Research on the Effects of Media Violence.docVIP

LD Exercises adapted from Dr. Talila Cohen Research on the Effects of Media Violence Adapted from: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/effects_media_violence.cfm?RenderForPrint=1 1. Whether or not exposure to media violence causes increased levels of aggression and violence in young people is the major question of media effects research. Some experts, like University of Michigan professor L. Rowell Huesmann, argue that fifty years of evidence show that exposure to media violence causes children to behave more aggressively and affects them as adults years later. Others, like Jonathan Freedman of the University of Toronto, maintain that the scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people, or desensitizes them to it. 2. However, it seems that the disagreement may stem from different approaches to the research. Andrea Martinez at the University of Ottawa conducted a comprehensive review of the scientific literature for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1994. She concluded that the lack of consensus about media effects reflects three grey areas, or constraints, contained in the research itself. Questions 1. a. What disagreement is the writer referring to at the beginning of paragraph 2? (Hint: the answer is not in paragraph 2.) ________________________________________________________________ b. What is a possible reason for the disagreement? ________________________________________________________________ 2. a. What does CRTC stand for? ________________________________________________________________ b. What method did Andrea Martinez use to prepare her report for the CRTC? ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 3. First, media violence is notoriously hard to define and measure. Some experts who track violence in television programming, such as Geo