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SOCIAL PROBLEMS, Vol. 33, No. 3, FEBRUARY 1986
TELEVISION
VIOLENCE
ANDVIOLENT
CRIME:
ANAGGREGATE
ANALYSIS*
STEVENF. MESSNER
State University of New Yorkat Albany
Television is one of the most important media of mass communications in the United States.
National Commissions have concluded that "almost everyone"in the United States watches televi-
sion (National Institute of Mental Health, 1982:1), and surveys suggest that the television in an
average household is turned on for about seven hours everyday (Comstock, 1980:30). Given the
pervasiveness of television in U.S. society, it is not surprising that this medium has been, and
continues to be, at the center of controversy and public debate. Perhaps the most intense and
enduring controversy concerns the consequences of viewing television violence. Critics of the
industry have charged that violence on television is a cause of many of the more important social
ills of society, while representativesof the industry and a number of social scientists have disputed
the scientific basis for such sweeping claims.'
The purpose of this paper is to address an aspect of the television controversy that has received
comparatively little attention in the scientific literature but that serves as the basis for many of
the calls for some sort of censorship of television content. This is the claim that violence on televi-
sion is an important cause not simply of "aggression"but of "criminalviolence" in society at large.
For reasons to be discussed shortly, an aggregate-level, cross-sectional analysis will be performed
to explore the relationship between television violence and violent crime. The key question guiding
the analysis can be stated quite simply. Do population aggregates with high levels of exposure to
violent television content also exhibit high rates of criminal violence?
PREVIOUSRESEARCH
There is an extensive body of literature dealing with the potential effects of television viewing
on human behavior.2 The National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH) update of the original
1. The view that researchon television justifies some form of censorship can be found for example in Eysenck
and Nias (1978); also see Belson (1978). Verydifferent interpretations of the scientific literatureare represented
in Howitt and Cumberbatch (1975) and in Kaplan and Singer (1976). For the views of some television producers
and actors, see "Televiolence Prepetrators: Don't Blame Us" (New YorkDaily News, 1982:114).
2. The "classic"literatureon the effects of television viewing includes the field studies in the 1950s by Himmel-
Televisionand ViolentCrime 219
1972 Report of the Surgeon General'sAdvisory Commission on Television and Behavior notes that
over 2,500 publications dealing with the general behavioral influences of television have appeared
between 1972 and 1982 alone (NIMH, 1982:iii). Much of this research has been concerned with
the possibility that the viewing of television violence might lead to aggressive or violent behavior
on the part of the observer. Although there are a few dissenting voices, the most widely accepted
interpretation of the accumulated evidence is probably that contained in the NIMH update. The
authors of this report conclude, that all things considered, "recent research confirms the earlier
findings of a causal relationship between viewing televised violence and later agressive behavior"
(NIMH, 1982:89).
Even though some consensus seems to be emerging with respect to the existence of a causal
connection between television violence and agression, the larger social significance of this relation-
ship has not been firmly established. The vast majority of previous studies has dealt with relatively
minor forms of aggression. The question thus arises as to whether or not the findings for the kinds
of aggression typically studied by social scientists can be extended to more serious forms of aggres-
sion such as criminal violence.
A primary reason for the restricted focus on mild forms of aggression in previous research is
the preference of social psychologists for "micro-level"research designs. These designs, although
strong in many respects, are not well suited for studying a dependent variable such as criminal
violence. Ethical considerations preclude the use of an experimental design in the study of violent
crime because it would clearly be unethical to introduce a stimulus, either in the laboratory or
in the field, suspected of provoking harmful behavior.3 Correlation studies, in contrast, are not
subject to the same ethical constraints, but the "micro-level"correlational design (i.e., a sampling
of individuals) encounters problems of a different sort. Because serious crimes of violence are
extremely rare,the probability of selecting an appreciable number of individuals who have engaged
in such acts is highly remote unless samples sizes are unrealistically large.4
Although micro-level designs have been predominant in the research on the effects of television,
there have been several important studies which have adopted macro-level approaches and have
been able, as a consequence, to investigate the more serious forms of aggression such as criminal
violence. Clark and Blackenburg.(1972) examined the relationship between the amount of violent
television content and national rates of violent crime in the United States between 1953 and 1969.
