Gentile & Sesma lecture 1
Developmental approaches to understanding media effects on individuals
Seven myths about media effects
1. Media effects are simple and direct: most media effects are cumulative and subtle,
this subtlety masks remarkable power and persuasiveness. Media effects usually
happen at a level of which we are not consciously aware. Ads are usually presented as
entertainement so we don’t notice any effect of them.
2. The effects of media violence are severe: most people who watch media violence never
seriously injure other people or themselves. Watching violent media CAN have many
effects. Killing someone is the most visible tip of the phenomenon – there is a great
deal of aggressive behavior that is not so extreme. Violent media affect us more
broadly, any time you have laughed, felt excited, become scared or otherwise aroused
while watching a violent movie. Many effects including emotional, physiological,
cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral effects.
3. Media effects are obvious: effects are usually indirect, subtle and cumulative and thus
not so obvious. We are missing opportunities to see other less obvious and perhaps
more pervasive effects
4. Violent media affect everyone in the same way: at least 4 effects > aggressor, victim,
bystander and appetite effect.
- Aggressor: children and adults who watch a lot of violent entertainment tend to
become meaner, more aggressive, and more violent
- Victim: children and adults who watch a lot of violent entertainment tend to see
the world as a scarier place, become more scared, and initiate more self-
protective behaviors (females)
- Bystander: children and adults who watch a lot of violent entertainment tend to
habituate to gradually increasing amounts of violence, thereby becoming
desensitized, more callous, and less sympathetic to victims of violence
- Appetite: children and adults who watch a lot of violent entertainment tend to
want to see more violent entertainment.
Less wel known which people are more prone to which effects. That everyone is not affected
in the same way does not mean that everyone is not affected. Effects of various proximal and
distal sources of influence on children. The media operates at a societal level, and media
effects can bes een at all levels. Media can affect us through multiple directions at once.
5. Causality means “necessary and sufficient” : most complex issues are multicausal.
Media violence is likely to be one of the pushes that interacts with other forces at
work. In most situations, it is neither necessary nor sufficient. It means that it is one
of the causes.
6. Causality means immediacy: many people assume that the effects must be seen in a
short amount of time to be caused by exposure. Yet many causes have long-term
effects.
7. Effects must be “big” to be important: this often includes a statistical approach. Media
violence consistently counts for at least 1 to 10 percent of the effect so that is actually
pretty large
Two developmental theoretical approaches
Developmental tasks approach: the basic idea is that in order for a person to adapt,
there are developmental challenges that must be met. Some arise through biological
,maturation, others are imposed by families and society, while others arise from the
developing self.
- Provides a set of criteria by which to judge adaptation at any particular point in
development.
- Provides researchers and practitioners with a framework for understanding how
development unfolds over childhood
Principles
- Hierarchy to the tasks: different issues rise in importance depending on the
developmental level of the child.
- Later tasks are contingent on the success with which earlier tasks were negotiated
- Development is cumulative and builds on prior adaptation
- Future developmental progress is not determined or fixed as a result of how
earlier developmental tasks are organized
- Change is possible but constrained by prior adaptation
As children face different developmental tasks, media are likely to have a greater or lesser
effect depending on the specific issues the children are facing at that time.
Infancy (0-12 maanden): developing a trusting relationship with a caregiver. Physical
development, the brain is undergoing neural network development. Cognitive development,
learning by classical and operant conditioning and imitative learning. Emotional
development, expression of emotions begins to develop, and the beginning of emotional
regulation.
Toddlerhood (1-2.5): capacity for symbolic representation, including language develops.
Children also learn how to use this. Social gestures also begin to emerge. Children begin to
understand themselves as distinct from others but this is limited. Children’s independence of
action and feelings of competence become important. Children begin to be expected to
control their behavior and emotions. Self-conscious emotions emerge such as shame, guilt
and pride.
Early childhood (2.5-5): children learn to classify and organize things. Deploy attention with
intention begins at this age. Children can still only focus on one piece of information at a
time. Theory of mind also begins to develop and scripts make an uprising. Children also
aquire a gender-role concept. Most important in this stage is learning self-control and self-
regulation. For emotional development, children start to internalize standards for behavior.
Middle childhood (6-12): begin to understand the difference between appearance and reality
and to look at more than one aspect of things at the same time. Also a sense of industry is
gained. Main developmental task is learning how to form friendships and be part of a peer
group. This in turn fosters the development of self-concept. Peer relationships are also
important for moral development and forming norms and values of one’s own.
Adolescence (13-18): adolescents gain the ability to think about abstract concepts and
relationships among those concepts. Attention skills also increase. Main developmental task
is learning how to achieve deep levels of trust and closeness with same-seks and opposite-
seks peers. Adolescents also gain more autonomy and responsibility. Personal identity
forming also emerges.
Media effects are unlikely to be unidimensional and likely to differ greatly depending on the
age of the child. The developmental tasks approach provides a framework to understand how
children may be affected at different ages.
, Risk and resilience approach: focuses on differential life experiences among children
that may put them at risk for future maladaptation, and those factors that serve to ‘protect’
children fom this risk exposure. This approach can help explain why we may see greater
effecs of media violence on some children than on others.
One of the strongest findings is that of the risk gradient, or a cumulative risk model. The
more risks encountered by a child, the greater the likelihood of problematic functioning.
These risk factors almost never occur in isolation.
Studies also found that there are individuals who aren’t as vulnerable to risk factors as other
individuals, this is called resilience. The observation that despite experiencing severe
adversity, some children display normal or above normal levels of competence across an
array of domains. Succesful outcomes despite stress exposure arise out of dynamic
interactions between the child en the environment, resilience occurs as a result of multiple
protective factors. Interestingly, there are no extraordinary children or circumstances that
account for succesful development in the context of adversity.
Exposure to media violence is a risk factor for aggressive behavior and other negative
outcomes. With each additional risk factor, the risk of that child acting violently increases.
Regular exposure to media violence might be able to shift someone about three spots on the
thermometer. Protective factors help to keep the level lower.
Digital Youth lecture 1
Chapter 4: Constructing identity online: identity exploration and self-presentation
Users of media are taking advantage of technology to negotiate and present aspects of the
self. Formulating a coherent and stable identity, is an important developmental task.
Identity: is, at least in part, an explicit theory of oneself as a person. A sophisticated
conception of the self.
Identity during adolescence
- Exploration is key
Creation of an ego identity represents the integration of existing accumulated experience,
skills, talents, and opportunities offered by various social roles into one compact and complex
identity of the individual (Erikson). Vocational decision making, ideological values and
sexual identity functions as bases.
Marcia elaborated on Erikson’s theory, by viewing identity as a process and Marcia developed
an approach to measure an adolescent’s identity status at any given point. The concepts of
exploration and commitment were key to identifying where a adolescent is drawn into the
process of choice and decision making over the issues of relationships, religion, life style, or
occupation/jobs.
4 distinct states of identity
- Foreclosed identity: presence of commitment and the absence of exploration.
Youth may tend to be rigid and conformist
- Identity diffusion: the adolescent experiences neither crisis nor commitment
and is not actively exploring his/her sense of self. Easily influenced by peers and
may often change opinions and behavior.
- Moratorium: crisis about identity, but no commitment to a particular sense of
self.
