978-1285459059 Chapter 4 Part 1

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Chapter 4

Criminogenic Media

Chapter Objectives

After reading Chapter 4, students should:

1. identify the issues and concepts associated with criminogenic media

2. understand violent media as a cause of social aggression

3. recognize the nature of copycat crime

4. appreciate the relationship between terrorism and the media

Chapter Outline

I. Criminogenic Media: refers to media content that is hypothesized as a direct cause of

crime

a. A continually debated issue is the causal position of the media

i. Do the media cause changes in subjects or do predisposed individuals

selectively seek out and attend to media content that supports their already

preordained behaviors?

b. As early as 1908, worries appeared that the media (then newspapers and books)

were creating an atmosphere of tolerance for criminality and causing juvenile

delinquency, and ever since public opinion polls have consistently reported the

public’s belief in the causal role of the media in crime and violence in society

c. The media violence frame continues to find substantial public support

d. Three major criminogenic media issues

i. Violent Media and Aggression

ii. Copycat Crime

iii. Media-Oriented Terrorism

e. Violent Media and Aggression

i. Two competing hypotheses

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iii. acceptable social situations and targets for

aggression

b. Children, in particular, learn aggression the same way they

learn other cognitive and social skills—by watching

parents, siblings, peers, teachers, and others

i. The more violence children see, the more accepting

they become of aggressive behavior, and the more

likely they are to act aggressively

ii. Some researchers argue that exposure to violent content and violent

behavior is linked—but not causally

1. Some media consumers seek out violent content and act violently

because of their predisposition to aggression

2. If this position is correct, eliminating portrayals of violence in the

media will not reduce the level of violence in society because the

number of individuals predisposed to violence will remain the

same

3. Advocates of this model argue that the evidence of a link between

violent content and social aggression has not been shown

iii. Why can’t the media’s effect on aggression be definitely measured?

1. It is difficult to separate the effects of media on society or

individuals from all the other forces that contribute to violent

behavior

4. Another undeniable finding is that the cathartic-effect hypothesis

has been discredited: people do not become less violent due to

media violence

a. When viewing is combined with frustration or arousal,

viewers are more rather than less likely to behave

aggressively

b. Current research is exploring the magnitude, mechanism,

and significance of a stimulating effect

c. It is not yet clear whether media portrayals of violence:

i. increase the proportion of persons who behave

aggressively

ii. encourage already-aggressive persons to use

aggression more often

iii. encourage aggression-prone persons to use greater

levels of aggression

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iv. desensitize people to aggression

v. some combination of these outcomes

d. There is certainly a correlation between exposure to violent

media and social aggression, but the strength,

configuration, and most importantly, the causal nature of

the relationship is simply not understood

iv. Adding to the long term concern over violent media content, new media

have invigorated the debate and its urgency

f. What is the Effect of Video Games on Aggression?

i. The above question is often forwarded as a simple research question when

presented to the public but turns out to be a complex research issue

1. Effects of any particular game on any specific player are not

monolithic. Video games:

a. vary considerably in content

b. game players vary regarding why they play and what they

bring to a game

2. The primary reasons video gamers play video games are:

a. “achievement and competition” (to win the game)

b. “mastering the game” (advance through game levels,

improve their skill in a game’s mechanics)

c. “social connections” (form relationships and teams with

other players)

d. “escapism and relaxation” (immersion in virtual worlds and

role-playing)

i. The reasons for playing a video game are not

mutually exclusive and game players often

simultaneously play for some combination of all

four reasons

ii. In that they can fulfill multiple functions for a game

player from individual psychological goals to broad

social ones, the immense popularity of video games

can be understood

iii. Playing video games can be highly satisfying in

both the real and virtual world

ii. Social concern comes from:

1. Their unique intensive interactive and, for some, addictive nature

2. Their linkage to worrisome social behaviors

3. Their sometimes graphic portraits of violence

iii. In response, an ever growing set of research efforts to determine the

effects of video games has appeared that report both negative and positive

effects

1. Evidence of positive effects from playing prosocial video games

include increases in:

a. helping behaviors

b. cooperation

c. problem solving

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d. sharing

e. empathy by game players

2. However, social concern about possible negative effects from

playing video games, especially violent and misogynistic games,

far outweighs beliefs in positive effects

a. The theoretical mechanisms by which violent video games

might lead to social aggression have been hypothesized to

include:

i. social learning (where game players imitate

observed aggression)

ii. excitation transfer (where the physiological arousal

from game playing lingers and transfers to future

encounters which then become aggressive in nature)

iii. cognitive neoassociation (where the activation of

aggression associated memories and thoughts in

players increase aggression)

iv. general aggression model (where exposure to video

game violence promotes aggressive beliefs and

attitudes, the recalling of behavioral scripts and

expectations, and the development of a personality

biased toward aggression)

