From the ‘talkies’ to video games: the development of ‘media effects’ research

One of the first systematic attempts to analyse the media’s effects on audiences was a series of studies of cinemagoers undertaken in the US between 1929 and 1933. The research was financed by the Payne Study and Experiment Fund, a body established in 1927 by Frances Payne Bolton (a wealthy politician) to investigate the media’s influence on children and adolescents. Backed by the

Payne Fund, the investigation was led by W.W. Charters and comprised 13 separate studies of the impact of movies on the young. Ultimately, the studies’ findings were inconclusive. Films, Charters averred, could be ‘a potent medium of education’, but at the same time they were ‘one among many influences which mould the experience of children’ (Charters, 1933: 60—61). Despite such qualified conclusions, however, the Payne research was sensationalised in the press. And the studies’ most inflammatory findings were selectively seized upon by moral crusaders and used to justify a stricter system of film censorship. This was manifest in a firmer enforcement of the Production Code introduced by the industry-sponsored Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 1930. The Production Code (also known as the Hays Code after Will Hays, the first President of the MPAA) was a strict system of censorship that spelled out what was — and what was not — considered morally acceptable in US filmmaking, and it dominated Hollywood until it was replaced by a new, more liberal, Ratings System in 1968.

Similar developments took place outside the US. As historian Sarah Smith shows, throughout the world the arrival of cinema during the early twentieth century was met with concern about its social impact. These anxieties intensified with the development of the ‘talkies’ from 1927 and, as Smith observes, during the 1930s ‘literally hundreds of surveys and reports were generated worldwide’ investigating the possible influence of films on their audiences (Smith, 2005: 7). Usually centred on children and young people - who were viewed as especially susceptible to the cinema’s ‘negative’ influence - this research was customarily followed by the introduction of stricter measures of film censorship and regulation.

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the growing reach of the media — combined with the rapid spread of new media technologies, such as TV — spurred further investigation. In the US, especially, studies proliferated in the field of psychology where there developed a significant tradition of ‘effects’ research that examined the impact (usually conceived as negative) of the media on audiences’ social behaviour. And it was invariably children and adolescents who were the focus of such studies.⁸

Research undertaken by the psychologist Albert Bandura at Stanford University in California during the early 1960s is regarded as a particular landmark in the ‘media effects’ tradition. Sometimes dubbed ‘the Bobo doll experiments’, Bandura’s work was based on a series of laboratory-based tests that examined children’s behaviour after they watched an adult act aggressively towards a Bobo doll - a doll-like toy with a rounded bottom, that rocked back to an upright position after being knocked down. The experiment had several versions, but generally Bandura found that children who had watched the adults behaving aggressively towards the Bobo doll were more likely themselves to act aggressively towards the doll than children who had not watched the adults’ aggression. Later configurations of the experiment saw children shown a film of an adult punching and screaming aggressively at the Bobo doll. Again, Bandura concluded that the children tended to imitate the aggressive behaviour they had seen (Bandura et al., 1961; Bandura et al., 1963). The research was intended as a general examination of the way individuals learn through processes of observation and imitation. Subsequently, however, the Bobo doll studies were widely cited as evidence of the negative influence of ‘violent’ media on young people’s behaviour, and they have been followed by innumerable ‘effects’ experiments claiming to show just such a link.

Longitudinal studies also purported to show a connection between ‘violent’ media and aggression. Beginning in the 1960s, psychologists Rowell Huesmann and Leonard Eron studied more than 800 children aged under 10, and -through conversations with parents, teachers, and the children themselves -assessed how much violence the children watched on TV and how aggressive they were in daily life. There was, the researchers found, a tendency for those children who watched higher amounts of TV violence also to demonstrate higher levels of aggressive behaviour. Collecting further data when the children were 19, and then collating information on their criminal records when they were aged 30, the researchers found that subjects who had watched more violent TV when they were children tended to be those who became involved in serious crimes in later life. ‘If a child’s observation of media violence promotes the learning of aggressive habits’, Huesmann concluded, ‘it can have harmful lifelong consequences’ (Huesmann, 1986: 129—130).

