TV Viewing Preferences as Correlates of Adult Dysfunctional Behavior

Abstract

Study of prison inmates'viewing preferences finds crime-action programs form first factor common to all inmate groups.b While a n exhaustive body of research has been compiled regarding the relationship between television violence and aggressive behavior among children, behavioral science has consistently ignored the role that television violence, along with other variables, may play in the life of the aggressive adult, and more specifically, the adult prison inmate. The lack of research may be attributed to the difficulty of obtaining access to prison populations and to the prevailing belief that adults are relatively immune to the effects of violent media; however, as studies by Loye, et. aL,I have shown, adults can experience significant emotional reactions to violent programming. And, as several researchers have indicated, despite the inherent problems of prison researoh, studying men and women who have been markedly anti-social has a distinct advantage over trying to predict or categorize aggressive behavior among groups of youngsters who have been exposed to television violence.2 -In ex post fwto designs, incarcerated populations allow the researcher the relative freedom of ignoring the liklihood of subjects actually committing a socially dysfunctional act; indeed, the acts have already been committed. It remains for the researchb The author is an assistant professor in the Dcpartment of Radio-Television-Film at Texas. 288er to concentrate on those acts and the history of media-related learning which may have precipitated them.A review of the literature pertaining to prison inmates and mass media violence revealed two contrasting schools of thought; 1 ) Studies by Blumer, Herbert and Hauser.) Cressney and Thrasher,' Hoults and Haines6 suggested that there was a significant positive correlation between criminal behavior and attendance to various mass media; i.e., film, comics, television. These studies gave rise to the assumption that assaultive persons will seek out and utilize violent stimuli to a degree significantly greater than their socially conforming peers. 2) Later studies by P f h~l ,~ Maletzke,* Basset, Cowden and Cohen? Menzies,'! and Heller and Polsky.11 have suggested that violent crime is the result of a number of external I Dawd Loye and 1 . 0~s Johnson. 'Television !Elizabeth Mcnzics 'Preferences in Iclcvi~ion ('onFor I (IVC or Violence." Human Brhovror. 3. 32-33 (1'9761 tent Among Violent Prisoners '' N . 1 Rcarun h R q m r r~, I 1 Herbert Rlumcr and Phillip Hauser Muvir,. 1)clinyuc~n~ t and Crime. (New York. MacMillan. 19311 'Paul Cresscy and Frederick lhra\hcr B o b > . N~,viu,. andCtiySlrrers. (New York. Macmillan. 19141 'T.F. Hoult. T o m i c Books and .Iiivenilc t)elinqucnc\ " SorioluRy and Soriol Research 32 279-284. 1104Ul 6 William Haincs "Juvenile Iklinqiicncy and Tclc\icmn '' JourMlo/Soriol Therapy 1 192-198. (195.0 'Erdwin Pfhul "Thc Relation\hip of Ma.;\ Mccli:i 11) Kcp n c d klinqucnr Behavior " WashinRton S t~t c I:ni\crwv. 1960. I)issmarion Ahsiro'r,. 21 3S.VI-3T5Sl. 119611 '...

criminal involvement and media use

“…Most quantitative studies, however, conclude that there are no such (statistically signi cant) relationships: Violent perpetrators are not especially inclined towards violent media contents (Pfuhl 1977;Balon 1978;Lindlof 1986), and sexual delinquents do not display an abnormal interest in sexually explicit material (for an overview see Eysenck and Nias 1978). In-depth interviews, on the contrary, do sometimes reveal deviant interpretations of-and grati cations from-media texts: Pedophiles, for instance, apparently like to look at nonpornographic images of (nude) children (for example in children's clothing catalogues) (Howitt 1995).…”

Social and structural constraints on media use in incarceration

“…Earlier studies indicated that inmates' television reality perceptions were mediated by their criminal backgrounds (Slater & Elliott, 1982) and that inmates' content preferences may compensate for problems in their prior family experiences (Balon, 1978). Criminal history might therefore be related to media gratifications and time allocations within the institution.…”