Direct Aggression

Study One

The article Indirect Aggression in the Media: a Content Analysis of British Television Programs uses content analysis to determine how much indirect aggression occurs in television programs popular with adolescents. The study looked at the hypothesis that if the shows were rated as nonviolence, then they would show no violence, even indirect violence.

The analysis looked at 228 hours of television programs and revealed that indirect aggression was shown in 92% of all the episodes which were looked at. This was less than the 50% of direct aggression that was noted in the episodes which were looked at. Stating that programs, including cartoons, which claim to be non-violent and suitable for a young audience can actually be quite

violent, though indirectly, and not always fit for a child’s viewing.
The study runs into issues when it comes to that of internal validity because while it uses sound numbers and equations there is no mention of a margin of error anywhere within the released publication. By not having this margin of error the reader is not able to truly understand if the provided data is valid which then makes it hard to determine then if any of the study is valid.
The study looked reality or fictional television, which is not a true representation of real life as nothing really reflects television.

However, while not looking at real world subjects the study is focused on the reactions and impact these actors would have on real world subjects. The study looked at shows that most adolescents would be interested in watching taking into account the thoughts and actions of someone outside of the study helps to provide a layer of external validity to the study.

The study only looked at British television programs that were the most popular among adolescents at the time. The study excluded less popular programs which may have portrayed aggression differently than the popular programs did. Similarly, the study only looked at one type of television program, soap operas, that might actually appeal to an adult audience. The violence which may have been shown in these types of programs could be vastly different than shows gaged towards younger

audiences.
The study holds great potential to be reliable and brings up the great point of gray area which is created between obvious violence and indirect violence. However, to make this study more reliable the researchers need to include their margin of error to allow readers and other researchers to truly see how valid the study may be. Also, to make the study more reliable, they should look at programs which draw in a wider variety of viewers, especially older viewers, as this study used a small sampling pool and only looked at shows which were directly geared towards a younger audience.

Study Two

This experimental study examined the effects of media violence on anxiety, blood pressure, and heart rate in late adolescents. The study aimed to test the research question of if these responses varied by previous media exposure and exposure to real life violence.
Participants reported on their anxiety before and after watching the clips, as well as their previous exposure to violence.

Measures of blood pressure and heart rate were taken at baseline and during movie viewing. Participants watching violent movie clips showed a greater increase in anxiety than those watching the nonviolent clips. Both groups experienced increased blood pressure and reduced heart rate during movie watching compared to baseline.

Students previously exposed to high levels of real-life violence showed lower blood pressure increases when watching violent clips compared to nonviolent clips. Thus, relatively brief exposure to violent movie clips increased anxiety among late adolescents. Prior exposure to media and real-life violence were associated with lower reactions to the high-action and violent movies, suggesting that there could be desensitization happening to students who have had long exposure to both real life and media

violence
This study compared physiological reactions during high-action, violent clips to those that also happened during exposure to low action non-violent clips or at a baseline, which calls into a question of validity and if these reactions were due to the violence shown or if they were due to the high amount of action which was presented to the participants. The low-action fear inducing clips had the opposite effect of decreasing heart rate level of action in violent video clips is something which needed to be further looked into and possibly controlled in this study.
The study, while looking at anxiety did not use verbal or self-reported anxiety and instead only looked at the physical effects the anxiety would have such as heart rate and blood pressure. Had the study also included the use of the subjects’ self-reported anxiety, it would provide another valuable contribution to their study as anxiety has a wide range of effects and ranges which it can be experienced such as that of social anxiety as well.
Also, this study used a small sample pool and only looked at college students. This then calls into the issue of what effects violent media and longtime exposure to real life violence would have on older or younger participants and how that would change or affect their study results.
However, the study did include a reliability scale which registered at .86 meaning that, despite the issues the study ran the study is quite reliable. Meaning that their hypothesis is possibly correct and that media violence and real life violence may be a possible cause of higher rates of anxiety, especially in college students, and long term exposure may cause desensitization to violence both in the media and real life.