They found that the proportion of television programs judged to be violent did not correlate with
national rates of criminal violence either directly or with a time lag. This study raises questions
THEORETICAL RATIONALE
The central hypothesis for this study is that there will be a significant, positive relationship
between levels of exposure to television violence and rates of violent crime. In essence, this hypoth-
esis is based on theories and empirical findings concerning the determinants of mild forms of
aggression at the individual level which I extend to account for more serious forms of aggression
at the aggregate level.
Social psychologists have identified several processes that could produce a positive relationship
between media violence and aggressive behavior. One such process is that of "modeling."
According to the major tenets of social learning theory, individuals learn to behave aggressively
Televisionand ViolentCrime 221
by observing the behavior of others (Bandura, 1973). Thus, heavy exposure to violent television
content should provide people with violent models and, in turn, raise the probability of violent
behavior, including criminal violence.
Another psychological process which has been linked to television violence is "desensitization."
Research indicates that children who have been exposed to portrayals of violence become more
accepting of violence (see Eysenck and Nias, 1978). On the basis of such findings, it has been
suggested that television violence reduces the anxiety associated with aggression and makes people
more likely to carry out acts of aggression, possibly even very serious forms of aggression (Eysenck
and Nias, 1978:184).
"Disinhibition theory" provides an additional theoretical rationale for anticipating a relation-
ship between media violence and aggression. According to this theory, people are inhibited by
socialization experiences from expressing aggressive impulses. These inhibitors break down, it has
been argued, when individuals are exposed to a steady diet of media violence (NIMH, 1982:39).
Clearly, there are ample theoretical grounds for anticipating that individuals exposed to violence
on television will be especially prone to violent behavior. A straightforward implication of this
micro-level theorizing is that population aggregates with high levels of exposure to violent televi-
sion will be characterized by large numbers of individuals prone to violence and, accordingly, will
exhibit relatively high rates of violent crime.5
METHODS
A crucial requirement in this study is a measure of the level of exposure to television violence.
Such a measure must reflect two components: the number of persons viewing television programs,
i.e., audience size, and the content of these programs scaled along the dimension of violence. The
ideal procedure would be to estimate the viewing audience for all television programs broadcast
in a given geographical area for some specified time interval, weight these viewing estimates by
evaluations of the violent content of the respective programs, and then combine the weighted esti-
mates into a composite index. However, this approach would be highly impractical because it
would requiredetailed information on the content of all shows broadcast during the specified time
interval. Conducting the content analysis required for such a measure would be a monumental
task well beyond the scope of the present project.
Instead, I used an alternativeapproach which involved identification of the "most violent"regular
television series and measurement of the typical audience size attracted to these violent programs.
Selection of the "violent" television series was based on the content analyses performed by the
National Coalition on TelevisionViolence (NCTV, 1981).The NCTV regularlymonitors the amount
of violence portrayed in prime time network telecasts and records the number of "violent acts per
hour." A list of the shows that are the most violent according to the "violent acts" criterion is then
compiled. For the time period under investigation (the Fall season of 1980), the most violent regular,
prime-time series, as judged by NCTV, were"Enos,""The IncredibleHulk," "Hartto Hart," "Dukes
6. The NCTV actually lists the 10 most violent television shows. From the original 10, "Freebieand the Bean"
had to be excluded from the analysis because no data were available for this program on audience size, and
"Charlie'sAngels" had to be excluded because it was not broadcast by many local affiliates. Three network
movie specials were also excluded for reasons discussed later in the text. These deletions account for the selec-
tion of only five programs from the original list of the 10 most violent shows.
7. The NCTV is an organization with membership drawn largely from the medical profession, from research
universities, and from civic and religious associations. A listing of the board of directors and the "endorsers"
appears in the NCTV newsletter. The NCTV is unmistakably an activist organization devoted to a reduction
in levels of television violence. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect that the NCTV monitors might be espe-
cially sensitive to the presence of "violence" in television programming. It seems unlikely, however, that the
NCTV rankings of shows in terms of violent content would diverge markedly from the rankings of monitors
without the same activist orientations.
