Research Paper on Media Influences on Aggression

Introduction

Media has become a fundamental part of modern society. The creation of media has grown and developed into a much more detailed form than it was a decade ago. The idea of creating media was to provide a source of information such as news in the news channels, creating awareness and providing the platform upon which the public can get relevant information concerning their wellbeing and any emerging issues. Later on, the definition of media has developed to espouse more than just that. There is more to media coming from the invention of the social media which has taken the globe by storm. Social media has created a platform that incorporates both the information provision as well as entertainment (Awan, 2017). Whereas the growth and development of media have come as a blessing in disguise to many, there is a general concern that continuous exposure to media has created violence trait and trend in many aspects. It is interesting to carry out a full blown out experiment that will help in proving this fact beyond any reasonable doubt (Ferguson, 2014). An experimental examination of a group of students in the elementary schools as well as interviews of youths in college level will help in unearthing some of the mysteries surrounding the proposition that full exposure to media and its trends have a way of instilling violence among the youths in many aspects (Awan, 2017). The results of the finding were also able to also enhance the analysis of other factors alongside media that contributes massively to the advancement of violence in the society above all the factors of aggression in the modern society.

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Hypothesis

The hypothesis for this research was set out to investigate matters of aggression in relation to media exposure.

Research Design

The appropriate experimental design for this research was more of quasi-experimental and correlation. The research sought to determine the correlation between media exposure and aggressive behavior in the population. The experimental design was also inclusive of a vast dimension of aspects such as interviews, observation, and the making of conclusions.

The experiment was angled in the aspect of mixed pairs of observational pairs. In this case, therefore, it was imperative that the experiment had to include both the observation of the independent variable which composed of the various forms of media as well as the dependent variables that were the children and youths exposed t various forms of media. The choice for this mode of experimental design was to establish a full connection between the two forms of variables, both independent and dependent.

Independent Variable

In this research, the independent variable is the different forms of media. These media types range from social media, televised media, printed media as well as broadcasted media types. The types of media, in this case, are not affected by anything; in any case, they are the ones responsible for inflicting the act of aggression on the youths and the young ones in the society. The forms of media in this context could espouse the formal and informal media types and the types of contents that they project. The investigation on the type of media that contributed massively to the acts of aggressiveness was also part of this experiment.

Dependent Variable

The dependent variables in this experiment were the youth and the children under investigation and observation. These subjects were meant to be a pointer to the direction of the experiment while giving yet the clearest sign towards determination whether indeed media contributes in any way to aggression in the society.

The scope of the design of this experiment gathered a couple of other variables that determined the extent of the reliability of this research as well. For instance, the variables as the quality of contents on the media were eliminated in the course of analysis as they added no value to the research. The forms of media needed balancing due to the categorization of the media forms would broaden the scope of the experiment that would make it hard to control.

The ethical challenge in this experiment was the decision to include kindergarten children in the study. This made it questionable especially with the concerns coming from the children agency departments seeking for certification for the exercising of this investigation, the teachers and parent fraternity were also skeptical about the whole experiment involving their children.

Participants

This experiment had a wide variety of participants. The number of participants dictated the overall success of the experiment. For instance, the children aged between 5-10 years were observed against the type of cartoons they watched. The other group of children was aged between 10-15. College students under the youth group were aged with a range between 17-26yrs. The participants in this experiment were compared against their preferred media form.

Materials

The materials used in this experiment were quite vast. For every group of participants, there was a need to find relevant material for their experiment. For the children aged between 5-10 years, the materials relevant for this investigation included pencils and crayons, cartoon boxes, and a bouncing castle. For the children between 10-15 years, the relevant materials for the experiment were television sets screen, flash disc or hard discs containing movies, as well as game puzzles. For the youths, the materials were the catalog list of career courses and the handsets and free data connection.

Procedure

The first experiment was done on the children aged between 5-10 years. The children were divided into two distinct groups and asked to watch different cartoon movies for at least ten minutes. They were later asked to draw what they admired to be in the future. The two groups were later asked to proceed to the bouncing castle and watched for some time. The next experiment is carried out on the teenagers between the ages of 10 and 15 years. They were also split into two groups and provided a long list of movies to choose from. After watching their movies, the teenagers were requested to play a game in the tablets; an observation was made on them. The last experiment was on carried out on the college youths. They were presented with a catalog of new courses introduced in the campus. After making their choices, they were later led to a gaming booth where each one was required to pick on their game of interest. A comparison was made on the type of career choice made on the catalog against the video game chosen.

Discussion

After carrying out the experiment on different groups of individuals, it was time to observe, review and records the observation. The exposure on the different types of media, movies, video games, puzzles for different groups and subjecting them to observable behavioral trends was to help in unearthing the real impact of media on the aggressiveness of people. For the children aged between 5-10 years, after watching the cartoons for ten minutes, the children who watched such series as star wars were more aggressive and easily agitated when asked t draw their favourite cartoon on their books. When they were all combined in the same bouncing castle for funs session, it was easy to pick out the easily agitated children and rough ones from the withdrawn and relatively timid ones from those who watched such normal cartoons such as Johnny Bravo. Clearly, from this first experimental trial shows a connection between media and aggression.

The second experiment which was carried out on teenagers was not very far from the first one. The groups of students were asked to choose between action movies and motivational ones. Girls were majorly preferential of the motivation type of movies while the male was pro action movies. An observation which was later made pointed to the fact that after the movie and the different groups were required to choose a game in their tablets, the group that were pro action movies were all rowdy, loud quite outspoken during the game time which mainly comprised on racing games, kickboxing or soccer; the group even designed punitive measures for those failing to pass a certain stage of the game. On the other hand, the reserved group preferred to play cooler games such as candy crush. Clearly, the exposure to different media form automatically defines the aggressiveness or reservation of individuals.

The last group of youths was requested to comb through the newly added courses in the college catalog, they were later asked to choose which computer game to play. While comparing the preferred game type and the course chosen, it was clear that computer and video games inculcate aggressive character in the audience (Papachristos, Hureau & Braga, 2013). Most of those who prefer warring games such as mortal combat had chosen military science in their courses, whereas those who played such games as face painting choose non-aggressive courses such as cookery and art.

Conclusion

From the experimental research carried out on the group of young ones, it is clear that media contributes to some measures the trait of aggression in the society. There s clear pointers to the fact that aggressiveness is aggravated by the constant exposure to some aspect of media that evokes emotional feelings among the participants of this research showing that indeed media has a far-reaching impact on the extent of aggressiveness on the vast populations (Papachristos, Hureau & Braga, 2013).

References

Awan, I. (2017). Cyber-extremism: Isis and the power of social media. Society, 54(2), 138-149.

Ferguson, C. J. (2014). Does media violence predict societal violence? It depends on what you look at and when. Journal of Communication, 65(1), E1-E22.

Papachristos, A. V., Hureau, D. M., & Braga, A. A. (2013). The corner and the crew: the influence of geography and social networks on gang violence. American sociological review, 78(3), 417-447.