Sexualized Aggression

Most media companies, like any businesses, exist to make profits. Because media producers must generate audiences for advertisers, they must grab attention and get people to tune in, download, or log in. Content and methods that excite basic human emotions and motives—frequently sex and violence— are common attention grabbers. Media that feature both sex and violence seem sure to be profitable.

Psychological research on sexualized aggression has focused on three types of research methods: content analyses, correlational studies, and experiments. Researchers have studied sex and violence in the media across a variety of media genres from print to interactive media, with an emphasis on the study of video entertainment (both pornographic and nonpornographic), video games, and music. This entry discusses studies on the preponderance and effects ...