Violence on TV

For this section I was taking look at violence on TV in both cartoons and very physical programming. I content analyzed an episode of Batman the Animated series called "Jokers Favor" and an episode of WWE Raw. Here is a graph of some of my findings.

Both shows were extremely violent but in different ways. The Batman cartoon showed situations that were a little too out there to be interpreted as real, but still none the less very violent. What surprised me the most was the amount intimidation that was used. The entire premise of the episode was that The Joker would not kill a man as long as he did what he told him. The way he did this was with violent threats to intimidate the man. The real violence did not happen until the end of the episode.

The WWE Raw program I watched was nothing but violence. While it was a bit longer than the cartoon, I still think the numbers would have been pretty high if it was a half hour long program. Wrestling is all violence, so it is not surprising the amount of physical contact that is seen. 

Many theories could be used for the way these programs could effect people and especially children. First one that comes to mind is Desensitization. If a child is brought up watching programs like these, he or she may not think that this type of behavior is bad and violence may not phase them. The second is Modeling Theory. A child or even an adult could watch this behavior and then try and reenact it in real life causing a lot of damage to their self or someone else. Lastly is Uses and Gratification theory. This one applies to already violent prone men. Watching this type of behavior could almost get someone off and set them off into more violent behavior. 

Minorities in the News

I did a content analysis of minorities in the news. For this, I looked through the pages of Florida Times Union A section and Metro section to see how many times a picture of a white man, white woman, black man, black woman, and other minorities were portrayed and in what context. I was actually very surprised when I saw the outcome but not really that shocked. Here is a graph of my findings.

What I had found is that white men were obviously the most prevelant in the paper especially in the A section. What was really shocking to me though was the coverage of black men in that section. What I had found is that most of the African American men pictured in the A section were either football players or our President. That's it! The metro section was completely different. African American men were only shown in this section as criminals in the Law and Disorder part. That is not to say that white men and women were not portrayed just as badly in this section, because they were, but it was not as frequent. 

I think I found this information because our country is still not right in a lot of ways. Minorities are still are still looked at as the people who do the crime even though that is not neccesarrily the case and we have a African American president right now. I also think that big news companies are owned by white men who really don't care about diversifying the papers. They only care about what is important to them.  News organizations can diversify by showing the good things that come about in minority communities and not just the bad. They could make a conscious effort to try and balance the scales on the coverage. The news media is supposed to show a fair and accurate reading of events that have happened in that past day. They are not neccerilly not conforming to their responsibliites, but they are not making an effort to balance it out.

Page One: Theories

Theories of Uniform Influence- This theory says that in our entire society, everyone is basically the same regardless of our different social situations and the media presents to us information that we all take in similarly. These messages stimulate us and make us all respond in the same way more or less.


Theories of Selective Influence- The media send out messages to our mass society but we take in the information selectively. This is because each person in unique and has different habits. Because we are all unique and our own individual, our response to what the media shows us is going to be different.

Disinhibition Theory-  What this theory tries to say is that through out our life we build on our morals and ethics. As time passes and we see these images of things that we deem immoral or unethical coming from mass media, we are more likely to take part in that type of behavior that we used to think was not good.

Desensitization Theory- Similar to the disinhibition theory, this idea is that the media sends out so many messages and images of things we think are not pleasant, like violence for examples, and over time seeing these images makes us desensitized to them.

Sensitization Theory- This is the opposite of the desensitization theory. This theory says that after we see all these bad images the media sends out that we will become overly sensitive to them creating a kind of false sense that the world is a frightening place.

Modeling Theory- For this theory, it is believed that we watch many things in the media and that becomes a model for us. After seeing this stuff, we then in turn go ahead and do these actions in real life. For example, a child who watches a wrestling show would then go on to imitate what they just saw on TV on one of their friends.

Cultivation Theory- This theory thinks that what we are exposed to through the media will shape our views and ideas of the world. Essentially, the media tells us what to think about and our view spawns from that. This could be bad because you are blindly following what the media is telling you is important and not coming up with your own thoughts and views.

Socialization Theory- Very similar to cultivation theory, says that after we are exposed to the media for a very long time, it begins to teach us about the world and what part we play in that world.

Uses and Gratification Theory- The theory here thinks that we all have different needs and we get these needs differently through the media. What I want out of the media can be completely different than what you do, so we seek out what is best for us and get gratification from it.

Agenda Setting Theory- The news media basically tells us what we should be thinking about. it doesn't tell us what to think, but what we should be thinking about.

Reinforcement Theory- In our brains we build these images called schema's. For example, when someone says the word pizza, we all have a mental image of what that is, but every persons idea could be different. Some may think of a plain pie, others may think Chicago style, ect. With the media displaying different behaviors, we watch them and this reinforces the schema's that we have for this behavior.

Schema Theory- Watching mass media will trigger certain images in our heads called schema's. If we watch something on TV about the Nazi's, our schema for that group will be triggered which will bring up or preconceived notion on the subject.