Making our own meanings: a critical review of media effects research in relation to the causation of aggression and social skills difficulties in children and anorexia nervosa in young women.
This study examines concerns regarding the effects of video and television on certain types of behaviour. In the forefront of such debate is the claim by Elizabeth Newson [Newson E. (1994) Video violence and the protection of children. Journal of Mental Health 3,221-227] that video and television representations of violence have a direct influence on children. Newson's argument is challenged in this paper, as is the popular belief that media images cause anorexia nervosa in young women. The author's argument against the notion of such direct influence is aimed at media effects research, which will be criticized as both deterministic and simplistic, on the grounds that as a positivist approach it overlooks the sophisticated resistance of viewers. Evidence from cultural studies, within an interpretivist tradition, will be cited as a challenge to the 'moral panic of the media', highlighting the incommensurability of diverse research disciplines. Mental health professionals have long been confronted with the failure of science to provide any unitary truth regarding the aetiology of mental health problems. Frustrating as that is, it is proposed that diverse empirical methods in the social sciences enrich debate and serve to expose the quest for a monocasual aetiology as fundamentally flawed. Media effects are thus only part of a myriad possible causes of anorexia nervosa, and yet are seen as central to current alarm regarding the way children learn (or don't learn) to cooperate with, and show concern for, other people.
Barrett
R T
RT
School of Community Health and Social Studies, Anglia Polytechnic University, Colchester, Essex, UK.
D000293:Adolescent; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008402:Mass Media; D012940:Social Problems / Q000523:psychology*; D013690:Television / Q000592:standards*; D014743:Videotape Recording / Q000592:standards*