On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Kenneth M. Steele wrote:
>
> There is a website dedicated to the St. Helena work.
>
> http://www.chelt.ac.uk/ess/st-helena/res.htm
>
I'm really pleased about the fine detective work of David Epstein
and Ken Steele in identifying the St. Helena study. This is a
large and important body of work. It shows that children can go
from zero exposure to TV to substantial access with its highly
violent content, and yet suffer no detectable increase in
anti-social behaviour. This is an encouraging result.
What is less encouraging and frankly disturbing is that the media
inundated us with stories on the Johnson (2002) study correlating
aggressive behaviour with TV viewing, almost always drawing
inappropriate causal conclusions. Yet not a word was heard about
this major study of the St. Helena population. Were it not for a
brief, vague allusion to it in Nature, we would still not be
aware of it. Is this because the researchers were British? Did
they publish in the wrong journals? Was it because the finding
was politically incorrect to both liberal and conservative
intellectuals? Or was it just that a failure to find is less
newsworthy than dire warnings of harm?
I've gone back to my dusty old files to find out why I mistrusted
the much-cited similar Williams study of the '70s on the
introduction of TV to an isolated Northern community. I have a
handout from a symposium at a meeting of the Canadian
Psychological Association in 1977 where Williams first presented
her findings (there's a book now, but this is what's handy for me
at the moment). The results are complicated. True, the community
("Notel") initially without TV showed an increase in both verbal
and physical aggression after the introduction of TV. But
curiously, the amount of aggression in Notel afterwards was
_higher_ than for two other control communities, Unitel and
Multitel, which had long-standing access to TV.
So if TV was so bad, why did it produce more aggression in the
community that had it for a short time than for those that had it
long-term? Shouldn't there be a dose-response effect? Was the
influence of TV a contrast effect that quickly wore off? Perhaps
she deals with this in her book, perhaps not. But I've never seen
it mentioned when her study is cited (as it often is) to claim a
causal relation between TV watching and harm.
One other point before I go back to exam preparation. One part of
this thread concerned a debate as to whether aggression was
caused by guns or by TV. But something as complicated as
anti-social behaviour must have many causes. One can agree that
ready access to guns is a significant factor without in any way
weakening concerns about the effects of TV. It's a valid
question to ask whether TV is a significant factor, regardless of
whatever else contributes. (One interesting candidate which no
one has brought up recently is the suggestion that aggression can
be caused in the next generation by preventing abortions (Donohue
& Levitt, 2001).)
And one final, final point. I've always felt that violence on TV
is nothing compared with violence in films. True, ready access to
rental videos is blurring the distinction, but I imagine that
when researchers are talking about TV time they mean directly
broadcast. What is shown that way on TV is like Anne of Green
Gables compared to the extraordinary level of graphic, realistic,
prolonged violence shown in popular films. How do I know? Well,
actually, I don't. I stopped going to really violent movies long
ago, because I just couldn't take it. I now only go to films with
moderately violent content, because it's hard to find any
without.
So suppose that kids learn most of their violence from film, not
TV. Then suppose parents who are influenced by the media circus
over Johnson (2002) shut off the TV. So where do the kids go to
get their vicarious kicks? By spending more time at the movies
(and, I suppose, computer games as well). So depriving kids of TV
could lead to _more_ violence training.
I once made the following comment on differences between TV and
film-viewing, even before film violence had reached its current
state-of-the-art proficiency:
"Portrayals on TV are presented on a small screen often with the
room lighted; the audience consists of a few individuals who know
each other well. The programmes are interrupted by commercials,
and the viewers may leave periodically, talk, read, or otherwise
watch with low attention. In contrast, presentations in a movie
theatre take place in the dark, in the presence of many
strangers, and are viewed without interruption and with
concentrated attention. The images are large and both sound and
image are projected with great fidelity. In addition, current
standards permit higher levels of violence in the movie theatre
than on television, and films shown on television are often
edited to conform to these standards...overall, the nature of
these differences between television and theatre showings suggest
that typical depictions of violence in the movie theatre will be
more realistic, salient, and memorable than typical presentations
on television, and therefore have greater impact." (Black &
Bevan, 1992).
Stephen
References
Williams, T. (1986). The impact of television : a natural
experiment in three communities.
Donohue, J., & Levitt, S. (2001). The impact of legalized
abortion on crime. The Quarterly Journal of Economics,
CXVI (whatever the heck that is), 379--
Johnson, J. et al (2002). Television viewing and aggressive
behavior during adolescence and adulthood. Science, 295, 2468--
Black, S., & Bevan, S. (1992). At the movies with Buss and
Durkee: A natural experiment on film violence. Aggressive
Behavior, 18, 37--
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
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