From: meyers@leonardo.rtp.dg.com (Bill Meyers)
Subject: Re: TV and Movies are Promoting Gun Violence
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 22:37:37 GMT
Organization: N/I

In article <1993Jan20.183118.1252@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> rcanders@nyx.cs.du.edu (Rod Anderson) writes:
[ ... ]
>Television and movies are promoting gun violence.  Erik Larson
>states in his article "The Story of the Gun" in the January 1993
>_Atlantic_ .
> 
> 
>   "   Our movies and TV shows do far more damage than simply
>   enhancing the appeal of exotic weapons, however.  They teach a
>   uniquely American lesson: When a real man has a problem, he gets
>   his gun.  He slaps in a clip, he squints grimly into the hot noon
>   sun, and then he does what he's gotta do.  This is the lesson
>   that Nicholas Elliot absorbed: When all else fails, maybe a gun
>   can solve your problem.

Hmmm, sounds like time to mention Centerwall again:
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>Path: dg-rtp!dgcad!amdcad!sun!exodus!texsun!letni!utacfd!evax!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hplsla!deanp
>From: deanp@hplsla.HP.COM (Dean Payne)
>Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
>Subject: Re: Does TV cause violence?
>Message-ID: <8350049@hplsla.HP.COM>
>Date: 21 Sep 90 16:22:25 GMT
>References: <1990Sep18.204634.608@cbnewsh.att.com>
>Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
>Lines: 141
>
>>From: oleary@cbnewsh.att.com (brian.m.leary)
>
>>Does television cause violence? Today the answer is:
>>
>>University of Washington Pyschiatrist Dr. Brandon Centerwall writing
>>in the April 1989 American Journal of Epidemiology says that television 
>>exposure is related to half of the homicides in the United States.
>
>I posted this article to an internal company group a few weeks ago.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>              Murders again tied to TV violence
>
>by Frederick Case, [Seattle] Times staff reporter [May 28, 1990]
>
>Additional disturbing evidence has been produced by a University of
>Washington behavioral scientist and medical doctor who said last year
>that TV is responsible for half of North America's murders and rapes.
>
>If Dr. Brandon Centerwall's conclusion is correct, TV also has more
>than doubled homicide rates in South Africa, adding to its other
>problems.
>
>Centerwall says that new figures he has just received from South Africa
>strengthen previous conclusions garnered from his seven years of
>statistical analysis comparing white homicides in the United States,
>Canada and South Africa between 1945 and 1975.  (To avoid using figures
>distorted by racial conflict, he compared only white homicide rates.
>Most victims of racial violence were black.)
>
>The doctor reported the new figures this month in an address to the
>annual conference of the American Psychiatric Association.  Network
>executives at the conference emphatically disputed the validity of his
>study.  But it was funded by the UW, and other academics speak
>respectfully about Centerwall's methodology.
>
>"His work is good," says George Bridges, on of the two UW sociology
>professors who did a study of TV and violence for the National Institute
>of Mental Health.  "We also found a stong relationship between violence
>and watching TV.  But we don't really know which is cause and which is
>effect.  Do violent and aggressive people watch more violent TV, which
>in turn reinforces their violence?  Or does the observation of violence
>itself trigger more violence?"
>
>Actually, dozens of studies by organizations ranging from the American
>Psychological Association to the National Institute of Mental Health,
>have said there's an unquestionable link between violent TV and violent
>personal behavior.  They conclude that watching hours of televised
>brutality anesthetizes viewers to human suffering.
>
>That's way a recent "violence profile" of the networks' "mean and
>dangerous world," by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenburg School
>of Communications, was particularly disturbing when it notes a dramatic
>increase in violence on children's TV.  The Pennsylvania researchers
>attributed this to the government's move in the early 1980s to
>deregulate broadcasting, and on the networks' penchant for action-
>oriented programming.  "Violence sells," Centerwall says.
>
>The significance of South Africa in Centerwall's study is that
>prohibition by the Afrikaner government prevented introduction of the
>tube there until 1974.  Before that, the South African homicide rate
>actually had declined even when U.S. and Canadian rates were escalating
>through the 1960s and 1970s.
>
>But by 1983, South Africa's murder rate had soared by 56 percent, and
>now that the figures have been updated to cover the period 1975-1987,
>they show the rate actually has increased by 130 percent.
>
>"Just as I forecast," Centerwall says, "the white homicide rate there
>has approximately doubled due to people watching TV."
>
>Centerwall, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral
>sciences, believes these new figures are additional corroboration of his
>contention that TV dramatically boosts a country's murder rate.  He says
>the rise is preceded by a 10- ot 15-year lag time for the first
>generation of children weaned on television to reach adulthood and move
>into their most crime-prone years.
>
>Television was widely introduced in the United States and Canada around
>1950.  Soon the annual incidence of homicide among whites increased by
>93 percent, from three homicides per 100,000 population in 1945 to 5.8
>homicides per 100,000 in 1974.  In South Africa, where television was
>banned, the incidence of homicide deaths decreased by 7 percent, from
>2.7 homicides per 100,00 population in 1943 to 2.5 homicides per 100,00
>population in 1974.
