Content area
Full Text
There is continuing debate on the extent of the effects of media violence on children and young people, and how to investigate these effects. The aim of this review is to consider the research evidence from a public-health perspective. A search of published work revealed five meta-analytic reviews and one quasi-systematic review, all of which were from North America. There is consistent evidence that violent imagery in television, film and video, and computer games has substantial short-term effects on arousal, thoughts, and emotions, increasing the likelihood of aggressive or fearful behaviour in younger children, especially in boys. The evidence becomes inconsistent when considering older children and teenagers, and long-term outcomes for all ages. The multifactorial nature of aggression is emphasised, together with the methodological difficulties of showing causation. Nevertheless, a small but significant association is shown in the research, with an effect size that has a substantial effect on public health. By contrast, only weak evidence from correlation studies links media violence directly to crime.
The notion that violence in the media contributes to the development of aggressive behaviour has been supported by meta-analyses1 of relevant research.2,3 However, there is continuing debate about (1) methodological approaches used in the research and their generalisability, and (2) the extent to which media violence affects children and young people.4-8 This debate shows the typical divide between so-called media pessimists9 who believe that media violence can be very harmful to children and adolescents, and media sceptics10,11 who claim that there is no reliable evidence to support this view. Ironically, this topic is regularly in the news headlines as an explanation of violent crime by young people. The idea that some individuals are more susceptible than others to the effects of violence in the media has provided a balance between these two extreme viewpoints,12 with some researchers emphasising the role of social and environmental experiences to explain individual differences.
There are many publications about the effects of media violence, mainly from North America. However, few investigations have considered the laboratory (experimental) and community (cohort) evidence systematically-for example, the statistical summation of similar studies using meta-analytical techniques that result in an overall effect size. A search through the published work revealed only five meta-analytic reviews and one quasi-systematic review, all...