Essay On Television Violence And

They then put the children in a room with a Bobo doll to see if he/she would imitate the behavior previously seen on the video.The findings of this experiment suggest that children tended to model the behavior they witnessed in the video.This has led some scholars to conclude statements made by some researchers merely fit into a cycle of media-based moral panics (e.g.Gauntlett, 1995; Trend, 2007; Kutner & Olson, 2008).However the degree to which the simulation was "believable" to the participants, or to which the participants may have responded to "demand characteristics" is unclear (see criticisms below).Nonetheless, social cognitive theory was arguably the most dominant paradigm of media violence effects for many years, although it has come under recent criticism (e.g. Recent scholarship has suggested that social cognitive theories of aggression are outdated and should be retired.They were then asked to watch a 10-minute video of real life violence.

The concept of desensitization has particularly gotten much interest from the scholarly community and general public.

One alternative theory is the catalyst model (Ferguson et al., 2008) which has been proposed to explain the etiology of violence.

The catalyst model is a new theory and has not been tested extensively.

Research studies and positions taken by scholars and politicians tend to confirm the pre-existing belief, rather than dispassionately observe and evaluate the issue.

Eventually the panic dies out after several years or decades, but ultimately resurfaces when yet another new medium is introduced.

Secondly, it may be possible that the children were motivated simply to please the experimenter rather than to be aggressive.