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:
1. ‘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.
o People that claim that advertisements don’t have an effect on them, tend to be
more influenced/affected (Greene, 1999)
2. ‘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.
3. ‘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.
4. ‘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.
1
, o Females tend to be more affected by the victim effect and males tend to be
more affected by the aggressor, bystander, and appetite effect.
o Even 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.
5. ‘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.
6. ‘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.
7. ‘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.
2
,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:
o Attachment to caregiver(s)
o Regularity of patterns
- Toddlerhood:
o Learning language
o Independence of actions
- Early childhood:
o Learning emotional self-control
o Learning gender roles and stereotypes
- Middle childhood:
o Adjusting to school
o Learning how to build friendships and to be accepted by peers
- Adolescence:
o Developing a personal identity
o Adjustment 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.
3
, 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.
o Cumulative risk model (Masten, 2001): the more risks encountered by a child,
the greater the likelihood of problematic functioning.
o Some 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.
4
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:
1. ‘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.
o People that claim that advertisements don’t have an effect on them, tend to be
more influenced/affected (Greene, 1999)
2. ‘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.
3. ‘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.
4. ‘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.
1
, o Females tend to be more affected by the victim effect and males tend to be
more affected by the aggressor, bystander, and appetite effect.
o Even 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.
5. ‘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.
6. ‘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.
7. ‘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.
2
,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:
o Attachment to caregiver(s)
o Regularity of patterns
- Toddlerhood:
o Learning language
o Independence of actions
- Early childhood:
o Learning emotional self-control
o Learning gender roles and stereotypes
- Middle childhood:
o Adjusting to school
o Learning how to build friendships and to be accepted by peers
- Adolescence:
o Developing a personal identity
o Adjustment 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.
3
, 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.
o Cumulative risk model (Masten, 2001): the more risks encountered by a child,
the greater the likelihood of problematic functioning.
o Some 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.
4