>
>"People have a gut feeling that America is more violent than it used to
>be," Centerwall says.  "Well, they're absolutely right.  As a simple
>matter of uncontrovertible statistical fact, the incidence of all forms
>of violence have doubled here since the 1950s.  So our intuitive sense
>that something has radically changed is correct."
>
>The professor says he has accumulated a lot of additional research, but
>the bottom line is that about 10,000 of America's annual 20,000 murders
>are because of people watching TV.  He says TV has also doubled rates of
>rape, assault, child abuse and other forms of violence.
>
>"A particular murder is always due to many things," he says.  "TV is
>just another factor among many, including poverty, drugs and mental
>disturbance.  But if TV had never existed, the U.S. would have 10,000
>fewer murders each year.  The same conclusion apply to rape and assault.
>Half the rapes and assaults in the U.S. are attributable to TV."
>
>Has Centerwall produced the smoking statistical gun the definitely links
>TV to murder and other violence?  Should TV programs bear health
>warnings similar to those on tobacco and alcohol?
>
>"I'm a scientists, and it's not my role to set guidelines," he says.
>"My role is just to lay out the facts.  The public is intelligent and
>resourceful, and I leave it to them to ponder this information and
>decide what they want to do about it individually or as groups.
>
>"But I do believe that parents must set limits on how much TV their
>children watch, in the same way they set boundaries for other behavior."
>
>Centerwall holds a master's degree in public health from Tulane
>University and received his medical degree from the University of
>California-San Diego.  He graduated cum laude from Yale in 1975.
>
>U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., has been trying since 1984 to secure
>passage of a Television Violence Act, a bill that would encourage the
>three networks to set common standards on the level of violence in their
>programming.  Although both House and Senate passed the bill
>overwhelmingly, it's stalled in committee by those who want the bill
>amended to also address the issue of sex on TV.  "Covering both issues
>in one bill gets complicated," Centerwall says.
>
>Stricter licensing standards could require TV stations owners to provide
>more intellectually stimulating and less violent fare on the public
>airwaves.
>
>"When TV was introduced, most people expected it would just be radio
>with visuals," Centerwall says.  "They didn't anticipate that the effect
>would be revolutionary."
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I have seen little mention of this study, and no other comments about
>its validity.  Has anyone else?
>
>Dean
>
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>Path: dg-rtp!psinntp!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!milton!larryd
>From: larryd@milton.u.washington.edu (Larry Desoto)
>Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
>Subject: Television and Violence
>Keywords: television violence
>Message-ID: <1991Nov27.002217.24942@milton.u.washington.edu>
>Date: 27 Nov 91 00:22:17 GMT
>Organization: University of Washington
>Lines: 162
>
>
>Several people have requested the source about the relationship between
>violence and television.  Here is is along with some excerpts.  These
>are quoted entirely without permission from the original paper.  Typos
>are mine.  Emphasized text is also mine.
>
>Source:  Centerwall, Brandon S., "Exposure to television as a risk factor
>for violence,"  American Journal of Epidemiology, 129/4, pp 643-652,
>April 1989.
>
>
>"....
>	All Canadian and US studies of the effect of prolonged childhood
>exposure to television (two years or more) demonstrate a positive
>relation between earlier exposure to television and later physical
>aggressiveness, although not all studies reach statistical significance.
>These studies establish the line between exposure to television and
>subsequent increases in physical aggressiveness at the level of the
>individual, thereby providing the conceptual basis for examining the
>effect of exposure to television upon entire populations.  They
>underscore the need to determine whether exposure to television is a
>risk factor for increased rates of violence in adult life.  To address
>this issue, I took advantage of a historical experiment---the absence of
>television in South Africa prior to 1975.
>
>	The South African government did not permit television broadcasting
>prior to 1975, even though South African whites were a prosperous,
>industrialized Western society.  (...reasons for not allowing...))
>Thus, an entire population of two million whites---rich and poor, urban
>and rural, educated and uneducated---was non-selectively and absolutely
>excluded from exposure to television for a quarter-century after the
>medium was introduced into the United States.  Since the ban on
>television was not based upon any concerns regarding television and
>violence, there was no self-selection bias with respect to the hypothesis
>being tested.
>
>	To evaluate television as a risk factor for violence, I examined
>homicide rates in South Africa, Canada, and the United States.  Given
>that blacks in South Africa live under quite different conditions than
>blacks in the United States, I limited the comparison to white homicide
>rates in South Africa and the United States and the total homicide rate
>in Canada (which was 97% white in 1951)."
>
>[discussion about data deleted]
>
>	"Following the introduction of television into the United States,
>the annual incidence of white homicide deaths increased by 93%, from 3.0
>homicides per 100,000 white population in 1945 to 5.8 homicides per
>100,000 in 1974; in South Africa where television was banned, the
>incidence of white homicide deaths decreased by 7%, from 2.7/100,000
>white population in 1943-1948 to 2.5/100,000 in 1974.  As with US
>whites, following the introduction of television the incidence of
>Canadian homicides increased by 92%, from 1.3/100,000 in 1945 to
>2.5/100,000 in 1974.