1. At this time which of these mechanisms

might operate and in what strength and

circumstances has not been resolved

iv. Currently, two sets of research compete over defining the effect of violent

video games

1. One camp champions the conclusion of significant negative effects

a. Representing the negative effects side, two recent studies

exemplify this body of research and additionally

incorporated criminogenic effects

i. Fischer and her colleagues reported that

delinquency reinforcing video game players showed

more tolerance for a severe road traffic offense and

were more likely to steal laboratory equipment

1. “Video games that positively reinforce

crime and delinquency increase the

likelihood that players will model these

behaviors in real life

ii. Bushman and Gibson found that playing a violent

video game significantly increased player

aggression 24 hours after game play for males who

had ruminated about a violent game

b. Other research supports a socialization process over game

selection (game choice predicted aggression more than

aggression predicted game choice) and for longer negative

time periods

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c. The correlation between playing violent video games and

delinquency has been described as robust and extending to

serious juvenile offenders, even after controlling various

factors such as gender, race, offense history, and

personality traits

2. The other camp argues for insignificant largely neutral effects

a. These researchers conclude that other factors beyond

violent content may be responsible for elevated player

aggression

i. For example: that game competitiveness may be

more important than game violence in generating

player aggression

b. Additional research has reported insignificant associations

for specific categories of game players

i. For example: a survey of mostly Hispanic youth

found that levels of depression symptoms in game

players were stronger predictors of serious

aggression and violence than either exposure to

video game or television violence

c. Also point out that increased gaming in the United States

ran parallel with significant declines in society-wide crime

and homicide rates, a relationship that belies a strong

society-wide video game effect

d. Studies that have found positive correlations between

playing violent video games and violent and antisocial

attitudes have been described as typically not controlling

for other covariates, particularly gender, that are known to

be associated with both video gameplay and aggression.

As more demographic covariates are introduced,

the video game effects are described as progressively

weaker and the overall link between video games and

aggression becomes modest and not statistically

significant. The remaining positive association appears

only for individuals who play 4 or more hours per day

3. What should one make of this debate?

a. Based on the research to this point, it first can be concluded

that the relationship between violent game content and

aggressive player behavior is not universal (not every

player is affected in the same fashion)

b. A set of factors appear to interact with the presence of

violent content to increase or decrease the likelihood of

post play aggression

i. Game characteristics such as competition and pace

of action have been forwarded as significant

ii. Player characteristics also appear to be important

such as:

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1. Depression

2. ability to delay gratification

3. peer deviance

4. academic performance

5. parental involvement

6. school culture

c. The nature of the interaction between the player and game

is important

i. A player having a personalized self-designed game

avatar, for example, has been reported as enhancing

game play effects separate from violent content

d. The research collectively suggests a significant role for

media immersion

i. The more the games bring the player into the

game’s world and the more the gamer player lives

in that world, the greater the effect

ii. Thus, the experience of playing a violent character

in a video game, of immersing one’s self in that

role, on attitudes towards violent crimes and

criminals was related to more acceptable attitudes

toward crimes and criminals

e. The research to date and the critiques of the research

suggest an interaction between video game characteristics,

with violent content as one factor

f. In sum, while every research study has individual

methodological flaws so that no one study should be overly

weighted, a substantial set of research findings suggest that

violent video game players show increases in aggression

over those who do not and that the effect of playing violent

games is different from playing nonviolent game play

g. Research results are not consistent though and evidence of

a substantial society level effect or the mechanism through

which effects on individuals operate has not been produced

h. What is most clear at this point is that a consensus does not

exist

i. For some children under some conditions some

media is harmful

ii. For other children under the same conditions, or for

the same children under other conditions, it may be

beneficial

iii. For most children under most conditions, most

media is probably neither particularly harmful nor

particularly beneficial

i. At this time, a multi-factor approach where exposure to

violent media is one of a set of factors that facilitate or

inhibit aggression is reasonable

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i. The more risk factors an individual carries the more

