TECHNOS—Glenn Sparks, Ph.D., Professor

March 14, 2010

Glenn Sparks, Ph.D., Professor, Dept. of Communication, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University

“Children are not too naïve nor too young to begin learning what we call critical viewing skills. Just as we would talk about a food diet and point out what’s healthy and what’s unhealthy, we should begin to talk to them about their media diet.”

Glenn Sparks is a professor in Purdue University’s Department of Communication. His major interest is in the effects of mass media on people, especially the appeal of violence in media. He has published articles and chapters on this topic plus others on the relationship between paranormal beliefs and beliefs about science. Dr. Sparks, who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, is also interested in the effects of frightening films on the emotional reactions of young children. With his colleague, Dr. Will Miller, he has written Refrigerator Rights: Creating Connections and Restoring Relationships, which is being re-released with updated material in 2007; and a new book, The Seven Temptations of Modern Culture, also due for release this year. These books deal with alienation in society caused by the intrusion of media in our lives and what can be done about it. Technos spoke with Dr. Sparks in early December 2006.

Please tell us about your research into what you term the “appeal of media violence.”

One of the under-studied questions in the media violence literature is why are people attracted to violence? I think that’s a really important question to try to answer. I became interested in that a few years ago when my wife, Cheri Sparks (a Ph.D. in Social Psychology), and I started doing some research on it. We’ve advanced a few theoretical ideas in the literature and I’ve done one empirical study. There is, I think, a myth out there in the culture that media violence is really an enjoyable commodity. Hollywood certainly gives us a lot of media violence, and I think that people make an assumption that because Hollywood is churning this kind of content out on a regular basis, we must have a high appetite for it. And actually, that turns out not to be so true. That is, if you look at the movies that receive the highest box office gross in any given year, it does not turn out to be the case that the highest box office movies are violent films. Similarly, if you look at television programs, it doesn’t turn out to be the case that TV ratings support that idea.

I did an experimental study where we took a movie that leant itself to this kind of question, where we could actually go in and systematically edit out the violence in a full-length motion picture. We took out about 15 minutes of the film “The Fugitive,” starring Harrison Ford—that movie leant itself very well to this strategy. You couldn’t do this with every movie, because you would disrupt the understanding of the plot, but with “The Fugitive” we were able to go in and remove nearly all the violence in the film. Then we randomly assigned people to watch one of the two versions of the film and got measures of their enjoyment, of their perception of the editing, the quality of the film, the acting, the music, and other things. What we found was that editing out the violence did not affect people’s enjoyment of the film at all. Now, that’s only one film, and it could be the case that violence plays a more integral role in other films such that you wouldn’t find that effect. But I have a little line of research going here that seems to call into question whether or not violence is really essential for the enjoyment of entertainment. And I think that in general we’ve overblown our assumption that violence has to be there for general appeal.

What I think happens is that the industry, particularly the movie industry in this case maybe less so than in the video game industry, is really producing and marketing films for a global audience, not just a U.S. audience. One of the reasons why violence ends up in so many films is because when you’re crossing cultures, violence is a very appealing formula to use because it crosses the language barrier very easily. It’s a universally understood language, and it’s very quick, easy, and cheap to produce—violence is an easy creative formula in any given scenario. So when these films hit the global marketplace, Hollywood has found that the violence is a very appealing formula to use, but it’s not necessarily the case that it’s the most enjoyable content for a U.S. audience. Some films, of course, have been very violent and have enjoyed commercial success in this country, but it’s not necessarily the rule.

Why do people enjoy watching violence?

Well, one of the reasons why violence is enjoyed has to do with a very powerful psychological principle that we bring to our entertainment experience—and that has to do with forming alignments with characters. We naturally tend, when we go to the entertainment experience, to identify characters that we either like or we don’t like. And once those alignments are in place, we want to stay around to see what happens to the characters that we’ve formed these alignments with. It turns out that if you have an alignment with a character that’s negative, if you’ve formed a dislike—and of course, Hollywood deliberately manufactures these kinds of situations where they encourage us to enter into the situation and form these alignments—people who don’t like violence, who would never use violence in their own lives, if they have a powerful negative alignment with a fictitious character in a film, they will tolerate and even enjoy a considerable amount of violence, if the violence is directed against the person they don’t like.

We want to see him get what he deserves!

Exactly. So one reason we enjoy it is in the context of the violence being directed against characters that we have formed negative dispositions to. And I think that somewhat explains how an ordinary, peace-loving person, not particularly prone to violent behavior, when they get into this sort of scenario with entertainment, will tolerate a lot of violence against characters they don’t like. Now, that suggests that Hollywood really would run a risk if they started turning that violence back against characters whom the audience had formed favorable alignments with, and that generally doesn’t happen in most entertainment. Usually the characters who “get it” are the ones that the audience thinks deserve to get it.

