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| BAD FOR BUSINESS? | |
 December 4, 1998 
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According to a new report, violent television programs may not be the ideal place for advertisers to sell their products. NewsHour Media correspondent Terence Smith and guests discuss the report's findings and its implications.
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Violence and advertising. |
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BRAD BUSHMAN, Iowa State University: Okay. Well, we actually conducted three studies that involved a total of 720 participants, an equal number of men and women. By the flip of a coin we showed participants either a violent or a non-violent program that contained the same two commercial messages. The commercials were for products with broad market appeal, such as laundry detergent and mouth rinse. After watching the programs, we gave participants a surprise memory test in which we asked them to recall the names of the brands that were advertised, as well as much as they could remember about the commercial messages. Then we asked - TERENCE SMITH: And what did you learn?
TERENCE SMITH: So they didn't remember the commercials as well; they didn't remember the brands as well? BRAD BUSHMAN: That's correct. TERENCE SMITH: Right. Gene Jankowski, if this is true, if this can be broadly applied, do you think it's the sort of thing that would affect programming on television? GENE JANKOWSKI, Broadcast Executive: I think if it's proven to be true, yes. On the other hand, I looked at the study, and I have some serious questions about it. The 200 students who were used in test number one were psychology majors. The test number two included 200 psychology majors. And in test number three there were three hundred and some psychology majors. And the programming that they looked at were actually clips of motion pictures, "Karate Kid III" in one case, "Chariots of Fire" in another case, "Die Hard," et cetera. None of them were actual television programs. TERENCE SMITH: Although, I believe, Gene, they were all movies that have been broadcast on television.
TERENCE SMITH: Right. Peter Gardiner, let me ask you the other side of that same question, which is, if this is true and broadly applied, is it likely to affect advertising and advertisers? |
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PETER GARDINER, Advertising Agency Executive: Sure. I'll agree with a lot of what Gene said. But, clearly, we're in the business of trying to get consumers to remember commercial messages. So if there's an effect, a negative effect, on memory by the type of programming, surely that's going to make a dramatic difference. I would echo some of the concerns Gene has about the study, itself. TERENCE SMITH: Madeline Levine, as a psychologist, what's the implication of viewing sort of violent imagery like this? MADELINE LEVINE, Clinical Psychologist: Well, we've known for many years that kids have a variety of responses too violence, and violence is not good for child development. It - TERENCE SMITH: And not just kids, I suppose, but people.
TERENCE SMITH: It might be bad for the pocket book. Brad Bushman, what about violence that is real, in other words, in the news, as opposed to dramatic violence? Did you study that? Do you have any observations on that? BRAD BUSHMAN: Well, we know that real-world violence is more likely to increase aggression than fictitious violence, but we didn't study that in our studies. TERENCE SMITH: Right. You did find, I believe, that the violent images created - the word you used was "anger" among the people who watched them. Explain that. BRAD BUSHMAN: Well, in the third experiment we had people report their mood after they watched the program by completing a number of adjectives, such as, "I feel angry, furious, annoyed," and what we found is that people who watched the violent program felt more angry than those who watched the non-violent program. And the more angry they felt, the less they remembered about the commercial messages. TERENCE SMITH: Gene Jankowski, there's an old adage that violence sells. Does this challenge that?
