The topic chosen for this report is how television (TV) violence exerts an impact on children. For over three decades, researchers and policymakers have conducted extensive research on the short-term and long-term effects of TV violence on children (Krcmar, 1998; Gunter, Charlton, Coles, & Panting, 2000). According to the National Television Violence Study that examined over 10,000 hours of programming from different channels during the period from 1994 to 1997, young people were exposed to 10,000 acts of per year contained in 61 percent of the shows (cited in Villani, 2001). While early studies had concluded that viewing TV violence is positively correlated with aggression, more recent research studies had emphasized the need to adopt more sophisticated approaches by considering the type of violence and its context, as well as the viewers' reactions and interpretations of the violence (Krcmar, 1998; Gunter et al., 2000).
This researcher's reason for choosing this topic was to enhance the understanding of the effects of TV violence on children by delving into the underlying psychological mechanisms that affect how viewers interact with the TV violence and interpret it. More important than the identification of the existence of the relationship between TV violence and aggression in children is the need to understand the nature of the child viewers' responsiveness to this programs containing violence. This exploration of the topic thus acknowledges that viewers, even children from the age of nine, are actively involved in the cognitive processing and interpretation of the meanings of the programs. Concomitantly, not all children will respond in the same way to portrayals of violence, thus raising the possibilities of differences in the effects of TV violence (Gunter et al., 2000; Hodge & Tripp, 1986, cited in Martinez, 1992; Krcmar, 1998).
The primary aim and objective of the report was to investigate the nature of the e...