8. I am verygratefulto WilliamR. Behanna,Directorof PressRelationsfor the A.C. NielsenCompany,for
making available the television ratings data and for explaining various aspects of the Nielsen reports.
Televisionand ViolentCrime 223
stations. DMAs are larger than the more common governmental units of "StandardMetropolitan
Statistical Areas" (SMSAs). To be able to use the Nielsen data on audience size in an SMSA anal-
ysis, it was necessary to locate each SMSA within an encompassing DMA. The DMA value on
the television index was assigned to the "residing" SMSA.
The dependentvariablesare the SMSA rates(per 100,000population) of violent crime.The offenses
include criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery,and aggravatedassault. Crime rates are measured
for 1981 since the television index refers to a period near the very end of 1980. The source for the
crime data is the FederalBureauof Investigation's(1982) Uniform CrimeReports(UCR). The offenses
are considered singly, and in combination as a composite index of violent crime. The composite
index is simply the sum of the individual rates.
The UCR data are based on reports to the police. As such, they are subject to all of the criticisms
of official crime statistics that have been discussed at great length in the literature(see among others
Hindelang, 1974;Savitz, 1978).The problem of reportingbiases is especially worrisomein the present
analysis because a plausible case could be made that such biases would be systematically related
to the independent variable of primary interest- exposure to television violence. The reporting
behavior of residents in communities with high levels of exposure to television violence might very
well differ from that of residentsin communities with low levels of exposure.This would be expected,
for example, if "desensitization" is produced by exposure to television violence. The possibility
of such biases will be considered in the context of the actual results.
In an effort to minimizethe possibility of observing"spurious"associations, data werealso gathered
for a fairly comprehensive list of controls. The selection of the control variables was guided by
previous research indicating relationships between these variables and either television viewing or
levels of violent crime. On the basis of the research revealing that television viewing is associated
with low socio-economic status, low academic achievement, and minority status (Comstock, 1975),
measuresof the following socio-demographic characteristicsof SMSAs wereincluded:the percentage
of the population below the poverty line, the percentage with less than a high school education,
and the percentage black. A measure of the level of economic inequality, the Gini coefficient of
household income concentrations, was also included. Blau and Blau (1982) reported that the level
of inequality across SMSAs is related to rates of criminal violence. Another economic control vari-
able for the analysis was the averagemonthly payment to recipients of Aid to Families with Depen-
dent Children (AFDC). Significant relationships between AFDC payments and rates of violent
crime were reported by De Fronzo (1983).
Four population variables were also measured: total population; population per square mile;
the percentage of the population ages 18-34; and the number of males per 100 females. Total popu-
lation and population per square mile were log transformed because of highly skewed distributions
(Tufte, 1974:108-11).Severalprevious studies have found associations between population size, popu-
lation density,and ratesof violent crime (Blau and Blau, 1982;Mayhewand Levinger,1976;McCarthy
et al., 1975b). Substantial evidence indicates that young people and males constitute "high risk"
groups for criminal violence (cf. Gibbons, 1982). Finally, given the well-known thesis of a "regional
culture of violence" (Gastil, 1971;Hackney, 1969; but see Loftin and Hill, 1974), a dummy variable
to represent regional location (South = 1; non-South = 0) was also included in the list of controls.
Information for the precentage below the poverty line, percentage with less than high school
education, the Gini coefficient, and males per females was taken from the 1980 U.S. Census tapes
(U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1982b). The regional dummy variable has been scored in accordance
with Census Bureau classifications. The source for all other control variables is the State and Metro-
politan Area Data Book, 1982 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1982a).
RESULTS
Regression equations for the violent crime rates of SMSAs are reported in Table 1. The results
are quite surprising. For each measure of violent crime, the estimate for the level of exposure to
224 MESSNER
TABLE 1
television violence is negative, and, with the exception of assault, all coefficients are statistically
significant. In other words, SMSAs in which large audiences are attracted to violent television
programming tend to exhibit low rates of violent crime.