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| Advertiser influence on programming. | ||||||||
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PETER GARDINER: There's not a lot of influence. Clearly, if they're sponsoring the program, they have a little influence. But I think one of the issues is that - what is the definition of violence on television? I think individuals' tastes determine whether something is violent or not. And there may be less violence on TV these days compared to many years ago, but I think the public's taste for violence has increased as violence has increased on television. I think there's a lot more of it. It's more accepted. And I think that, you know, a lot of generic studies about violence are great and help to point out some of the issues about violence but I think, you know, we need to learn more about individuals' tastes and how do you define violence. TERENCE SMITH: Madeline Levine, I wonder, as someone who has fought against violence on television and studied its impact, I wonder what you think of the notion that there's less of it today and that it's altogether more mild. MADELINE LEVINE: There's clearly not less of it today than there was. I mean, I was brought up on "Bonanza." The kind of violence on "Bonanza" is completely different than being able to watch a Freddie Kruger movie on television. I think every ten years or so the government comes in and says it's going to do something about the amount of violence, and we temporarily see a decrease in the amount of violence on television. But overall, television violence is much more graphic. I do think that there have been efforts by the industry to tone things down. They've had no choice. It's been legislated that a certain amount of television viewing had to be educational, and, therefore, it can't be violent. I'd also like to comment on your point that violence sells. I think, quite the contrary. Violence doesn't sell. On average, it costs the movie about $10 million to receive an "R" rating, rather than a "PG-13" rating. Our most popular media have not been violent. It's "Titanic," I guess, depending on whether you feel less violent or not, or "ET" or "Star Wars." It's "Home Improvement." It's the "Cosby Show," all non-violent. So I think the American public has in many ways let us know that violence doesn't sell. TERENCE SMITH: Gene Jankowski, what pattern do you see in the programming here?
TERENCE SMITH: Okay, Brad Bushman, let me ask you, if you try to take this a little further, how strong a connection do you see between violence and memory compared to other connections, which you've written about? BRAD BUSHMAN: Yes. I'd like to also respond to two of the criticisms that Gene raised. One is although our participants were a random sample, they were not all psychology students, they were college students who happened to be enrolled in psychology courses, along with physics courses and chemistry courses. Second, we measured how much these students liked to watch violent television, and it was not any way effected to the results. So the effects are not trivial. The effects are stronger than the effects of calcium intake on bone mass. They are stronger than effects of secondhand smoke on lung cancer. They're stronger than the effects of exposure to lead on decreased IQ functioning in children. They're not trivial effects by any means. TERENCE SMITH: And if they had difficulty remembering what they had just seen in commercials, why? Were they still trying to resolve what they had seen earlier in a perhaps violent scene?
TERENCE SMITH: Peter Gardiner, how does that fit with your experience? I mean, does some of this sound familiar. Is it something that you would begin to think about when you're trying to buy time for advertisers? |
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TERENCE SMITH: Well, Madeline Levine, what about that? It does. Another example, I suppose, would be NFL Football - very popular and very violent. MADELINE LEVINE: Yes. I'm not saying that violence doesn't sell at all. I think it does sell. And I think also we tend to choose the things that we're presented with. So for young adolescent males, for example, they're presented with Schwarzeneger and if they don't see Schwarzeneger, they see Stalone. If they don't see Stalone, they see Van Dam, if they don't seen Van Dam, they see Segal. Do they love any of these guys? Yes, they probably do. They've cultivated an appetite for these things because it's what's been presented to them. But I would say that given a larger range of things to view, perhaps they might make some other choices. TERENCE SMITH: Is there an effect in your mind in all the public resistance to and campaigning against violence on television? Are you seeing some results? MADELINE LEVINE: Is this to me? TERENCE SMITH: Yes, it is.
TERENCE SMITH: Okay. Thank you and thank all of you. We're out of time. We appreciate it. MADELINE LEVINE: Thank you. |
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TERENCE
SMITH: Violence has long been a staple of American television. And for
years, advertisers have believed that the more gripping the show, the
more effective the ads. Now, a new study published in the Journal of
Experimental Psychology Applied challenges that assumption. Based on
experiments conducted among students at Iowa State University it concludes
that participants who saw a violent film clip had poorer memory for
commercials than did participants who saw a non-violent film clip. In
other words, violence can be bad for business.
