Television Violence, Susceptibility to

Within the field of communication, television violence is perhaps one of the most frequently and exhaustively [Page 827]researched topic, and for good reason. Several content analyses, particularly those conducted by George Gerbner and colleagues (beginning in 1967) and the National Television Violence Study indicate that violent images are pervasive on television and that children's television tends to be especially violent. In fact, one study by George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli found that children's programming, dominated by cartoons, featured an average of 20 violent acts per hour. A more recent study by Dale Kunkel and colleagues found that 6 out of 10 shows designed for children feature aggression, with more than five violent scenes per show. As noted by Barbara Wilson and colleagues, it is surprising that programs targeting children 12 and younger feature more violence than other types of programming do.

Violence is quite prevalent on television programs targeting young people, and we also know that young people spend a significant portion of their lives with television. Research conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that young people ages 8 to 18 spend an average of 3 hours a day watching television. Taking these research findings into consideration, researcher Alethea Huston and colleagues have estimated that by the time a child graduates from elementary school, he or she will have witnessed more than 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other acts of violence on network television. Indeed, this figure is even higher if the child has access to cable television, DVDs, videocassettes, and video games.

Fortunately, researchers have contributed much knowledge to our understanding of television violence and its effects on young people (and adults) by conducting a wide range of research, including experiments, surveys, field research, and longitudinal analyses. When examined as a whole using metaanalytic methods, the existing research on television violence points rather convincingly to three potential outcomes: (1) learning aggressive attitudes and behaviors, (2) becoming desensitized, and (3) developing fear. However, the body of research in this area also reveals that not everyone is affected by television violence in the same way; that is, certain young people are more susceptible to violent content than others. In fact, a viewer's susceptibility to television violence is influenced by a range of factors, including viewer demographics, viewer traits and states, and contextual characteristics of the televised violent portrayals.