There are some other interesting reasons that may be at work here. Violence may not be enjoyed, per se—that is, it may not be that people are actually enjoying the violent acts—but they may enjoy films that contain violence because the films contain other ingredients that are enjoyable. So, people may say, “I like violent films,” but they may not necessarily enjoy the violence as much as they’re enjoying other things that go along with it: excitement, plot intrigue, mystery. There is a genre here in which violence appears frequently but there may be other ingredients that go along with it that people are really enjoying.

Having said that—there is some evidence in the literature that there are some individuals who may actually derive gratification in the observation of destruction. There’s a line of research in the literature that talks about the “aesthetic appeal of destruction.” It may sound a bit odd or counter-intuitive, but there are some people who actually take some joy in seeing things destroyed. I guess one way to really understand this, is to think about the demolition of a building—when a large building in the city is going to be destroyed, that’s a big event, and it’s something that people are attracted to. They’ve done some really interesting experiments with shattering glass and have found some evidence that there are certain individuals for whom the greater the shatter, the more noise, the more pieces that the glass breaks into, there is actually a physiological reaction in the body that is associated with pleasure. There is an arousal effect here, and some people actually get into a physiological experience in which they get a rush from it. So that is a dimension that there is some support for in the literature.

How does this impact children in schools? Or are you studying mostly college-age students?

Over my career, I’ve done work with both college students and younger children. Usually when I’m working with younger kids, I’ve been looking more at their emotional responses to frightening and violent films and television programs more than I have at their aggressive behavior. But there are numerous studies in the literature now such that we are able to say very confidently that the consumption of violent media definitely is causally related to aggressive behavior. There’s no real significant scholarly debate about that anymore. There are literally hundreds of studies with television and film and there’s a growing literature with violent video games, particularly since the 1990s when the industry started giving us really quite violent video game scenarios — and the literature is really quite consistent across both kinds of media that young children are at some risk when they consume this kind of violent media. There is a causal contribution to aggression. It doesn’t mean that every child who consumes violent media is going to show aggressive behavior right after they’ve done that, but there is a smaller percentage of the audience who may show those kinds of effects. And we’re still gathering evidence about what the long-term implications of continued consumption of this kind of media may be. I think now we have evidence from television and film and video-game studies which shows that there is an effect over time, that children who habitually consume this kind of media in large quantities are at more risk than children who consume this kind of entertainment in a more modest fashion.

Can violence in schools be prevented or identified ahead of time? What can teachers, administrators, and parents do?

I think there are a number of things that can be done within the school context. First of all, the parents of schoolchildren can be sensitized to their children’s media diet, and that can happen through PTA groups, even forums that the school councils may put on for parents. I think in general it’s very appropriate for the teachers and the administrators and the parents in the school system to elevate the media consumption issue to a higher level than it currently is in most school systems. We tend to take our electronic media in the culture almost for granted. It’s almost like the water we swim in. You know: There’s a TV in every home, usually more than one, and we tend not to think about it. We tend to treat the television almost as a piece of furniture that has to be there; and it has to be “on.” Some surveys indicate that almost two-thirds of adolescents have TV sets in their bedrooms; one-third of younger children have TVs in their bedrooms. That’s just not a good idea! My advice is to get televisions out of kids’ bedrooms because having them there encourages un-critical consumption of media for long periods of time, and that’s a pretty risky formula for parents to deal with.

So, one of the things we can do in the schools is to elevate this issue to a much higher level of sensitivity. I think also within the school curriculum we need to be doing something with the students themselves to sensitize them to the time that they spend with media and what the possible implications of that time may be. That is, children are not too naïve nor too young to begin learning what we call critical viewing skills. Just as we would talk about a food diet and teach them what’s healthy and what’s unhealthy, we should begin to talk to them about their media diet. We can begin to educate kids at a much younger age than we do now. I see college students coming through my classes who are just considering this for the first time; they’ve never thought about it before. My reaction to that is, well, I’m glad you’re finally confronting it, but this is really something we could be starting in the elementary schools. I encourage teachers and school administrators to think about how to introduce critical viewing skills into the curriculum, where you can start talking to children about what they’re doing.

I also think in the age in which we’re living now, when violence can break out in the schools setting, I think it’s important for teachers and educators to be watchful in a way that perhaps we weren’t years ago for the signs that might be there in the individual child. Teachers are usually pretty savvy; they can see if their students are doing artwork, for example, that has violent connotations in it, and they can talk to their students about what their media consumption habits are. I think it’s very healthy for teachers to be aware and maybe have a parent conversation ahead of time, be proactive and try to find out what’s going on in a child’s life before something erupts. That’s a bit delicate, because you don’t want to overblow something and become too intrusive and overly sensitive to it. But in some circumstances a very appropriate conversation can take place between a teacher and a parent. They could ask if the parent has given any thought to their child’s media consumption and how it might be related to academic performance and emotional well-being.