Joining
us now to discuss the study and its implications are the author of the
report, Brad Bushman and associate professor of psychology at Iowa State
University; Gene Jankowski, former chairman and president of the CBS
Broadcast Group; Peter Gardiner, senior partner and media director of
the New York Office of Bozelle Worldwide; and advertising agency; and
Madeline Levine, a clinical psychologist, who has focused on violence
in the media. She's author of a parents' guidebook called See No
Evil. Welcome to you all. Brad Bushman, let me begin with you and
ask you, if you would, to tell us briefly a little more about the study
and what you learned from it.
BRAD
BUSHMAN: What we learned is in all three studies participants who watched
the violent programs had poorer memory than those who watched the non-violent
programs.
GENE
JANKOWSKI: That's true. That's true. I have no problem with that. My
point is that I think there's a self-selective audience. The individuals
who go to the movie - in the case of "Karate III," for example - there
was a "Karate III" because "Karate I" was very successful. It led to
a sequel of "Karate II," and "Karate III" for one specific reason: the
audience enjoyed that movie, so the studios made another one. So I would
submit that I think if you studied the people on a cross-section who
- sort of a random sample of those who liked the programming, you might
wind up with some different conclusions. 
MADELINE
LEVINE: That's right. I mean, it makes people more aggressive. It makes
them less creative. It makes them more fearful of being out in the world.
And so we've known for years that it's bad for our souls. Now with Dr.
Bushman's study, we know it's bad for business as well. 
GENE
JANKOWSKI: Well, first of all, I'm not so sure about the "violence sells"
adage. I think good programming sells, and good programming in all of
its forms sells. Bad programming doesn't, and I think if - from a violent
point of view - I think if you go back and take a look at what the networks
and the broadcasters have been trying to do for the last 20 years, this
is not a new issue. They have been toning down a lot of the programs,
and I would submit that television today is much more mild than it was
25 and 30 years ago. You also know that in 1992 and '93, the government
asked for the networks to try to do something, putting in ratings on
television programs, and it's another demonstration, if you will, of
the broadcasters showing their responsibility. So I think that if there
is something that can be proven that even the least amount of violence
in a program would be harmful, I think the networks would obviously
do something to correct that.
TERENCE
SMITH: And Peter Gardiner, I suppose advertisers would respond as well.
I mean, how much influence to advertisers have over programming, if
any at all? 
BRAD
BUSHMAN: Yes. When people watch violent programs, it triggers other
violent memories. For example, they may think of a fight they got in
with their roommate, and if they're thinking about these other violent
memories, then they won't be noticing the commercial messages. We also
know that when people get angry, they don't like it. People don't like
to be in a bad mood, and if they're trying to repair that bad mood,
they may be focusing attention on their inner feelings, rather than
on the commercial messages. 
PETER
GARDINER: Yes. Environmental research in media is kind of the next horizon.
I mean, most of what has been done for years and years is trying to
figure out who the target audience is and how much it costs, but a lot
of work is beginning to be done much like this than is trying to figure
out what are the effects of different programming environments, magazine
environments on commercial message, and I don't think that the results
of this study are all that surprising. I mean, advertisers already -
a lot of them - not everybody - try to stay away from violent programming.
I will go back to the definition a little bit. This " Does violence
sell?" question is kind of an interesting one. It - it probably doesn't,
but I would point to something like wrestling, which is a very violent
program in a lot of people's minds. And there's an example of something
very violent that sells a lot and sells a lot of audience, and it sells
a lot of product so - 
MADELINE
LEVINE: Am I seeing results? Absolutely. We had the Children's Television
Act passed, which recognized that children are a special audience and
need to be protected. I mean, television, in a sense, is promiscuous.
It shows itself to anybody who will look. So if you're four and can
turn on the TV, you're able to see the exact same thing as if you're
forty. I think Congress recognized that children need certain protections
and did pass legislation. We also have the V-chip, of course, which
I've some mixed feelings about -- on the one hand, it does give parents
the opportunity to do more protecting of their children - to screen
programming; on the other hand, it's only as good as the ratings system.
And, as you may know, the ratings system, which has been - is not used
by NBC and is used by the other networks is made up by the directors,
themselves.