating state of children's TV programming, such as the film festival in Bratislava in 1994, the World Summit on Television and Children in Melbourne in 1995, the corresponding Asian Summit on Child Rights and the Media in Manila, 1996, and the African Summit on Children's Broadcasting in Accra, 1997. Resolutions and declarations on children's programmes have been one result; these are circulated to the world's TV companies as a means of pressure and for endorsement. These documents are reproduced in the section International Declaration and Resolution in the book. The Children's Television Charter resulting from the World Summit in Melbourne has, together with the Asian and African regional declarations, been discussed at the Second World Summit on Television for Children in London in March, 1998. A regional Summit on children's television for the Americas is planned for the year 2000, and a third World Summit is to be expected the year thereafter.
Furthermore, an International association for child and media researchers (IRFCAM, International Research Forum on Children and Media) was established in Melbourne, 1995, and the first large International forum ever for child and media researchers was held in 1997 in Paris, arranged by GRREM (Groupe de la recherche sur la relation enfants/medias).
The UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen is also a part of this growing global awareness. The same applies for other UNESCO activities related to children and the media (see the introductory section in the book, Children and Media on the UN and UNESCO Agendas).
Moreover, a World Council for Media Education was created in the mid-1990s, which will meet for the second time in Sao Paolo in May 1998. Media education is regarded by many as a solution -- through education children and young people can learn to reflexively handle the media (therein could lie a "solution" to the problem of media violence, too). Even if good media education partly can have this function, there is reason for pessimism, however, since media education in the schools is seldom fully realised. Despite the fact that media education in some form has long been included in the curricula in many countries, and despite the fact that the importance of media education has been stressed in many national, regional and International governmental reports and other contexts, very few children have in practice any media education at all. Apart from the efforts of lone fiery spirits among some teaching-staff, the fine phrases about media education have mostly been on paper, especially when it comes to visual media.
Nor has media education -- or information on children and the media -- for parents and producers always found effective forms. Realising this kind of media education has also become more and more complicated due to the individualisation of media use in the homes and due to the deregulated, globalised media market where national politicians have less and less say, and the media, to a greater extent, turn to an expanding industry of private research institutes rather than to university researchers.
In the future, the Clearinghouse will also seek to stimulate exchange of knowledge about media education in the schools, and for parents and producers worldwide.
At the same time, there is need for other types of initiatives to improve children's relations to the media. Among other things, children should be actively included in the actual media production, something which also will mean a better platform for children's voices and opinions and a more just representation of children in the media. The section Children's Participation in the Media in this book presents a few, by no means exhaustive, examples of such initiatives which further children's rights -- it is hoped that these examples can inspire similar activities. Among the examples are: UNICEF's media activities for children, the news agency Children's Express in the UK and USA, and children's and young people's participation in radio, television and video production, as well as on the Internet, in a range of countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and North America. The Clearinghouse is interested in collecting and publishing more comments and articles on positive and practical experiences of active child participation in the media world-wide, and hope that persons and organisations engaged in other projects related to children's media participation contact us about them.
In the growing global movement -- in addition to these mentioned meetings, declarations, associations, fora and other activities -- many voluntary International and national organisations exist which in various and other ways are engaged in issues related to children and media.
In the light of the fact that the discussion on children and media in several countries was heated during the 1970s, at least in those countries where the media are widely spread, but diminished during the deregulation in the 1980s, it is, in sum, gratifying to observe that the discussion has increased again and now also is carried on at the necessary global level. It is essential that the new discussion should partly focus on negative aspects -- for example, to limit gratuitous media violence by encouraging the media to impose self-regulation. These regulations and measures could include that the media stipulate water-sheds before which times media violence shall not be transmitted; that the media classify media violence (by age limits and/or contents) and inform the viewers by means of, e.g., visible icons on the screen; perhaps that, as in the USA and Canada, V-chips are put into the TV-sets; that parents are offered different blocking devices for the Internet, etc. (see further under the headline Regulations and Measures in this book with contributions by Titti Forsslund, Sweden, and Joanne Lisosky, USA). It is of vital importance, however, that the discussion also focus on the positive possibilities of the media -- for example, to increase manifoldness and quality in children's and adult programming, by means of, among other things, financial and other production support, and exchange of programmes between countries via special programme banks; to work for children's own participation in the media; and, not least, to realise all children's right to access to media.
Changing children's media situation also means that the circumstances in their personal environments and in society must be improved. Firstly, the risk of unwanted media influences is far less for children who are growing up in safe conditions and who have good relations to parents, school and peers. Secondly, it is necessary that children and young people are allowed to participate actively in shaping their society's future. Statements about how we adults need to hear children's voices and how we must listen to them will remain empty words unless children are given more opportunities to affect their own conditions. If children and young people become involved in activities that both are meaningful for themselves and are important for the decision making process in society -- then they will also automatically be represented and heard in the media.
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References
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Cronstrom, Johan & Hoijer, Birgitta (1996) 40 timmar vald i veckan -- en studie av vald i sex svenska TV-kanaler [40 hours of violence per week -- a study of violence on six Swedish TV channels). Kulturdepartemenret, Va;dsskildringsddet, nr 14. (In Swedish)
von Feilitzen, Cecilia (1993) "Vald -- serr pa olika satt. Perspektiv pa medievaldets paverkan och berydelse [Violence -- regarded in different ways. Perspectives on the influence and meaning of media violence]", in von Feilitzen, Cecilia, Forsman, Michael & Roe, Keith (Eds.) Vald fran alia hall. Forskningsperspektiv pa vald i rorliga bilder. Stockholm/Stehag, Brutus Ostlings bokforlag Symposion, pp. 25-48. (In Swedish)
von Feilitzen, Cecilia (in progress) Barnen i TV [Children on television]. Research project at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, Stockholm university. (In Swedish)
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