In 2003 Huesmann, Eron and their colleagues reported similar findings from a further longitudinal study that followed children from the ages of ages 6 to 10 into adulthood. Longitudinal research produced elsewhere also supported their view. In Britain, for example, William Belson’s (1978) study interviewed 1,565 London boys aged between 13 and 17 across the period 1959—71, and concluded that those exposed to high levels of TV violence in childhood went on to commit 49 per cent more acts of serious violence than those who had been exposed to much less. More recently, German researchers Barbara Krahé and Ingrid Moller measured exposure to media violence and self-reported aggressive behaviour by 1,200 seventh and eighth grade students over a year. Across this time, they found the students’ initial reports of high exposure to media violence correlated significantly with their later reports of aggressive behaviour (Krahé et al.: 2004). And, in a later study of 1,700 high school students, Krahé, Moller and their associates found that students’ consumption of media violence predicted their levels of both self-reported and teacher-rated aggressive behaviour two years later (Krahé et al. 2011).

At the same time, however, other longitudinal studies have challenged notions of such a relationship. In the US, for instance, one of the largest studies of its kind saw Ronald J. Milavsky and his associates survey 3,200 young people over the period 1970—73, and concluded from their work that watching acts of violence on TV had relatively little influence on youngsters’ behaviour (Milavsky et al., 1982). Moreover, simply because aggressive people have watched ‘violent’ media, this does not necessarily mean it is this experience that has caused them to behave aggressively. Any number of social, cultural, and economic factors might also play a part - indeed, perhaps a more significant part.

Additionally, it may be quite likely that individuals who already have a proclivity for aggression also gravitate towards violent media. Correlation and causation are quite different matters, and demonstrating a statistical correlation does not - in itself — prove any causal relationship.

Nevertheless, during the 1990s a new wave of‘effects’ research focused on video games. For some theorists, the immersive and interactive nature of video games meant they were potentially more influential than ‘traditional’ forms of media such as books, music, or films. ' Again, this research was dominated by (largely American) psychological researchers whose laboratory-based experiments, they argued, showed a causal relationship between children and young people’s playing of ‘violent’ video games and subsequent aggressive behaviour. An early (1988) contribution came from Nicola Schutte and her colleagues. In a study reminiscent of Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments, Schutte and her team worked with children aged between 5 and 7 years old, and found that those who played ‘violent’ video games tended to exhibit more aggressive behaviour afterwards (Schutte et al., 1988). Working with college students, meanwhile, Craig Anderson and Catherine Ford (1986) split their subjects into a group who played either a ‘high aggression’ video game (Zaxxon), a group who played a ‘mild aggression’ video game {Centipede), and a control group who played no game at all. Their results showed that players of both games exhibited higher levels of hostility than the control group, while those assigned to the ‘high aggression’ game reported much higher levels of anxiety than the other two.

A flurry of academic studies of the ‘effects’ of video games followed throughout the 1990s, though it was a book by David Grossman that attracted the greatest publicity. A former army lieutenant colonel and a professor of Military Science at Arkansas State University, Grossman emerged as a leading critic of video games following the publication of On Killing (1995). The book saw Grossman identify marked parallels between the simulation training used to prepare soldiers for combat and the immersive experience of ‘first-person-shooter’ video games. Such games, Grossman concluded, not only enhanced young people’s weapons skills but also broke down the psychological barriers that prevented youngsters from killing.¹⁰

Grossman’s views attracted considerable press attention, but they were based chiefly on his own convictions rather than any substantive research. In contrast, academic studies often painted a more complex picture. In 2001, for example, John Sherry attempted to summarise the findings of 30 existing studies of ‘violent’ video games using a process of ‘meta analysis’ - that is to say, a synthesis of results from a large number of individual studies to produce a single, ‘over-arching’ conclusion. Reviewing the assembled literature, Sherry’s findings were mixed. The research, he concluded, demonstrated how ‘there is a small effect of video game play on aggression, and the effect is smaller than the effect of violent television on aggression’ (2001: 427). More important, he argued, was the kind of violence contained in the game. When the violence was related to sports or fantasy themes, Sherry concluded, the effect on

Media effects and youth 91 aggression was much smaller than when the violence involved depictions of aggression towards human beings.

Other studies, however, claimed there was a much clearer relationship between violent video games and aggression. In 2003, for example, a metaanalysis produced by Craig Anderson and his associates suggested Sherry’s survey had underestimated the effects of ‘violent’ media. More recent studies with better forms of methodological design, they argued, showed a pronounced link between exposure to ‘violent’ media and aggression. ‘Research on violent television and films, video games, and music’, Anderson and his colleagues averred, ‘reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and longterm contexts’ (2003: 81). ‘The scientific debate over whether media violence increases aggression and violence’, they declared with clear-eyed confidence, ‘is essentially over’ (81).