There are several additional findings of interest in Table 1. The percentage black has a fairly
strong, positive effect on each measure of violent crime. This is consistent with previous research
detecting a relationship between racial composition and rates of violent crime for SMSAs (cf. Blau
and Blau, 1982). The measure of economic inequality (the Gini coefficient) also yields consistently
positive effects - SMSAs with high levels of income inequality tend to have high rates of violent
crime. Similar relationships have been observed at the societal level for the offense of homicide
(Braithwaite, 1979;Krohn, 1976; McDonald, 1976) and at the intra-national level for homicide and
assault (Blau and Blau, 1982). Sex composition and population size are both positively related to
violent crime rates - i.e., large SMSAs and SMSAs with large numbers of males relative to females
tend to exhibit high rates of violent crime (cf. Mayhew and Levinger, 1976). Finally, contrary to
a "regional culture of violence thesis," the only significant effect of region is on robbery, and the
effect indicates that robbery rates tend to be lower in Southern than in non-Southern SMSAs.
Given the highly unexpected nature of the findings for the television exposure measure in Table
1, it is important to consider the possibility that the observed patterns for this variable might reflect
certain methodological features of the analysis. One very common methodological problem that
arises in macro-levelresearchon crime it that of multicollinearity.To assess the extent of this problem
in the present study, "variance inflation factors" have been computed following the procedures
proposed by Fisher and Mason (1981).9
VarianceInflationFactors
Matrixa
Variables II
Exposureto TV Violence 2.04 1.58
Pct 18-34 2.98 1.51
Males/Females 2.11 1.56
Population(In) 1.98 1.75
Pop per sq. mi. (In) 1.99 1.77
Pct Black 2.00
Pct Less than h.s. edu. 3.52
GiniCoefficient 3.10
AFDCPayments 3.56
Pct Poor 3.45
South 4.08
Race/Region/SESIndex ... 1.51
Note:
a. MatrixI includes the originallist of independentvariables. MatrixIIcontains a composite index in place of the
stronglyinter-relatedpredictors.See text for explanation.
Varianceinflation factors based on the matrix for the full list of independent variablesare reported
in Column I of Table 2. Applying Fisher and Mason's rule of thumb, the variable "South"is clearly
implicated in severe collinearity (variance inflation factor = 4.08). Several other variables also yield
inflation values that are large enough to arouse concern, i.e., values of approximately 3.5. It thus
seems advisable to pursue strategies for reducing levels of multicollinearity.
One useful technique for dealing with multicollinearity is to combine highly correlatedpredictors
into composite indexes (see Weisberg,1980:185).1oAccordingly,a principalcomponents factor analysis
was performed on the "control"variables.The resultsof the factor analysis indicate that the following
six predictors all load highly on a single dimension: percent black, percent less than high school
education, the Gini coefficient, AFDC payments, percent poor, and South. A composite index
was constructed using factor score coefficients for these six predictors.Although there is no obvious
substantiveinterpretationfor the dimension underlying the index, it can be labeled a "Race/Region/
SES index" for shorthand. The somewhat ambiguous meaning of the factor index is not especially
problematic in the present analysis because the primary purpose is not to interpret the observed
relationships for the index but simply to control for confounding effects of a range of relevant
variables in the assessment of the television violence variable.
A second set of variance inflation factors was computed based on a matrix with the composite
index included in place of the index's constituent variables. The resulting values are presented in
Column II of Table 2. The substitution of the index for the component terms greatly lessens the
problem of multicollinearity. Indeed, none of the predictors in the reduced matrix approaches a
critical level. Regression results based on the reduced set of predictors should not therefore be seri-
ously affected by multicollinearity.
The effects of exposure to television violence were re-estimated using the composite factor index
in place of the full list of controls (see Table 3). The results for the television measure are highly
similar to those reported previously. Levels of exposure to television violence are inversely related
to each of the five measures of violent crime. Moreover, these negative relationships are now in
every instance statistically significant at conventional levels.
An analysis of residuals has also been performed to determine whether or not the surprising
effects of the television measure might be due to the presence of a few atypical observations. An
examination of standardized and studentized residuals indicates that for each offense, the case
with the largest residual is one with a predicted crime rate considerably lower than the actual rate.
For example, the observed murder rate for Miami of 34.5 greatly exceeds the predicted rate of 17.2.