>
>	Violence is a multifactor phenomenon, involving such established
>risk factors as age, sex, socioeconomic status, and preexisting culture.
>Therefore, it is anticipated that baseline rates of violence will vary
>across countries (compare Canada and South Africa).  For the same
>reason, exposure to television is not expected to determine the absolute
>rate of violence; rather the attained rate of violence will reflect both
>exposure to television and the baseline rate of violence (compare Canada
>and the US), as well as the effect of changes in other risk factors---for
>example, socioeconomic conditions.
>
>	Following the introduction of television, homicide rates doubled in
>Canada and the United States, whereas in South Africa, where television
>did not exist, white homicide rates remained the same over time.  For
>both Canada and the United States, there was a lag of 10-15 years
>between the introduction of television and the subsequent doubling of
>the homicide rate.  Given that homicide is an adult activity, if
>television exerts its behavior-modifying effects primarily upon
>children, the initial "television generation" would have had to age
>10-15 years before they would have been old enough to affect the
>homicide rate."
>
>	[considerable discussion on methods, data, possible errors, graphs,
>and discussion about using Canada, South Africa, and the United States
>as multiple controls deleted]
>
>	"It was necessary to further take into account possible confounding
>third variables, both accessible (i.e., known and measurable) and
>inaccessible (i.e., unknown or unmeasurable).  I have examined an array
>of possible confounders---changes in age distribution, urbanization,
>economic conditions, alcohol consumption, capital punishment, civil
>unrest, and the AVAILABILITY OF FIREARMS.  None provided a viable
>alternative explanation for the observed homicide trends."
>
>[ more discussion about multiple controls to eliminate confounding
>factors such as the civil right movement and Vietnam war deleted]
>
>"Two major hypotheses are that 1) exposure of susceptible populations to
>television is followed by a major increase in rates of violence, and 2)
>the timing of the introduction of television into the population
>predicts the timing of the subsequent increase in rates of violence.
>These hypotheses can be tested across various populations.
>
>	For example, following the introduction of television into the
>United States, annual homicide rates increased for both whites and
>minorities, increasing by 157% for whites and 63% for minorities between
>1955 and 1975.  As might be expected for what was then an expensive
>luxury commodity, minority households acquired their first television
>sets approximately five years later than white households.  White
>homicide rates began to increase in 1958; as predicted by the
>hypothesis, minority homicide rates did not begin to increase until four
>years later.
>
>	Similarly, following the introduction of television, homicide rates
>increased in all nine US census regions.  The different census regions
>did not acquire television at the same time; neither did their homicide
>rates begin to increase at the same time (Middle Atlantic homicide rates
>began to increase in 1958; whereas West South Central homicide rates did
>not begin to increase until 1964). The correlation between the timing of
>the acquisition of television, by region, and the timing of the region's
>subsequent increase in the homicide rate is 0.82 (p = 0.003).
>
>	Likewise, following the introduction of television into the
>United States, homicide rates increased in both urban and rural
>populations, but not at the same time.  As would be expected,
>metropolitan centers acquired television first, then progressively
>smaller cities and towns.  As predicted by the hypothesis, there was a
>parallel sequence in the increase in homicide rates, homicide rates
>first increasing in metropolitan centers, then in progressively smaller
>cities and towns."
>
>[more discussion about etiologic analysis techniques and the data
>deleted]
>
>	"Perhaps the ultimate test of the etiologic hypothesis is taking
>place even now in South Africa:  Will the introduction of television
>into South Africa be followed by major increases in the white homicide
>rate?  As of 1983, the most recent year for which data are available,
>the white South African homicide rate had reached 3.9/100,000 white
>population---an annual rate greater than any observed in the
>pretelevision years, 1945-1974, and 56% greater than the rate in 1974,
>the last year before television was introduced.  In contrast, Canadian
>and white American homicide rates have not increased since 1974.  As of
>1983, the Canadian homicide rate was 2.4/100,000 population as compared
>with 2.5/100,000 in 1974.  In 1983, the US white homicide rate was
>5.6/100,000 white population, as compared with 5.8/100,000 in 1974."
>
>[more discussion about methods deleted]
>
>	"...In other words, it is estimated that exposure to television is
>etiologically related to approximately ONE HALF of the homicides
>committed in the United States, or approximately 10,000 homicides
>annually.  Although the data are not as well developed for other forms
>of violence, they indicate that exposure to television is also
>etiologically related to a major proportion---perhaps one half---of
>rapes, assaults, and other forms of interpersonal violence in the United
>States."
>
>
>
>
>You can count on this never making "60 Minutes" or the "News at 11."
>
>-- 
>Larry                                   |   Thunder makes all the noise;
>                                        |   lightning gets the job done.
>larryd@u.milton.washington.edu
>I have my opinion; the university has its own.
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