|
Abstract
|
Sexual and/or violent images or both were added to the visual portion of a rock-music video whose original visuals were both nonsexual and nonviolent. The music was used in a control condition. Enjoyment of the rock music was markedly influenced by particular visual embellishments. The involvement of sexual stimuli intensified music appreciation in both males and females. There was a tendency for the involvement of violent stimuli to have a similar effect. However, the combination of sexual and violent images failed to enhance appreciation of the music. Irrespective of enjoyment, the presence of visual embellishments influenced the perception of music also. The visualization of rebellious lyrical elements, whether or not emphasizing sex or violence or both, fostered perceptions of greater musical rebelliousness. The involvement of violent images produced the strongest effect of this kind. Additionally, the involvement of sexual images made the music appear more sensual and romantic for males. Females, in contrast, found the rock music devoid of visual embellishments most romantic. Finally, females, in contrast to males, reported less enjoyment for visual accompaniments of rock that involved sexual images than for those that were devoid of them, and they objected more strongly than males to the incorporation of sexual images in publicly accessible rock-music videos. VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this article by Zillmann and Mundorf was to address the question of what the presence of sexual and violent drama does to or for the appreciation of rock music. Both excitation transfer theory and attribution theory were used to examine these connections.
METHODOLOGY:
An experimental design was employed, using 50 male and female undergraduates from an introductory communication class. Prior to exposure to the experimental stimuli, an assessment of subject's consumption of rock music videos was made and enjoyment of music measured. Subjects were randomly assigned to mixed gender groups that were exposed to one of five experimental stimuli: 1) The soundtrack of a rock song only. 2) A video of the same song with no sexual or violent visuals. 3) A video of this song with 8 10-15 second segments of sexual visuals edited into the video. 4) A video of this song with 4 10-15 second segments of violent visuals added. 5) A video with both the sexual and the violent visuals inserted. Sexual visuals were provided by editing passionate pre-coital and coital activity by two semi-nude lovers. Violent visuals featured inter-male armed and unarmed fighting. The covariate and experimental materials were selected according to the following criteria: 1) The band and video should not be well known. 2) The video should not contain sexual or violent material. 3) The video should have a fast cutting rate to permit editing without detection. The study was administered in a small classroom with a 19 inch color television and an independent loudspeaker. All subjects were shown the concept video "Feel It" by Feelia Belia (covariate stimulus). All subjects were then exposed to the rock music without visuals, "Send My Heart" by the Adventures. After rating the music, subjects were exposed to one of the experimental stimuli. Experimental stimuli was provided by the concept video "Let Him Go" by Animotion. Subjects then evaluated music on 19 unipolar scales describing the music, lyrics, and visuals. The scales ranged from 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely). The questions were of the form "how exiting (arousing, aggressive, romantic, melodic, boring etc.) did you find the music" (lyrics, visuals). All responses to the four experimental video conditions were subjected to factor analyses. Principal component analysis was used to extract the factors which were then subjected to oblique rotation. Analysis of covariance was used on scales with loadings greater than.66 then all individual scales were subjected to parallel analysis of covariance.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
All responses to the music in the four video conditions was subjected to factor analysis and then oblique rotation to extract the factors. Four ideally differentiated factors emerged and were labeled music appreciation, rebelliousness, sensuousness, and general gratification. The factors were subjected to analyses of covariance (a) with message conditions and subject as variables and (b) with sex, violence, and subject gender as variables. For music appreciation, the ANCOVA resulted in a significant interaction between sex and violence (p=.016). The involvement of sexual imagery alone produced a significant increase in music appreciation while involvement of violent stimuli alone failed to produce a similarly strong enhancement. The sex-violence interaction of music appreciation was also observed in the ANCOVA on the constituent scales of this factor; significant interactions were recorded for ecstatic (p=.03), creative (p=.008), quality of vocalization (p=.03), and quality of band (p=.04). There was a significant interaction between violence and gender on the quality of vocalization scale (p=.03). This suggested that females' appreciation was more negatively influenced by violent images. The ANCOVA on rebelliousness produced a significant gender effect only (p=.03) which meant that females perceived more rebelliousness in the music in the videos. The addition of any video version to the music resulted in its being perceived as more rebellious as did the addition of violent stimuli. On the constituent scales for the rebelliousness factor, there was a significant gender effect (p=.01) on the aggressive scale only which meant that females deemed the music in the video more aggressive than did males. There were no significant effects at.05 or below for the sensuousness scale. There was a significant interaction between gender and sex on the romantic scale (p=.02) with females being more unaffected by the presence of sexual stimuli. Men were more likely to judge music spiced with sexual images more romantic than music not embellished (p=.<.05). With no video controls, males were more likely to respond to the video embellishments as enhancing romanticism while females were more likely to see the pure music as romantic. Analysis of the sensual scale produced only a main effect for sexual stimuli (p=.03); there were no significant differences in gender which suggests that males see sensual and romantic as closely corresponding while women make a bigger distinction. None of the analyses on general gratification produced significant results. Ratings of the lyrics were subjected to factor analysis which produced three factors. These were labeled enjoyment, rebelliousness, and disapproval. In ANOVA analyses, gender was found to be significant on the rebelliousness factor (p=.04) meaning that women were more likely to find the lyrics rebellious. Sexual stimuli was positively and significantly (p=.04) related to disapproval. Females found the lyrics more objectionable than did males (p=.02). Evaluation of visuals was subjected to factor analysis resulting in the same three factors for the lyrics. Enjoyment failed to show a significant main effect; on its constituent scale of pleasant, a significant interaction effect (p=<.02) between gender and sexual stimuli meaning that women found sexual stimuli less pleasant than did men. On disapproval, strong and significant differences were found between reaction to the sexual stimuli present or absent were evident; the stronger objections were against the sexual stimuli (p=<.001). Objections to the visuals were significantly stronger for females than for males (p=.03). The visuals were significantly deemed more rebellious when featuring violence than not (p=.05). The involvement of sexual stimuli led to the perception of more aggressiveness in the visuals (p=.02). The involvement of violence in the video made the visuals appear less romantic (p=.046), and this was more likely for females (p=.02). The involvement of sexual stimuli made the visuals also appear less romantic, but only for females (p=<.05) while males perceived them to be more romantic (p=<.05). AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors suggested that more research needs to be done in these areas. First, why were there no effects of visuals featuring both sex and violence on the appreciation of rock music? Second, and more importantly, more research needs to be done in the area of exactly which combinations of sex and violence might prove beneficial to music appreciation. The authors argued that the future of rock video will no doubt continue to capitalize on the benefits of sex and violence. EVALUATION:
This study gives great detail to the influences that affect music appreciation. The use of non-video control provides some interesting results, particularly with gender. There is a good deal of follow-up that can be done with these findings in areas of gender differentials and effects of violence and sex in music. While the methodology and analysis was rigorous, there could have been more discussion of theoretical and practical implications for action rather than conclude that the music industry will continue to use these images to sell the products of rock music. (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 - College Student Research
KW - Sexual Content
KW - Television Violence
KW - Television Viewing
KW - Adult Female
KW - Adult Male
KW - Adult Perceptions
KW - Female Perceptions
KW - Male Perceptions
KW - Gender Differences
KW - Music Video
KW - Media Violence Effects
KW - Exposure to Violence
Language: en |