likely they are to behave aggressively; the more

protective factors they have, the less likely

aggressive behavior is

ii. In this perspective, exposure to media violence is

equivalent in effect to other factors and deserves

neither special attention nor dismissal as a cause of

social aggression

4. We therefore appear to be a more aggressive society because of

our media, and in combination with other factors violent media

help create a more violent social reality

a. Although research does show a link, social aggression is

not necessarily criminal, nor is most crime violent

5. The greatest problem in applying the “violent media causes social

aggression” research to the “media causes crime” question is that

the validity of extrapolating from the aggression research to

conclusion about media and crime is highly questionable

a. Consequently, even if the media does significantly foster

aggressive behavior, it is a separate question whether media

influence extends beyond aggressiveness to cause criminal

behavior

c. Looking at prior video game articles, consistent evidence of

a strong direct causal video game role in the generation of

criminality is limited but video games, like the media in

general, do not escape as benign or influence free. Gaming

appears to interact with other prior risk factors to heighten

pre-disposed criminogenic effects and impulses. Video

games appear capable of playing the role of catalytic

rudders in the formation of crime, not directly causing it

but in the right social and individual chemistry shaping its

appearance. Other social and individual factors play a

greater role in whether crime occurs or not, but once

criminogenic forces are in play, exposure to crime saturated

video games can provide powerful models to follow

g. Media and Criminal Behavior

i. There are inherent difficulties in researching and examining possible

relationships between the media and criminal behavior

1. Experiments are even more difficult to conduct in this area than in

the area of social aggression, so that most of the available evidence

consists of anecdotal reports rather than empirical studies

2. The ways in which media may be affecting crime are numerous

a. Examples:

i. The media could be increasing the number of

criminals by turning previously law-abiding persons

into criminals

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ii. Media portrayals may be helping already active

criminals successfully commit more crimes by

teaching them better crime techniques

iii. Media may be:

1. Increasing the seriousness or harmfulness of

the crimes that are committed by making

criminals more selective or violent

2. Fostering theft and other property crimes by

cultivating desires for unaffordable things

3. Making crime seem more exciting,

satisfying, and socially acceptable

b. Research is also difficult because an aggregate, society-

wide media criminogenic effect is likely to be small and

intermixed with many other crime-generating factors

c. The pool of at-risk individuals who are likely to be

criminally influenced by the media is probably small

ii. Karen Hennigan and her colleagues examined aggregate crimes rates in

the United States prior to and following the introduction of television in

the 1950s

1. Lower classes and modest life-styles were rarely portrayed in a

positive light on T.V. → Younger and poorer persons may have

compared their life-styles and possessions with those portrayed as

more wealthy → Some may have turned to crime as a way of

obtaining coveted goods

2. Hennigan and her colleagues speculate that television still

contributes to an increase in property crime rates

3. Recent reviews have concluded that any link between exposure to

violent media and general levels of violent criminal behavior is

weak at best and moderated by consumer predisposition and age,

media content and social factors

a. A significant relationship between swings in media content

and general criminality in society has not been shown and

if it exists is more likely to influence property crime than

violent crime

h. Copycat Crime

i. Waves of fads and fashions have established the fact that people lift

behavior models from the media, and this connection has been

extrapolated to include the mimicking of media-portrayed criminal acts

ii. Public interest in the relation of mass media to copycat crime emerged

with the entertainment media of the nineteenth century

1. Growing concern that media messages could influence people to

commit crime sparked investigations and censorship drives against

the media in the early 1920s

iii. In 1929 the Payne Foundation underwrote the first large-scale studies of

the social impact of media

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1. Combined with public concerns about the influence of the cinema,

these research efforts prodded the film industry to create an

internal review panel, the Hays Commission, to oversee the

content of films and quell the increasing calls for government

intervention

a. The film industry adopted a self-imposed code that forbade

crimes shown in film:

i. to teach methods of crime

ii. to inspire potential criminals with a desire for

imitation

iii. to make criminals seem heroic and justified

iv. Despite the long ago conclusion that media can be criminogenic, there is

no lack of information available today on how to commit crimes

1. A large body of material detailing how to commit specific crimes

is readily available:

a. in films

b. on television

c. from the Internet

d. in printed form

v. Why is the research so limited when the questionable content is so

available and the concerns span generations?