Similarly, New York City's robbery rate of 1212.5 is substantially larger than the predicted value
of 572.7. This pattern probably reflects the slight skewness in crime rates across the SMSA sample.
To lessen the impact of the cases with relatively extreme values on the dependent variables, the
crime rates were transformed by taking natural logarithms, and the regression equations depicted
in Table 3 were then re-estimated. The substantively important conclusions remain unchanged. The
measure of exposure to television violence is negatively and significantly related to each of the
five log-transformed crime rates.
The influence of special cases on the regression results was also assessed by computing measures
of Cook's Di for each case (Cook and Weisberg, 1982; Weisberg, 1980)." The computed Cook's
Di's for the equations in Table 3 imply that there are no extremely influential cases affecting the
regression estimates. All of the observed values of Di are below .46. Nevertheless, each regression
equation was re-estimated with the single most influential case (as indicated by Di) deleted. The
resulting coefficients for the television violence measure are virtually the same as those obtained
for the entire sample.
An additional question which might be raised about these findings concerns the appropriateness
of focusing on the exposure levels for total populations. The overall index of television exposure
DISCUSSION
The results of the analysis clearly raise questions about generalizing directly from previous
research on television violence and mild forms of aggression at the micro-level to more serious
forms of aggression such as criminal violence at the level of population aggregates. Contrary to
what might be expected on the basis of previous research, there is no evidence in the aggregate
data to support the claim that high levels of exposure to television violence are related to high
rates of violent crime. In fact, the relationship that does emerge is in the opposite direction. The
data consistently indicate that high levels of exposure to violent television content are accompanied
by relatively low rates of violent crime.
Certain limitations of the present study require that these empirical findings be interpreted
cautiously. First the analysis has been restricted to the programming of the three major networks.
It is possible that the most violent programs currently being broadcast are not those carried by
network affiliates but rather those appearing on independent stations and on cable stations. If
so, exposure levels to these "very violent" programs might conceivably be related to violent crime
rates in the expected positive direction. Further research dealing with a wider range of program
outlets is clearly needed.
A related limitation of the present study is the use of a brief period for the sampling of audience
size. Viewing behavior has been estimated over the course of a four-week interval. The interval
selected - November - is a strategic one because it occurs at the heart of the fall television season,
but viewing patterns for November might not necessarily be representativeof viewing more gener-
ally. The development of measures of aggregate viewing patterns that are based on a more compre-
hensive sampling of television programming is also an important problem for future research.
Finally, it should be stressed that the analysis presented above is cross-sectional in nature. A
particularly promising extension of the research design would be to collect data on audience size
for population aggregates at multiple points in time. Longitudinal data of this sort would permit
the use of statistical techniques such as panel regression analysis and would also allow for an
assessment of the extent to which these findings reflect any unique, historical factors operating
during the time period under investigation - factors that might affect television viewing and crime
rates simultaneously"5(see Milavsky et al., 1982). The extension of the design in this manner is
very straightforwardin principle, but the practical difficulties are considerable. The major problem
is that, for every time point, data on audience size must be combined with content analyses for
samples of programs. Given the fact that the programs being broadcast are likely to change over
time, the development of temporally comparable indexes would be a major task. The collection
of comparable longitudinal data would nevertheless permit an assessment of the historical speci-
ficity of the results and also allow for a closer examination of the direction of causal influences.
However, it is interesting to note that the finding of an inverse relationship between television
violence and violent crime is rather surprising irrespective of the nature of the causal ordering.
Despite the limitations, the consistency of the empirical findings is quite impressive. Negative
associations are observed for each of the four offenses taken singly and for the combined index
of violent crime. Similar relationships are observed for indexes based on both the total population
and a strategic subgroup (i.e. males 18-34). The results are virtually identical for a variety of
specifications and for selected subsamples. Finally, the pattern of inverse associations is replicated
with an additional measure- total television exposure - which is expected to be highly correlated
with exposure to violent television content.
unlikely to occur when people are at home serving as "capable guardians."To address these predic-
tions, I estimated regression equations for the rates of major property crimes with measures of
both television violence exposure and total television exposure. The results in Table 5 are quite
striking. Both measures of television viewing yield negative and statistically significant estimates
for all three of the major types of property crimes, with especially strong effects for burglary.
