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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this research by Carlson was to examine the impact of viewing television crime shows on preadults' attitudes toward civil liberties and crime control. The author's "limited effects" model of political socialization is discussed (and rejected), as well as the "crime control" and "due process" models of criminal justice.
METHODOLOGY:
A quasi-experimental survey was administered, questioning 619 six through twelfth graders from eight public and parochial schools in the Providence, RI. metro area in 1980. Questionnaires were completed in classrooms. Access to students was determined by school officials. The independent variable was the index of crime show viewing (ICSV). 16 shows were used that had at least one arrest. Scaling was from 1 (never watch) to 4 (almost always watch). The dependent variable was a civil liberties support scale which included 6 Likert type items (see Watts, 1977). The scale is the result of an item analysis, including a factor analysis, of an original pool of 12 items. Collapsed frequency distributions were presented. The three variables examined with regard to mainstreaming were school grade, head of household occupation, and family structure. In the analysis, grade in school was dichotomized, except where it was used as a control variable and it was treated as a continuous variable. Occupations were classified as "white collar" or "blue collar". A measure of socio-orientation was used which is identical to the one used by Chaffee (1973). It is a five item scale on which children are asked to indicate how often parents stress certain behavior. The scale ranges from 5 to 20, but was dichotomized at the median. Gender and parental viewing habits were controlled. The estimated number of hours of television viewing was used as a control variable. Reading habits were also used as a control variable, and were measured by an index that takes into account the consumption of books, magazines, and newspapers. T-tests were done on the scale scores.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
Crime show viewing is associated negatively with support for civil liberties. The relationship survives controls for grade, head of household occupation, gender, hours of television viewed per week, reading habits, and parental viewing habits. For the overall regression model, grade, head of household occupation, socio-orientation, gender, hours of viewing per week, reading habits, and parents' favorite programs had significant negative effects on support for civil liberties. Crime show viewing had a greater effect on the civil liberties attitudes of older preadults than those in the lower grades; therefore if in fact children acquire democratic attitudes as they age, then crime show viewing may retard that development. Heavy crime show viewing had its greatest impact on preadults from homes where the head of the household has a white collar occupation. The civil liberties attitudes of preadults from blue collar homes were largely unaffected by heavy crime show viewing. Heavy crime show viewing may produce mainstream attitudes among those preadults who are least likely to receive them from their families. Four variables had a significant association with civil liberties attitudes: family socio-orientation, grade, total viewing hours per week, and crime show viewing. The relationship with crime show viewing was the strongest. The eight independent variables accounted for only 6% of the variance in civil liberties attitudes, but television crime show viewing contributed a comparatively substantial amount (1.9%).
AUTHOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS:
The author recommended that longitudinal research on this subject is needed as well as a larger-scale study to sample more cities and populations.
EVALUATION:
This study takes a refreshing approach toward the issues and implications of crime in the media. The significant negative effect of watching crime shows on support for civil liberties suggests that media may influence youngsters to decrease their support for civil liberties and, by association, increase their acceptance for loosening the restrictions on law enforcement--an acceptance which may lead to an acceptance of police violence. The lack of generalizability of the sample (taken from the Northeast) and the selection of students by school officials (rather than researcher selection) are weaknesses to this study. The authors, however, address the generalizability issue in their conclusions as a problem which requires replication of the study in other areas. In general, this study increases our knowledge of what may be more background factors to the increasingly conservative attitudes of the public toward lessening restrictions on police and courts. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - 1980s
KW - Rhode Island
KW - Child Perceptions
KW - Child Attitudes
KW - Juvenile Attitudes
KW - Juvenile Perceptions
KW - Grade 6
KW - Grade 7
KW - Grade 8
KW - Grade 9
KW - Grade 10
KW - Grade 11
KW - Grade 12
KW - Senior High School Student
KW - Junior High School Student
KW - Late Childhood
KW - Late Adolescence
KW - Early Adolescence
KW - Exposure to Violence
KW - Media Violence Effects
KW - Television Viewing
KW - Television Violence
KW - Program-Film Content
KW - Juvenile
KW - Ideology
KW - Child Ideology
KW - Civil Rights
KW - Constitutional Rights and Liberties |