Modern Gladiators

According to the epigraph of the article, Modern Gladiators: A Content Analysis of Televised Wrestling, “The purpose of this study is to explore how antisocial content in televised wrestling is represented in match–nonmatch time and in three different television time periods: prime time, after midnight, and weekend morning time.” (Woo, 2003) This study was conducted to find out whether or not children might be exposed to similar amounts of antisocial behaviors regardless of time period. (Woo, 2003) The article defines antisocial behaviors as, “aggressive acts, rule violations, and glamorization of violence.” The article considers these behaviors very important in the evaluation and analyzing portion of the research conducted for this study. “This study delves into the antisocial content represented in televised wrestling programs to examine the possibility that these may affect children and adolescents.” (Woo, 2003)

This study is also working to prove the Cultivation Effect to be true, although the authors never mention the Cultivation Effect Theory. (Cultivation Theory, 2011) This is an oversight on their part due to the fact that all of their research suggests that dangerous acts were imitated or replicated after watching the wrestling programs. “There were many cases “where deaths resulted from attacks that imitated

maneuvers in broadcasts of professional wrestling” (Williams, 2002, p. 1)” (Woo, 2003) This is a manifestation of the Cultivation Theory which states, “The cultivation effect is the idea that heavy viewing of television leads individuals to perceive reality in ways that are consistent with the portrayals they see on television.” (Cultivation Theory, 2011)
The author’s goal in doing the research was to explore the antisocial aspects of televised wrestling and how they correlated with the various time periods in which they were aired and how those antisocial behaviors were influenced by the match versus nonmatch atmospheres. Many people care about this goal, a large portion of the audience being concerned parents that worry that the antisocial behaviors are negatively impacting their children. This is supported through scholarly examples such as these, “The Parents Television Council released its annual list of the top 10 best and worst shows on network TV in season 1999–2000, revealing that a televised wrestling program (the WWF’s Smackdown!) was selected as one of the worst television programs (Parents Television Council [PTC], n.d.). Furthermore, there were many cases “where deaths resulted from attacks that imitated maneuvers in broadcasts of professional wrestling” (Williams, 2002, p. 1)” (Woo, 2003)
This research directly correlates to communication because it analyzes the relationship between the violence and antisocial behaviors and the children who are witnessing them.

According to the article they are replicating and engaging in similar behaviors that have yielded in many cases “where deaths resulted from attacks that imitated maneuvers in broadcasts of professional wrestling” (Williams, 2002, p. 1). Many people believe the popularly saying that, Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. It is also an important aspect of learning. Learning from other people by imitation is essential for human culture (Csibra & Gergely, 2006, 2009,

2011).
The PTC (n.d.) reported that children might see vulgar languages and crude remarks on televised professional wrestling as cool and funny communication methods.
The authors of this particular study raise each of their research issues by using the cultivation effect to back their arguments. They do this by raising three initial research questions that state the following:
How is time allocated to matches, non-match activities, and commercial breaks on the various televised wrestling programs?
How many times are antisocial features represented during match time and non-match time in different televised wrestling programs?
How differently are antisocial features represented in prime time, after midnight, and during weekend morning time on different televised wrestling programs? (Woo, 2003 pg. 364)
These questions are posted directly and give the reader a good understanding of what this article will look at. The authors do an overall good job at explaining the current literature on the topic however; by adding oppositional they would have potentially made their main arguments stronger.
The researchers videotaped different channels and different networks in the Atlanta area to construct their research samples. It was mentioned in the article that they recorded 107 hours of televised wrestling (from the end of April to the middle of June in the year 2000) from both local broadcasting and two different cable channels. The researchers used what they called a “representative composite week” for their analysis. Meaning that let’s say out of the six possible Mondays, only one was randomly selected to analyze, and the same with the Tuesdays and so on.
The researchers seem to have a fairly simple coding scheme in this study. They made sure to document the channel/network the program was on, and broke the time down into three divisions: match time, nonmatch time, and commercial break time. The researchers noted how many actual matches were televised in each one-hour program, and also categorized the programs’ viewing times into either primetime, after midnight, or weekend morning times. Woo and Kim explained that the study was concentrated on three different indexes: aggressive acts, rule violations, and glamorization. Each index was then broken down into different subcategories. The authors did a very good job of defining what each individual index or subcategory meant.
While the authors of this study presented scholarly evidentiary backing that supported many examples that could assure the validity of the cultivation effect, teh authors did not necessarily succeed at validating their own research. They, the authors, said the following about the study, “For non-match times, this study did not find any statistical difference among five televised wrestling programs.” (Woo, 2003 pg. 372) As Woo and Kim suggest through this study, the results of the research indicate that there is no significant differential representation of antisocial content among the three different time periods. (Woo, 2003, pg. 375) Consequently, debunking two of the initial research questions that the study focused on.
One strength of the study was the analysis of all five programs that improved the authors identified knowledge on the subject matter. However, one of the studies additional weaknesses, aside from it’s lack of validation in its research findings, was that the authors do not mention the cultivation effect; which is the idea that heavy viewing of television leads individuals to perceive reality in ways that are consistent with the portrayals they see on television. By not explaining this, the authors did not identify the main communication theory that they are arguing.