Psychology

According to George Gerbner, television plays a large role in the cultivation of our values as a society. After viewing The Electronic Storyteller and reading Jean Kilbourne’s, “Beauty and The Beast of Advertising”, I started to wonder if there could be a link between violence against women and television consumption. My content analysis primarily focuses on television drama (including both primetime television shows and daytime soap operas) and television entertainment programs like music videos and professional wrestling. It is my hypothesis that violence against women, as depicted on television, increases male viewer’s likelihood of having rape-permissive attitudes towards women.

The first article that I found regarding this topic is “Television’s Role in the Culture of Violence Toward Women: A Study of Television Viewing and the Cultivation of Rape Myth Acceptance in the United States”. This article accepts Gerbner’s view that television is a powerful cultivator of norms in our society. After illustrating the fact that almost 20% of American women are the victims of either a completed or attempted rape the researchers of this article go on to show television’s role in maintaining our society’s hostile attitude towards women. Television’s depiction of women continues to show us in roles that are both less powerful and less meaningful than that of men. The researchers contend that this constant representation of women’s inferiority may lead both men and women to internalize these beliefs about women’s roles and worth. And once men begin to believe that a woman’s value is less than that of a man’s, it is easier to trivialize violent acts committed against her. The researchers hypothesize:

1. Daily television viewing will significantly and positively predict the belief that women’s accusations of rape are untrue.

2. Daily television watching will significantly and positively predict the acceptance of rape myths.

To test these hypotheses, the responses of a sample of over 1,000 responders were analyzed. Responders were asked about their daily television consumption during a typical weekday. They were also asked to distinguish how much time was spent watching crime shows versus soap operas and then were asked questions to gauge their acceptance of rape myth. The researchers found that daily television watching was both significantly and positively correlated with perceptions that rape accusations are false and the acceptance of the rape myth.

The second study that I found is “Music Videos, Pro Wrestling and Acceptance of Date Rape Among Middle School Males and Females: An Exploratory Analysis”. I decided to use this article because of its focus on our youth. I was curious as to the age in which the acceptance of violence against women can begin in a society. The researchers of this study analyzed the 462 females and 442 males who answered the Teen Media Project Health Survey. Among the many questions asked, students were asked to report the number of days in the previous week that they had watched both pro wrestling and music videos. (These types of programs were selected due to previous studies showing a link between them and increased violent behaviors of viewers). The results of this study showed that while most of these 12-15 year olds rejected the notion that forcing a partner to have sex is okay, almost 35% of males didn’t strongly agree with that statement. And while neither music videos nor professional wrestling was statistically correlated with acceptance of rape myth for females, this was not the case for males. Among males, both of these factors were significant predictors.

For my third study I found an article entitled “Television Viewing and Rape Myth Acceptance Among College Women”. Based on existing research exhibiting the link between consumption of pornography and acceptance of rape myth, these researchers built on that information to propose that even daily, general television viewing can lead to rape myth acceptance as well. These researchers hypothesized that:

1. Television use is positively correlated with the acceptance of rape myth.

2. Television use is positively correlated with the notion that rape accusations are false.

3. Television use is positively correlated with an overestimation of rape in our society.

Researchers examined the responses of 96 female undergraduates from a large, Midwestern university. The women were asked to rate their beliefs, ranging from very conservative to very liberal and were then given a test to gauge their rape myth acceptance levels. Additionally, they were asked about their television viewing habits, their political views and their cultural identities. The results showed a positive correlation between television consumption and rape myth, and television use and the notion that rape accusations are false. The third hypothesis was not proven to be significant; television use was actually negatively correlated with an overestimation of rape in our society and that correlation was not significant.

This content analysis actually showed me that not only men in our society are affected by the violence they see committed against women on television. Unfortunately, these depictions affect women as well. I agree with George Gerbner’s assessment of television being the most powerful cultivator of norms in our society now and with Jhally’s assertion that we have to start critically studying the ways in which media can be used against us.

VERY GOOD

GRADE = 95