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About-Face facts on the CHILDREN and the MEDIA
Children and television Some key findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation Survey: Reflections of Girls in the Media. (For full document please visit: www.kff.org/content/archive/1260/gends.shtml) A national survey of 1,200 children ages 10 to 17, made up of African American, Latino, Caucasian and other ethnic group identified children. Both girls (61%) and boys (53%) said that the characters on TV are thinner than women in real life. Older girls were more likely than younger girls to think that women TV characters were skinnier than women in real life. Seven out of ten girls said they wanted to look like a television character. Almost a third of the girls (31%) said that they had changed something about their appearance to be more like the TV character. Sixteen percent of girls said that they had dieted or exercised to look like a TV character. When asked to name the TV characters they admired the most, both boys and girls chose men for the top five spots. The children associated worrying about appearance and weight, crying, whining and weakness more with female then male TV characters. Playing sports, being a leader, wanting to be kissed or have sex was more associated with male characters. Girls and boys also reported that female TV characters were more likely than males to rely on someone else to solve their problems, whereas males tend to solve their own problems. Study of 1,200 kids of various ethnic backgrounds, 10-17 years old. 7 out of 10 girls said they wanted to look like a TV character. A third said that they had altered their appearance to look like the TV character („Reflections of Girls in the Media¾, Kaiser Family Foundation Report in collaboration with Children Now) Children spend more time watching TV than they do in school, and by the time they reach 70, Americans will have spent 7 years of their lives watching TV (Comstock & Strasburger, 1990). Thus, we need to be aware and develop media literate skills to examine the messages and information our children are learning via the media. As described in the Seville Statement (a consensus of the scientific community), Athere is no scientific basis for the belief that humans are naturally aggressive¾, violence seems to be more a function of social learning. Social learning theory, developed by Albert Bandura in 1963, posits that humans learn behavior by observing others. The act of watching TV is an observation process. TV demonstrates and models behaviors/attitudes that children acquire. American children and adolescents spend 22-28 hours per week viewing television (23 on average)B more than any other activity except sleeping. By the age of 70 they will have spent 7 to 10 years of their lives watching TV. American television and movies are the most violent in the world.
Sixty-three percent of the Hollywood elite say the industry glorifies violence, and 72% say the amount has increased in the past decade. Nearly 4 out of 5 Americans believe violence on television entertainment programs directly contributes to the amount of violence in society. Over 1,000 studies and reviews attest to the fact that exposure to heavy doses of television violence increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior, particularly in males.
The American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Television and Society (1988) presented research that indicated that by the end of elementary school, the average child viewer will have witnessed approximately 30,000 acts of violence on TV. The level of violence in prime TV is about 5 violent acts per hour, the level of violence in kids' Saturday morning programming is even higher. Within the 15,000 hours they watch they will have seen about 180,000 murders, rapes, armed robberies and assaults. The average American child or teenager views 10,000 murders, rapes and aggravated assaults per year on television. Per year, kids are exposed to about 2,000 beer and wine commercials. Comstock and Strasburger (1990) wrote an excellent and thorough review of media violence studies. Here are some of the things they found: In a meta-analysis, a large majority of studies reviewed that investigated the relationship between media content and behaviors, recorded a significant positive relationship between exposure to TV violence and antisocial/ and or aggressive behavior. Exposure to examples of altruistic behavior was associated with higher levels of pro-social behavior, and fewer antisocial and/or aggressive behaviors (Hearold, 1986). Some may bring up the argument that the direction of the relationship is not clear. Maybe people who are already violent tend to watch more violent programs. Some studies have taken on this question and have studied people over a period of time (longitudinally). They found that viewing TV violence at a young age was predictive of future aggressive behavior. They did not find that people who were aggressive at one point, later manifested more violent content TV consumption (Huesmann, Lefkowitz, et al., 1984). A content analysis of 33 popular Nintendo and Sega Genesis video games revealed that there were no female characters in 41% of the games. Females were either absent, or they were cast in the role of victim. In 28% of the games females were portrayed as sex objects. Almost 80% of the games required violence or aggression as part of the strategy. Almost half of the games included violence directed specifically at other people, 21% of the games depicted direct violence against women. Most of the game characters were Caucasian (Dietz, 1998). |