In the wake of such assertions, 2005 saw the American Psychological Association (APA — a scientific and professional body representing US psychologists) adopt a ‘Resolution on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media’. According to the resolution, the APA took the view that the available evidence demonstrated how ‘exposure to violent media increases feelings of hostility, thoughts about aggression, suspicions about the motives of others, and demonstrates violence as a method to deal with potential conflict situations’ (APA, 2005). In the case of video games, moreover, the APA argued that ‘the practice, repetition, and rewards for acts of violence may be more conducive to increasing aggressive behaviour among children and youth than passively watching violence on TV and in film’ (2005). As a solution, the APA proposed the promotion of greater levels of media literacy among the public, together with a reduction of violence in videogames marketed to children and youth, as well as the stricter regulation of the content of video games and interactive media.

In 2010, Anderson and his colleagues produced a further, updated metaanalysis of research on the effects of video games. The new study took into account what the authors described as ‘an explosion of research on violent video games since the last comprehensive analysis was published’ (Anderson et al., 2010: 153); and it incorporated a ‘larger sample of higher quality studies’, along with work from a growing body of Japanese research (156). From a synthesis of this work, Anderson et al. painted a picture similar to their previous assessment. ‘Regardless of research design or conservativeness of analysis’, they explained, ‘exposure to violent video games was significantly related to higher levels of aggressive behaviour’ (162). Moreover, taking the research from Japan into account, they surmised that the effects of exposure to ‘violent’ video games ‘are significant in Eastern as well as Western cultures’ (167).

Concerns were sustained by the growing prevalence of video games. In America, for example, nearly 97 per cent of children aged between 12 and 17 played video games by 2008 (Lenhart, 2008: 1). And, by 2017, video games were played either sometimes or often by 72 per cent of men and 49 per centof women aged under 30 (Brown, 2017). Legal rulings in the US also stoked the controversy. In 2005 the California State Legislature passed a law — sponsored by State Senator Leland Yee, a former child psychologist" - which banned the sale of violent video games to anyone aged under 18, and enforced a stricter system of ratings to control games’ availability. In 2011, however, the Californian law was ruled unconstitutional and struck down by the US Supreme Court. Video games, the Supreme Court judged, should have the same ‘free speech’ protection under the First Amendment as that afforded to other media. The court, moreover, found that the psychological research on violent video games was ‘unpersuasive’ and noted that much of it contained methodological flaws (Ferguson, 2013iii: 61).

The continuing controversy prompted the APA to convene a team - the APA Task Force on Violent Media - to consider fresh studies in the area, and to review the APA’s 2005 Resolution on violent video games. Launched in 2013 and chaired by psychologist Mark Appelbaum, the Task Force comprised seven academics considered experts in the area. It assessed research on violent video games published between 2005 and 2013, along with four meta-analyses that reviewed more than 150 studies produced before 2009. Published in 2015, the APA team’s report conceded there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate whether playing violent video games had a physiological or neurological impact, or whether playing such games led to violence or delinquency (APA Task Force on Violent Media, 2015: 16). At the same time, however, the Task Force were unequivocal that the existing research ‘demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy, and sensitivity to aggression’ (APA Task Force on Violent Media, 2015: 11).

In view of such findings, 2015 saw the APA update its position in a fresh ‘Resolution on Violent Video Games’. The new document acknowledged the degree of controversy surrounding the relationship between violent video games and aggressive behaviour, but the 2015 Resolution was effectively a reiteration of the APA’s earlier position. ‘Scientific research’, it averred, ‘has demonstrated an association between violent video game use and both increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive affect, aggressive cognitions and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy, and moral engagement’ (2015). And, again, the APA recommended greater levels of public education and a stricter system of games regulation.

Not everyone, however agreed. In October 2013 American psychologist Christopher Ferguson sent an open letter - co-signed by an international group of 228 media scholars, psychologists, and criminologists - to the APA expressing concerns about the Task Force’s review process. The APA’s original 2005 Resolution, the signatories argued, had come to ‘several strong conclusions on the basis of inconsistent or weak evidence’, while research produced after the APA’s 2005 statement had ‘provided even stronger evidence that some of the assertions in it cannot be supported’. ‘Policy statements based on inconsistent

Media effects and youth 93 and weak evidence’, the letter concluded, ‘are bad policy and over the long run do more harm than good, hurting the credibility of the science of psychology’ (Ferguson, 2013ii). Ultimately, the letter fell on deaf ears. But it clearly demonstrated the heated academic controversy surrounding the ‘influence’ of violent video games, and was indicative of the wide body of criticism that has been levelled at ‘media effects’ research.