Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction Gentile & Semsa (2003) Developmental approaches in understanding media effects The well-known extreme stories about the media effects are not the real media effects, because they oversimplify complex situations.

Seven myths about media effects:

• ‘Media effects are simple and direct’

The effects of media usually happen very subtly and they are mostly cumulative. We are not consciously aware of the effects.-E.g. advertisements alter our behaviour, but we are (mostly) not consciously aware of this.oPeople that claim that advertisements don’t have an effect on them, tend to be more influenced/affected (Greene, 1999)

• ‘The effects of media violence are severe’

The largest effect of violent media is not illustrated by individual violent behaviour, but by the ‘culture of disrespect’. Killing someone is just a visible violent behaviour, but there are a lot of other behaviours that are violent as well, such as bullying.-The media effects of violent media are mostly named in the negative sense, such as feeling aggressive. But watching a violent movie can also make you excited, which is a positive media effect. This is commonly overlooked.

• ‘Media effects are obvious’

Because the effects of media are cumulative and subtle they are easy to dismiss as the cause of a form of behaviour. But this doesn't mean we can’t see that.-E.g. we all know that smoking causes lung cancer, even though it’s due to the subtle and cumulative effects of cigarettes. The same applies to media effects, smoking does not always have the same effect on every person.

• ‘Violent media affect everyone in the same way’ Four main effects of violent media:

1.Aggressor effect: the more violent media an individual consumes, the more

aggressive, meaner, and violent they become.

2.Victim effect: the more violent media the individual watches the more they view the world as a scary place and the more they’ll initiate protective behaviours.

3.Bystander effect: the more violent media the individual consumes, the more

desensitised, callous, and less sympathetic to the victim of violence they become.

4.Appetite effect: the more violent media the individual consumes, the more violent media they want to consume.

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oFemales tend to be more affected by the victim effect and males tend to be more affected by the aggressor, bystander, and appetite effect.oEven though it’s unclear how to predict what effect will be displayed, does not mean there is no effect.Everyone is affected by media: You inhibit the norms and values of your family members → your family is part of a community that influences your family with norms and values → your community is part of society and the norms and values of society are influenced by the media.-So even if you are not a direct consumer of media, you’ll still be influenced by it. But the effect can be different for everyone.

• ‘Causality means “necessary and sufficient”’

Violent media is not the only reason for violent behaviour.-It’s not necessary for violent behaviour to happen because there are a lot of other causes that can lead to violent behaviour.-It’s not sufficient, because violent media on its own rarely causes violent behaviour.Most of the time, other factors play a huge role as well, such as mental health.

• ‘Causality means immediacy’

The effect of violent media is usually visible 15 years after its release. That is the time it takes for a generation to grow up with the violent media and to reach a prime crime- committing age.-So the effect is usually visible in long term, but that doesn’t dismiss causality.

• ‘Effects must be “big” to be important’

About 1 to 10% of the violent behaviour can be explained by violent media. Which is often dismissed as ‘too insignificant’ or ‘too small’. But if violent media is a steady cause of violent behaviour, it’s really important!

Two approaches to development:

1) Developmental tasks approach -Developmental task = a capacity or skill that is important for concurrent and future adaptation

This approach has been used for two purposes:

1.It provides a set of criteria to judge adaptation at any given moment in the development.

2.A framework to understand how development unfolds over childhood.

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Principles within this approach:

-There is a hierarchy in these developmental tasks. Different issues rise in importance depending on the child’s developmental level.-Later tasks are contingent on the success with which earlier tasks were negotiated. So adaptation is seen as cumulative; it builds up on prior adaption.-Future development progress is not determined or fixed as a result of earlier tasks. It’s dynamic, it’s a process.-While change is possible it is constrained by prior adaptation.

Major developmental tasks:

-Infancy:

oAttachment to caregiver(s) oRegularity of patterns

-Toddlerhood:

oLearning language oIndependence of actions

-Early childhood:

oLearning emotional self-control oLearning gender roles and stereotypes

-Middle childhood:

oAdjusting to school oLearning how to build friendships and to be accepted by peers

-Adolescence:

oDeveloping a personal identity oAdjustment to secondary schooling Example media violence in this approach -There is a wrestling TV-show where two women need to wrestle in the mud and they need to take the bra from the other opponent in order to win. While they are wrestling a man is making sexist jokes and remarks about the women. How does this affect children?-Infants: not much of an effect, unless the program interferes with the parents raising.However, at this age, they learn social norms and values, so they will view violence as the answer to interpersonal conflict.-Early childhood: at this age, self-control is gained. The program shows no self- control; words are not used to resolve conflict, which worsens the situation. And because everything happened on the man’s terms, a child can note that women need to do what men want to gain approval.-Middle childhood: they will define competence in terms of the ability to fight.-Adolescence: it teaches that men having power over women is ‘normal’. And that physical violence between sexes is okay.

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2) A risk and resilience approach to development Focus on differential life experiences among children that may put them at risk for future maladaptation (risk factors), and those factors that are severe to ‘protect’ children from this risk exposure (protective factors).-Media violence is a risk factor for all children, but some children have a lot of protective factors, so there will be no negative outcome. And others have extra risk factors, which will lead to negative outcomes. Such as violent behaviour. But that also has different levels of severity.

oCumulative risk model (Masten, 2001): the more risks encountered by a child,

the greater the likelihood of problematic functioning.oSome children are resilient. They experience successful outcomes, despite adversity. Resilience is seen as a result of multiple protective factors.

Subrahmanyam & Šmahel (2011)–Digital Youth chapter 4:

Constructing Identity Online: Identity Exploration and Self-

Presentation Formulating an identity is a huge adolescent developmental task.= “An identity is, at least in part, an explicit theory of oneself as a person”.Identity during adolescence Erikson talked about the ego identity: the integration of existing accumulated experience, skills, talents, and opportunities offered by various social roles into one compact and complex identity.-He argued that adolescents who explore alternative roles and identities will be more likely to be satisfied with their identity.Marcia viewed identity as a process and developed an approach to measure an adolescent’s identity status at any given point. Exploration and commitment were key in this approach: -Exploration: when an adolescent is drawn into the process of choice and decision- making over the issues of relations, religion, lifestyle, or jobs.

-Commitment: the acceptance of certain goals and life programs, and entails an

individual taking responsibility for their choices and actions.

-Four states of identity:

1.Foreclosed identity: commitment, but no exploration.

a.The adolescent is satisfied with their sense of identity, it is drawn from authority figures and they tend to be rigid and conformist.

2.Identity diffusion: no crisis, nor commitment, as well as no exploration.

a.Adolescents who are easily influenced by peers. They’ll often change their opinions and behaviour, to fit in a group.

3.Moratorium: no commitment, but there is exploration.

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