Admittedly, I have applied the subcultural theory and the routine activities account in an "ex
post facto" manner. Consequently, neither has been tested in any formal sense. Nevertheless, these
two theories provide plausible explanations for resultsthat are very surprisingyet remarkablyconsis-
tent across a variety of analyses. Irrespective of the cogency of these theoretical arguments, the
evidence presented here clearly raises serious questions about the claim that high rates of urban
crime can be attributed in any simple and direct way to heavy exposure to television violence.
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234 MESSNER
APPENDIXA
Basic Statistics
SMSAs DMAs
(N= 281) (N= 159)
Variables x S.D. x S.D.
(Y1) CriminalHomicide 8.17 5.48 8.93 5.48
(Y2) ForcibleRape 35.56 17.81 38.26 17.36
(Y3) Robbery 160.95 142.56 178.72 136.43
(Y4) AggravatedAssault 281.76 152.14 288.68 146.56
(Y5) ViolentCrimeIndex 486.44 266.69 514.58 258.89
(TV1) Exposureto TV Violence 20.92 4.39 21.47 4.49
(TV2) Males 18-34 Exposureto TV Violence 13.59 3.47 14.06 3.54
(TV3) Total TV Exposure 29.07 3.37 29.44 3.58
(X1) Pct Black 10.19 9.75 11.09 10.41
(X2) Pct 18-34 30.97 4.74 31.28 3.92
(X3) Males/Females 95.22 5.30 95.64 7.94
(X4) Pct less than h.s. edu. 30.57 7.67 30.04 6.98
(X5) Population(In) 12.61 .98 13.16 1.08
(X6) GiniCoefficient .40 .02 .40 .02
(X7) AFDCPayments 236.53 91.10 223.35 90.17
(X8) Pop per sq. mi. (In) 5.41 .95 5.32 .85
(X9) Pct Poor 9.02 3.43 9.25 3.55
(X10) South .41 .49 .45 .50
APPENDIX B
CorrelationMatrixa
(SMSAs above diagonal, DMAsbelow diagonal)
Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 TV1 TV2 TV3 X1 X2 X3 X4
Y1 - .56 .59 .51 .66 .16 .14 .18 .60 - .08 - .07 .36
Y2 .61 - .54 .64 .73 -.07 -.07 -.05 .39 .12 .10 -.12
Y3 .60 .55 - .44 .83 -.18 -.24 -.14 .39 -.11 -.14 .01
Y4 .52 .67 .47 - .86 .05 .02 .04 .40 - .01 .04 .15
Y5 .67 .75 .84 .87 - -.07 -.12 -.05 .47 -.06 -.04 .09
TVi .15 -.06 -.19 .06 -.07 - .84 .79 .46 .04 -.05 .41 -
TV2 .06 -.14 -.31 -.06 -.20 .81 - .65 .35 .00 -.03 .37 -
TV3 .20 -.06 -.16 .07 -.05 .81 .66 - .50 .00 -.05 .36 -
X1 .63 .41 .39 .42 .48 .50 .31 .53 - .02 - .05 .35
X2 -.10 .25 -.06 .11 .04 .05 .00 -.02 .09 - .57 -.55 -
X3 -.05 .01 -.03 .05 .01 .01 .03 .05 -.03 .35 - -.27 -
X4 .42 -.13 -.04 .10 .04 .44 .38 .45 .35 -.50 .35 - -
X5 .22 .21 .64 .17 .45 -.27 -.38 -.27 .12 -.18 -.09 -.04
X6 .60 .43 .23 .45 .42 .24 .16 .16 .42 .04 -.15 .42 -
X7 - .50 - .21 .04 - .30 -.17 - .56 - .51 - .52 - .53 - .05 .03 - .52
X8 .16 .10 .54 .14 .38 - .03 -.17 - .03 .28 -.12 - .09 .04
X9 .46 .16 .05 .29 .21 .43 .28 .38 .44 - .04 .00 .68 -
X10 .53 .27 .06 .38 .28 .52 .43 .46 .62 .03 - .03 .55 -
Note:
a. See AppendixA for variablekey.