mass-communication-theory

192 Section 3 From Limited-Effects to Critical Cultural Theories: Ferment in the Field
TELEVISION VIOLENCE THEORIES
CATHARSIS
catharsis
Also called sublimation;
the idea
that viewing mediated
aggression
sates, or reduces,
people’s natural
aggressive drives
The most important outcome of the violence research was the gradual development
of a set of theories that summarized findings and offered increasingly useful insight
into the media’s role in the lives of children. Taken together, they offered strong
support for the link between television viewing and aggression. Two decades ago,
after reviewing years of relevant research on the question, Aletha Huston and her
colleagues wrote:
The accumulated research clearly demonstrates a correlation between viewing violence
and aggressive behavior—that is, heavy viewers behave more aggressively than light
viewers…. Both experimental and longitudinal studies support the hypothesis that
viewing violence is causally associated with aggression…. Field [naturalistic] experiments
with preschool children and adolescents found heightened aggression among
viewers assigned to watch violent television or film under some conditions. (1992,
pp. 54–55)
Still, debate and disagreement persist.
The findings from the surgeon general’s report on one aspect of the television violence
debate, catharsis, were quite clear and did generate significant agreement.
Testified CBS’s Joseph Klapper, “I myself am unaware of any, shall we say, hard
evidence that seeing violence on television or any other medium acts in a cathartic
or sublimated manner. There have been some studies to that effect; they are
grossly, greatly outweighed by studies as to the opposite effect” (U.S. Congress,
1972, p. 60). Yet catharsis (sometimes called sublimation)—the idea that viewing
violence is sufficient to purge or at least satisfy a person’s aggressive drive and
therefore reduce the likelihood of aggressive behavior—has lived a long if not thoroughly
respectable life in mass communication theory.
Common sense and your own media consumption offer some evidence of the
weakness of the catharsis hypothesis. When you watch couples engaged in physical
affection on the screen, does it reduce your sexual drive? Do media presentations of
families devouring devilish chocolate cakes purge you of your hunger drive? If
viewing mediated sexual behavior does not reduce the sex drive and viewing media
presentations of people dining does not reduce our hunger, why should we assume
that seeing mediated violence can satisfy an aggressive drive? Moreover, think back
to when you attended movies like Avatar or the Transporter and Grindhouse films.
Did you walk out of the theater a tranquil, placid person? Probably not.
Yet it isn’t difficult to see why the proposition seemed so attractive. For one
thing, the philosopher Aristotle originally discussed catharsis in his Poetics to explain
audience reaction to Greek tragedy. Even though he never wrote of the
“purging” of an innate aggressive drive, but rather about audiences “purging” their
own emotions of pity and fear because in a tragic play they saw misfortune befalling
others (Gadamer, 1995), catharsis developed a conventional wisdom-based
validity. For another, catharsis suggested that television violence had social utility—
that is, it was functional, providing young people with a harmless outlet for their
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