CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Early childhood was also a time children become aware of television and movie characters. Throughout history, familiar characters have appealed to children from an early age. The expansion of children’s media in recent years through sources such as cable TV and video games has greatly increased the number and variety of such characters and their related toys. The electronic media are designed to expand children’s knowledge of society and the larger world, develop creativity, encourage problem solving, role-playing, socialization, and improve literacy and vocabulary.

The entire study of mass communication was based on the assumption that the media have significant effects, yet there was little agreement on the nature and extent of these assumed effects, McQuail (2007:456). This uncertainty was more surprising since everyday experience provides countless examples of influence. For example, we dress for the weather as forecast, buy something because of an advert, go to a film mentioned in a newspaper, react to media news, films, music etc. There are many cases of negative media publicity for instance food contamination leading to significant changes in food consumption behaviour, acts of violence or suicide appear to be copied or stimulated by media portrayals. McQuail further asserts that our minds are full of media derivedinformation and impressions as we live in a world saturated by media sounds and images. Few people cannot think of some personal instance of gaining significant information or of forming an opinion because of the media.

According to Wimmer and Dominick (2003:394) the development of the social impact of the mass media was evident as far back as the 1920’s when many critics charged that motion pictures had a negative influence on children. In 1928 the Motion picture Research Council, with support from the Payne fund a private Philanthropic Organization sponsored a series of thirteen studies on the movies’ influence on children. After examination of film content, information gain, attitude change and influence on behaviour, it was concluded that the movies were potent sources of information, attitudes and behaviour for children.

In the early 1950’s another medium, the comic book was chastised for it’s alleged harmful effects. John Klapper (1960) cited in Wimmer and Domnick (2003:394) summarized what was known about the social impact of mass communication. In contrast to many researchers, Klapper downplayed the potential harmful effects of the media. He concluded that the media most often reinforced an individual’s existing attitudes and predispositions.

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s concern over the antisocial impact of the media shifted to television. Experiments on college campuses by Bandura and Berkowitz in Comstock and Paik(1991:97) showed that aggressive behaviour could be learned by viewing violent media content and that a stimulation effect was more  probable  than  a  cathartic  effect.  Subcommittees  examined possible links between viewing violence on television and juvenile delinquency   and   in   1965   one   subcommittee   concluded   that televised crime and violence were related to antisocial behaviours among juvenile viewers.

The early 1970’s saw extensive research on the social effects of  the   mass   media.   Three  years   after   the  publication  of   the Eisenhower Commission report came the release of a multi-volume report  sponsored  by   the  Surgeon  General’s   Scientific    Advisory committee   on  television   and   social   Behaviour.   The  committee summarized it’s research evidence:

There is a convergence of fairly substantial evidence on short run causation of aggression among children by viewing violence and the much less certain evidence from field studies that violence viewing precedes some long-run manifestation of aggressive behaviour. Wimmer and Dominick (2003:394)

The  committee   tempered   this  conclusion   by   noting  that     any sequence  by  which  viewing  television  violence  causes  aggressive behaviour is most likely applicable only to some children who are predisposed in that direction.