Media Violence Effects

As media technology has advanced, the issue of media violence and its effects on human behavior has become an important issue of concern for policy makers. The issue of media violence has garnered significant attention from the United States Congress. In 2000, for example, representatives of six different public health organizations (American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) signed a joint statement delivered to the Congressional Public Health Summit arguing that “television, movies, music, and interactive games are powerful learning tools and highly influential media” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2000). The joint statement also asserted that prior research has “point[ed] overwhelmingly to a causal connection [Page 599]between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children.”

Claims that violent media consumption has led to an increase in violent and aggressive behavior has not only been presented by representatives of public health organizations. Independent university-based scholars have also argued that the effects of violent media consumption on subsequent aggression and violence are robust. Brad Bushman and Craig Anderson have asserted that in research produced since 1975, the statistical magnitude of the links between media violence and aggression have been “positive and have consistently increased over time” (p. 477). Robert Sege has claimed that “one of the best documented causes of the modern upsurge violence appears to be childhood exposure to television violence” (p. 129). Lastly, in 2003 Anderson et al. suggested that there is “unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts” (p. 81).

The entry first identifies the theoretical mechanisms that scholars have used to connect media violence consumption and subsequent aggression, violence, and criminal aggression. Next, the entry reviews the findings of meta-analytical reviews. A meta-analysis is a statistical method of reviewing literature that reports mean (average) effect sizes of a predictor variable of interest (media violence consumption) on an outcome variable of interest (subsequent criminal or aggressive behavior). The entry reviews meta-analyses that have examined the link between violent media consumption and subsequent aggression and violence. The essay also separately reviews a meta-analysis conducted by Joanne Savage and Christina Yancey; this meta-analysis is treated separately because it is the only published meta-analysis that examined only the effect of media violence consumption on criminal aggression. Lastly, conclusions about the link between violent media consumption and aggression, violence, and criminal aggression are summarized.