1. The reason research is limited is because what seems a simple

matter— determining when a media-induced copycat crime has

occurred—is complicated by the intrinsic nature of copycat crime

a. For a crime to be a copycat crime, it must have been

inspired by an earlier, media-publicized or generator crime

–there must be a pair of crimes linked through the media

b. The perpetrator of a copycat crime must have been exposed

to the media content of the original crime and must have

incorporated major elements of that crime into his or her

crime, such as:

i. the choice of victim

ii. the motivation

iii. the technique

2. In broad terms, copycat crime results from the interaction of

factors from three sources:

a. media content

b. persons at risk to be copycats

c. the immediate and wider social and cultural setting in

which the media content is consumed

3. Too few copycat crimes or criminals have been identified to allow

for generalization or for scientifically adequate research

a. The slowly growing file of compiled anecdotal reports does

indicate that criminal events that are rare in real life are

sometimes committed soon after similar events are depicted

in the media

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b. In addition to anecdotal reports, surveys of offenders have

indicated that a substantial proportion —approximately 25

percent—of offenders have attempted a copycat crime in

their careers

vi. By what mechanism do the media generate copycat effects?

1. Imitation

a. First offered by Gabriel Tarde in the late nineteenth century

i. Coined the term “suggesto–imitative assaults”:

sensational violent crime appears to prompt similar

incidents

b. Came to be criticized as too simplistic a process to fully

explain copycat crime

i. The primary flaw in imitation theory is that it

generally implies that the copycat behavior must

physically resemble the portrayed behavior and

therefore falls short in explaining any generalized

effects or innovative applications

ii. Critics also noted the tendency to downplay other

social factors

2. Priming: the portrayals of certain behaviors by the media activate a

cluster of associated ideas and concepts within the potential

copycat offender that increase the likelihood that he or she will

behave similarly but not necessarily identically

a. After viewing violent media, individuals will be primed to:

i. have more hostile thoughts

ii. see aggression as justified

iii. behave more aggressively

b. Can be understood as providing a set of ideas and beliefs

that construct a particular social reality—the perception

that the nature of the world is such that a particular type of

crime is appropriate, justified, and likely to be successful

3. Scripts: pre-established behavioral directions that individuals that

individuals hold in their memory and scroll up to direct their

behavior as needed

a. Serve as a guide for behavior by laying out the sequence of

events that one believes are likely to happen and the

behaviors that one believes are appropriate in particular

situations

b. Can be acquired by observing criminogenic media during

fantasy role-playing, a part of normal child development

i. The role-playing child for example acquires the

persona of the social role and subsequently acts like

he or she thinks a doctor, athlete, or criminal would

in various real-world settings beyond the ones

specifically modeled

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ii. The more salient the observed criminality, the more

the child ruminates upon, fantasizes about, and

rehearses it

c. Cues, such as the presence of a gun, first observed in the

media and later encountered in the real world would

activate the acquired criminal scripts

i. Example: A study by Allen Mazur: bomb threats

directed at nuclear energy facilities increased

significantly following increases in news coverage

of nuclear power issues

1. This study indicates that the media may

initiate crimes even when they don’t provide

precise models to copy

vii. There are multiple cognitive paths between the media and criminality that

copycat criminals can take (See Box 4.3)

1. Social cognition theory provides two paths

a. Systematic central path: requires a copycat offender to

evaluate information and is likely related to instrumental

planned copycat crimes such as a bank robbery

b. Heuristic peripheral path: quickly traveled without much

information evaluation and likely leads to emotional

spontaneous copycat crime such as an impulsive assault or

hate crime

2. A third path: narrative persuasion from entertainment media

content

a. Used to describe this type of media interaction:

i. “transportation”

ii. “engagement”

iii. “absorption”

b. Speculated to be the most common copycat crime path

c. A consumer who is initially unlikely to copy a particular

crime would be persuaded to do so by observing a model

who is portrayed as also initially unwilling to commit an

offense but who undergoes a transformation in the narrative

in which the crime comes to be seen in a positive manner

viii. The copycat crime model is conceptually divided into three blocks

1. The top portion of the model: from exposure to a media generator

crime to acquisition of crime knowledge

a. Felt to be a common experience for most media consumers

in that many persons are expected to learn criminally

instructive information from repeated media exposure

2. In block two: following crime knowledge acquisition, the model

diverges into three possible pathways determined by the

consumer’s underlying goal for interacting with the media

a. From least traveled to most traveled, the paths diverge

depending upon whether the consumer is interacting with