Screen Size and Violent Content, Effects of

Since the 1930s, media violence has appeared on screens of increasingly varying shapes and sizes. Violent content can now be seen in formats ranging from a gigantic IMAX movie to a tiny mobile smartphone game. Consuming violent content in these diverse forms has the potential to differentially shape audience responses. This entry presents a brief overview of screen size as a media technology variable. It then reviews research findings on the effects of screen size and concludes with theoretical considerations for media violence effects as a function of screen size.

Screen Size as a Media Technology Variable

The early 1930s Payne Fund studies on the content of motion pictures called attention to the amount of violence in big-screen movies. Since that time, screen sizes have gotten both ...

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