Violence and Suffering in Television News: Toward a Broader Conception of Harmful Television Content for Children

POTENTIAL EFFECTS

Research suggests that realism is an important contextual feature of media violence. Studies have shown that more realistic portrayals of violence may heighten levels of involvement and aggression,^19–21 immediate fright reactions,²² fear of the world as a scary place,^23,24 and desensitization,^25,26 particularly in older, school-aged children, who are able to distinguish the real from the unreal on television. Given the inherent realistic nature of news violence and given other researchers’ observations that television news is becoming increasingly sensational and graphic,^27,28 there is reason to assume that violence in television news has the same impact on children as violence portrayed in fictional television.

Thus far, a handful of studies have specifically investigated the harmful effects that violence portrayed in news broadcasts may have on children. Some of these studies investigated children’s reactions to specific events, such as the explosion of the Challenger,²⁹ or children’s reactions to news coverage of the first Gulf War.³⁰ These studies revealed that many children experienced fairly strong and enduring emotional reactions as a result of their exposure to these news contents. In addition, studies of children’s emotional reactions to news about the September 11th terrorist attacks showed that the majority of children experienced profound stress reactions, even if they were not geographically affected by the attacks, and that in some cases these disturbances could lead to posttraumatic stress disorders.^31,32 Apart from these investigations, several recent studies have shown that the harmful effects of news content are not limited to major catastrophic incidents.^7,9,33–36 In general, these studies indicated that many elementary school children sometimes experience fear in reaction to regular news, such as reports of crime, natural disasters, and “ordinary” plane or traffic accidents, and that 10% to 20% of the children described their feelings as intense to very intense.

Although all of the above-mentioned studies showed that violence in television news may affect a considerable proportion of the child audience and could lead to serious health effects for certain subgroups of children, their investigations were limited to the effect of violent news content on children’s direct frights and their fears of being victimized. It could be that reactions such as stress, frights and worries, and associated effects such as sleep disturbances or nightmares are the most prevailing negative effects of violent news consumption. However, other important effects that are usually associated only with violent entertainment content are conceivable as well.

First, short-term aggressive behavior, which is fostered by arousal processes and imitation of violence,²¹ could be encouraged by violent news portrayals, especially when news pictures show sensational images of weapons and actually occurring violence. In addition, frequent watching of news programs that overemphasize crime, terror, and war could enhance long-term observational learning of violent schemas or scripts. As has been found for fictional violence, news presentations that are skewed toward violence could encourage people to believe that the world is a hostile place.^3,5 As a consequence, children could get the impression that violence is a justified means to protect oneself or to resolve conflict. Last, on the basis of the various studies that have demonstrated desensitization effects after repeated exposure to dramatized violence,^25,37–39 frequent viewing of real-life violence in news programs could also make young viewers less sensitive to other people’s distress and more accepting of violent behavior.

Despite the evident importance of teaching children to become critical viewers of violence in entertainment programs, health care professionals and parents thus also should emphasize the potential negative effects of real violence portrayed in news programs. To understand fully such harmful news contents, however, we should adopt a broader conception of media violence than thus far has been used in the debate about fictional violence.

TOWARD A BROADER CONCEPTION OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

The vast amount of research that investigated the prevalence and harmful effects of mediated violence is based on a definition of (fictional) media violence that encompasses the threat, actual use, or physically harmful consequences of violent behavior that is committed by individuals and that is deliberately intended to inflict harm on animate beings.^13–15,20 Especially in the case of news content, one needs to conclude that such a notion of violence is too narrow, because it excludes 1) the emotionally harmful consequences of violence; 2) all accidents and natural disasters; 3) any violence that is related to political or economic structure, for which no individual perpetrator can be discerned (eg, war and hunger); and 4) violence directed at inanimate objects or property (eg, vandalism, plundering).

In the case of news content, including the emotionally hurtful outcomes of violence is important because news practitioners are often unable to witness an actual violent event and therefore supplement their stories with images of the physical or emotional results of the violent incident. Because research has shown that not only the physical consequences, such as blood or dead bodies, but also the emotional results, such as people screaming or crying, may seriously affect children,⁷ both types of consequences should be included when identifying harmful news content for children. Showing the harmful consequences of violence may have different effects. On the one hand, it may increase fear reactions, especially when children identify with the victims. On the other hand, however, the conveyance of realistic harm and pain cues may decrease aggression and desensitization in children.

When looking at the nature of violence, unintended and structural violence could not be disregarded when identifying harmful news content for children. The traditional restricted focus on intentional harm probably lies in the fact that studies on fictional violence were predominantly linked to the effects of media violence on aggression. However, when other conceivable effects such as immediate fear, fear of being victimized, or desensitization are considered, it is likely that unintended violence, such as accidents or natural disasters, and structural violence, such as war and human suffering, also affect children. For example, studies on news-induced fright reactions have shown that children of ∼7 to 8 years of age are almost as frightened by fires and accidents as they are by intended interpersonal violence.^7,9 In addition, the most recent events related to the second Gulf War underscore the importance of including war and suffering into a conception of media violence. Apart from leading to general fear reactions, images of war could increase aggression in children, especially when actual violent incidents are conveyed without showing the harmful results of those actions. For example, the novel practice during several of the army attacks in Iraq of filming ongoing violence with cameras that were positioned on military vehicles could contribute to the glorification of violence and weapons.

