Cartoon violence 'makes children more aggressive'

The study also found that youngsters tended to mimic the negative behaviour they saw on TV such as rumour-spreading, gossiping and eye-rolling.

The U.S. psychologists quizzed 95 girls aged 10 and 11 about their favourite TV shows, rating them for violent content and verbal and indirect aggression.

The shows included Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Idol, Scooby-Doo and Pokemon.

The researchers found that output aimed at children as young as seven, which included a number of cartoons, had the highest levels of violence.

They recorded 26 acts of aggression an hour compared with just five in shows aimed at general audiences and nine in programmes deemed unsuitable for under-14s.

'Results indicated that there are higher levels of physical aggression in children's programmes than in programmes for general audiences,' the study said.

It added that the TV industry distinguished between animated violence and non-animated violence and appeared to rate the former as less harmful.

'There is ample evidence that animated, sanitised and fantasy violence has an effect
on children,' the study's authors said.

'Research on the effects of violent video games, which are all animated, indicates that they have the same effects on children's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviours that violent TV shows have demonstrated.

'In fact, even cartoonish children's games increase aggression. Labelling certain types of media violence as "fantasy" violence is misleading and may actually serve to increase children's access to harmful violent content by reducing parental concern.'

The study, by academics at Iowa State University and published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, also found that children copied at school the verbal aggression they had seen on TV.

It said: 'In addition, the effects of televised physical aggression were extensive, such that exposure to televised physical aggression was associated with a variety of negative behaviours in girls.'

This anti-social behaviour included verbal and physical aggression and excluding others from friendship groups.

Co-author Jennifer Linder said: 'There is ample evidence that physical aggression on TV is associated with increases in aggressive behaviour, but there was little until this study that has shown a link between televised aggression and resulting aggression among children.'

Professor Douglas Gentile, who led the study, said content ratings on TV programmes should provide detailed information on the aggression shown.

The U.S. introduced a ratings system in the mid-1990s but the idea has not been picked up in Britain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1159766/Cartoon-violence-makes-children-aggressive.html#ixzz26KwQdO00

Some Scenes of violence from loony tunes

My Response to the artist we looked at in class

Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Brothers' first animated theatrical series.^[1] Since its first official release, 1930s Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television series, films, comics, music albums, video games and amusement park rides. The series features some of the most well-known and popular cartoon characters in history, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird and Porky Pig - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes

left to right: Lola Bunny, Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Melissa Duck, Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, Tasmanian 'Taz' Devil, Gossamer, Elmer Fudd, Marvin The Martian, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety, Sylvester, Petunia Pig, Porky Pig.

looney tunes - some characters

firstly i will be looking at the looney tunes and how their cartoon violence was extreme and 'wacky.'

Can violence in video games and cartoons lead to violent children?

I am thinking about looking in to cartoon/ video game violence and how that influences younger audiences. There has been a lot of talk in the news about how children are recreating games that are above the age rating put on the game. Many 3+ games have violence in them somewhere, may not be apparent in the game as most is an objective and most cartoons on TV also have violence in them, sometime children can watch these without the supervision of an adult, then many go on to recreate these with siblings.

One of the cartoons I will be looking at is Looney Tunes, this has been around since 1930, and its use of violence is quite extreme and could have a heavy influence on children if watched repeatedly.