Shouldn’t we be teaching media literacy, or critical viewing skills, in teacher preparation courses at the college level?

Absolutely. This ought to be something that the educational psychology and teacher certification programs are building into their curricula in teacher preparation. I think it’s really a disservice to students not to have teachers prepared to think about this area and address it.

The “electronic babysitter” of the 1950s was a different kind of medium from what kids are exposed to now on TV, computers, and video games.

It sure is different now.

In terms of awareness, is there a different attitude about these media among parents today? Can we just assume that today’s parents understand the power of the media?

I think today’s parents are even more desensitized to the potential effects of the media than we were, because they grew up with more of those media around them than we did. I think there is a sense that the diversity of media in the home today is almost overwhelming to parents today—it’s too hard to keep tabs on it. The push is for more screens in more rooms, with more services—and to have to monitor that with parental control is hard. Then, you throw the computer into the mix. Often, if there isn’t a TV in the bedroom, there’s a computer in the room. It just seems like an impossible task.

They just give up.

Right. And parents don’t need to do that. It’s amazing what you can do with just a few very simple changes. I recommend, particularly with young kids, that computer screens do not go into bedrooms, that computers be located in common areas in the home. That way, if your child is working on the computer, he’s doing that in a public area where it’s very open. Once that change is implemented, it goes a long way for keeping tabs on computer use. In terms of television, parents have a remarkable strategy at their command that they just don’t use.

Just turn it off!

That’s right. Limit it—you’re not allowed to watch it until your homework is done, or only watch it during certain hours. It’s amazing what the enforcement of those rules can do in terms of transforming the household. I’ve just done a study with one of my graduate students concerning television’s impact on conversation. We tend to have the TV on, even when people aren’t watching it, and it disrupts the conversational enjoyment between people. It’s a very powerful attention-getting medium, and it’s a distraction. We found in this study, when we put people in a waiting room with the television on, they looked at each other less, they talked to each other less, and they reported that their enjoyment of the conversation was far less than when the TV was off. It’s an amazing medium in terms of its impact on the surrounding environment.

These days, though, people are multitasking with the TV, the computer, their cell phones, their iPods…I don’t know how they deal with it all.

It is true that there is a generational affect at work here in terms of being able to deal with all these media. Children are not decreasing their television time; they’re simply maintaining their TV time and adding to it their computer time and their cell-phone time. There is a study just out today [Dec. 8] that shows that young people are more likely to be engaged in chat technology than are older people. It’s a more interactive technology. I actually think that the increased diagnosis of attention-deficit disorders is related to all of these media that we’re surrounding ourselves with. It encourages us to let our attention be directed by the external stimulus rather than taking control of the attentional mechanism and directing it where you want it to go. We’re subject to the surrounding media. That’s an area that I expect we’ll be seeing more research on.

Do you think there is a correlation between our engagement with compelling electronic media and the pulling away from personal relationships? The disintegration of what you and Dr. Will Miller call “Refrigerator Rights.”

I do indeed believe there is a direct correlation. That’s one reason I did the television study, to see in a very simple way how it disrupted conversation. Here at Purdue, on the old central campus, we have a walkway where there are two plaques at either end embedded in the sidewalk. Each plaque reads: “This is Hello Walk. When you walk down this sidewalk, smile and say hello to everyone you meet.” When I came to this campus in 1986 and walked down that sidewalk, I could expect that people would smile and say hello, even if they were strangers. Today, if you walk down that sidewalk, the chances are very good that the people you pass are either talking on their cell phones or they have headphones on and are lost in some acoustic space listening to their favorite music. They don’t even know you’re there!

With our media today, we are in the process as a culture of transforming our public spaces into private spaces—and, that, I think, is an effect that we really need to think more about. Because it’s in the public space where a lot of community is built, a lot of relationships are developed; it’s where we practice civility and courtesy, and we expand our horizons and exchange interactions with people who are different from us. And we are in the process, I think, of shutting down those public spaces and turning them into private spaces. I’m very concerned about that trend; I don’t think it’s healthy.

You need to write that book.

Yes, in fact Will Miller and I have a second book in the offing to follow the Refrigerator Rights book, called The Seven Temptations of Modern Culture, which discusses this idea. We also have a second edition of Refrigerator Rights, with some new material, coming out soon. Will and I have two new blogs online, having to do with these ideas, if your readers are interested in joining the conversation: the Refrigerator Rights blog is at http://fridgerights.blogspot.com, and the Seven Temptations blog is at http://7temptations.blogspot.com.

You know what I noticed about all these media? I can just work 24 hours a day, if I wanted to … it just goes on and on forever!

Well, there’s been a lot of attention given lately to our sleep-deprived culture, and a lot of that has to do with the compelling attentional power of media.

Dr. Glenn Sparks can be reached at gsparks@purdue.edu. Find out more about Refrigerator Rights and Dr. Will Miller at http://www.drwill.com/Fridge.htm.