Finally, when looking at the target of violence, it seems reasonable to include not only violence that is directed at animate beings but also violence that is directed at inanimate objects or property. It is interesting that vandalism was not included in previous notions of harmful media content. However, it is conceivable that, apart from frequent viewing of interpersonal violence, repeated exposure to vandalism enhances aggression and desensitization, because it may increase imitation of destructive behavior and could make viewers more accepting of such conduct.

PREVENTION AND REASSURANCE

Step by step, as children grow up, they should be made aware of problems in the world around them. Although children may get information about human or political crises from different sources, the news media are their main resource for such knowledge.⁴⁰ On the positive side, the news media thus could contribute to children’s political socialization and prepare them for potential dangers. However, with today’s increasing focus on sensationalist and violent news stories and with the rising practice of blurring entertainment and news genres, caregivers should be alerted that most news presentations are not adapted to children’s cognitive level and emotional experiences. Pediatricians are in a good position to inform parents, educators, policy makers, and broadcasters of the potential harmful effects of violent news and to suggest ways to enhance children’s understanding of such news information. Pediatricians could take action within their own practice, for example by including news consumption in the assessment of children’s media histories and by preventing children from watching violent news during their stay in hospital. However, they could also enhance awareness of the negative consequences of violent news within other domains.

First, families and schools should be informed about the potential negative effects of news violence for children. Pediatricians could advise parents and educators to teach children that news is not merely informational or educational but that it could paint an inaccurate picture of the prevalence and meaning of crime and crises and that selection of news topics is often based on the availability of sensational and graphic pictures. Parents should be advised to monitor their children’s news consumption. In general, one could say that news programs that are produced for adult audiences are not suitable for children who are younger than 8 years. In addition, if (older) children do watch the news, then they should do so selectively and together with a parent or a schoolteacher who could mediate the messages. Parents and educators could lessen the potential negative effects of violent news presentations by making children more critical of news violence. In addition, they could teach children how to cope with anxieties that are induced by news violence, for example by reassuring them that the violent event is not likely to affect their own lives or by providing a better framework to understand the information presented.

Second, pediatricians could enhance public debate about the suitability of television news for children. Thus far, inclusion of news in the media violence debate has been problematic, in part because it would include a discussion about the (il)legitimacy of structural violence committed by states (eg, war) on a more political or sociological level,⁴⁰ but for the most part because news program makers need to keep their journalistic independence. For example, regular news programs were purposely excluded from the content analyses in the National Television Violence Studies because the television industry would agree to participate in the studies only if news were disregarded. Pediatricians, however, could make clear that they realize that the public needs to be informed about problems in the world but that at the same time they plea for more awareness of the potential negative effects of news violence, especially on children, and that they want to draw attention to how violent news is broadcast. Studies that have investigated a public health approach to the reporting of violence in news programs have shown that providing a better contextual framework for violence and crime within a news item (eg, by using thematic coverage rather than episodic coverage, by providing risk factors and causal information) decreases the negative effects of news violence in adults.^41,42 Pediatricians could advocate that such an approach would be beneficial to both children and adults. In addition, considering that almost every news broadcast contains at least 1 violent item, they could encourage a standard rating for news programs that expresses the need for parental guidance for young children.

Third and related to the previous point, pediatricians could promote alternative, special news programs that are tailored to the needs of child audiences. Although a few stations in the United States produce special children’s news shows, there is no nationwide daily news program that makes the main news comprehensible to young viewers. In several European countries, such a program does exist. Especially in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, the public broadcasting cooperations have >20 years of experience with producing a highly professional 15-minute news program that is broadcast daily in the early evening hours for children aged 8 to 12. Both programs are linked to their adult counterparts, and although they also present special children’s topics, most of their time is devoted to covering the main national and international news events. Thus, unavoidably, the children’s news covers violence and crime. However, to offset possible harmful effects of violent news topics, the producers usually apply several “consolation strategies.”⁴³ For example, they ask experts to explain the events in a reassuring manner, they avoid overt graphic film footage, and they do not use additional set or background sounds, such as people screaming or melodramatic music. Research has shown that most British and Dutch children prefer to watch the special children’s news shows, that they learn much from the information presented, and that they are less negatively affected by violent news presented in these programs than by presentations of the same news in programs that are intended for an adult audience.^7,44–46

Finally, pediatricians could promote research into the harmful effects of violent news presentations. Thus far, little to no research attention has been paid to the influence of violent news content on important issues such as 1) children’s admiration for weapons and violence, 2) their ideas about violence as a justified means to resolve conflict, 3) their estimates of the amount of violence in real life and estimates of their chance of becoming a victim, 4) their habituation and desensitization toward violence, or 5) their coping with fears and worries induced by violent news content. These issues warrant interdisciplinary attention of media researchers, developmental psychologists, and health care specialists. Unlike most researchers in other disciplines, pediatricians are able to translate scientific results directly into functional advice.