The media is one of the most influential aspects of the modern world. The media has been the instrument used by businesses, politicians and other prominent figures to shape public discourse. This research, however, looks to a more personal effect of media. It looks into the psychological effects of media and especially violent media portrayed on television. The two researchers point out that violence can be seen from different perspectives. These are physical, spiritual, and sexual (Bhatti and Ul Hassan 296). They go on to argue that over 80% of the TV stations have violent content. The argument is that this content has led to the increase in aggression, with research indicating that the violence leads to behavioral changes in viewers (Bhatti and Ul Hassan 297). The researchers, therefore, intend to look at how psychological aspects such as sensitivity to pain, fear and pain are influenced by violent media.
This study used the students of Bahauddin Zakariya University as the main subjects when conducting the research. Some reasons informed the reason to use the university subjects. First is the fact that the students are active users of media, especially television. Besides, their education level meant that they would understand the research questions better. A number of objectives guide the study. These include evaluating the impact TV has on the youth, to establish the psychological impact of violent material, to establish the response of people towards violent news and to establish the link between the level of viewership to the psychological impact (Bhatti and Ul Hassan 298).
The researchers then go on to conduct a literature review on the issues of violence, media, and development of aggressive behaviour. This review shows that there is an established link between viewing violent material and the development of aggressive behave. The researchers apply the survey method as their research design. Here, they use a total of 100 respondents from the University, who were served with a number of research questions (Bhatti and Ul Hassan 301). The focus of the questions is the desensitization effect of violence on TV, the arousal of fear and catharsis among the viewers. The researchers also use a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data in the analysis if the resulting data.
The results of this research offer vital statistics in conceptualizing the effect of the violent material on TV to the psychological well-being of individuals. Here, the researchers establish that 74% of the male respondents report being more aggressive after viewing the violent material. 30% of the female respondents share the same sentiment, representing 52% of the total number of subjects. 56% of the male and 66% of the female respondents also report having experienced heightened levels of fear after viewing the violent material. The implication is that 71% of the total number of respondents felt insecure, and this is traced back to them viewing violent material (Bhatti and Ul Hassan 303).
Another outcome is that 39% of the total number of subjects experienced a level of relaxation after watching violent material on television. This implies that 46% of male and 32% of female subjects admitted to experience catharsis, an indication of deeper psychological problems. This study also sought to establish whether subjects became more insensitive to violence after being overly exposed to the violent material. The results indicated that 76% of the subjects became insensitive, with 68% of these being male, while 84% were female (Bhatti and Ul Hassan 304).
The first strength of this research is the fact that it delved into a socially relevant aspect. The TV has become available in most homes, meaning that the content on television influences a big number of society members. Another strength is that the researchers used an appropriate number of respondents. 100 is a good number to improve the reliability of the research findings. The researchers were also very systematic in the presentation of their conclusions. Despite these positives, there are some weaknesses I observed about this research. First, the researchers did not employ any theoretical models when doing their research. Given that the issue in question is psychological, it would have been helpful to give a theoretical backing to their research. Another weakness is that the variables used in the study were not adequately defined, with their parameters not known. The researchers should have given room for the impact of other variables on the development of aggressive behavior and the other psychological responses in the study.
Researchers have indicated that modeling is an important aspect in defining the behavior of individuals. In the modern day, TV personalities are the primary behavioral models that people, especially children, and youth seek to imitate. It is, therefore, necessary for the effects of violent TV to be exposed in a bid to keep at check the content offered to the people especially young ones. This research is, therefore, very informative in making various stakeholders know the adverse effect that violence on TV has to the young audience.
Work Cited
Bhatti, Muhammad Ahsan and Ali Ab Ul Hassan. " "Psychological effects of TV News Violence on youth: A Case Study of the Students of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan." ." Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (2014): 295-309.
