Page 945 - 1970S

November 1971
chíldren. Others say "We need more re–
.fined researcb on the subject." Still
another point of view is: "The effec-
6veness of televísion in teaching either
good or bad is not known."
But then why do advertisers spend 2Y2
billion dollars a year for TV advertisíng
believing that televisíon CAN and DOES
influence people?
Not Enough Research?
Dr. Harry J. Skornia, professor of
radio and television at the University of
Illinois, discussed the research done on
the effect of the mass media in the
Spring 1970 issue of Better Radio and
Television, published by the National
Association for Better Broadcasting.
He said there have been sorne five
thousand studies in 40 countries on film
research alone during the last 50 years.
And in tbe last 1O years the largest
number of research projects and experi–
ments have been done specifically for
television - more than on any other
medium of communication or educa–
tional innovation.
The Payne Studies
Sorne dozen studies into the effects of
viewing films on children were con–
ducted between 1929 and 1932 by the
Payne Fund. These Payne studies re–
sulted in 10 published vohunes by Mac–
millan in 1935. The studies, just as
applicable today, since many of the same
kinds of lilms are now shown on tele–
vision, measured and recorded the effects
of viewing various types of movie films
on sleep, social attitude and behavior,
emotional responses, standards of moral–
ity, and delinquency and crime.
One interesting side note of the
Payne studies - which also points up
how much TV can teach and infiuence
children - was this:
"The Payne Fund studies concluded
that showing heroes and heroines smok–
ing and drioking in films and programs
was probably more effective in promot–
ing these behavior patterns than any
such direct or intended approach as
commercials or advertising.
"In fact, one spokesman for the
movie industry at that time boasted that
Hollywood movies, with their insistence
on showing drinking as socially accept·
able and usefully relaxing, was prob-
The PLAIN TRUTH
ably more responsíble than any other
single pressure io bringing about the re–
peal of prohibition. The example set by
respected celebrities provided an impor–
tant example to the nation of 'what
people do.'"
In 1961 UNESCO listed 491 studies
from the major countries of the world
in an annotated international bibliogra–
phy entitled, The lnfluence of the
Cinema on Children mtd Adolescents.
Nearly a thousand sources were cited ei–
ther directly or indirectly.
The Army, Navy and Air Force have
done over 100 carefully documented
study projects, revealing the effective–
ness of TV and .films as an ideal medium
for teaching individual physical assault
aod defense tactics, techniques of vio–
lence, and the use of weapons of
violence.
The Ford Foundation's Fund for the
Advancement of Education supported
experimental projects in sorne 800
schools, proving TV's striking effective–
ness as compared to any other medium
of instruction in teaching virtually any
subject in the currículum to children of
various age groups.
According to Dr. Skornia, "The most
all·encompassing single finding from
educational television research has been
that in almost all projects there has
been 'no significant difference' between
what thousands of students learn from
TV ( often from single teachers or pro–
gram series) and what they learn from
face·to-face conventional teaching.
"Thousands of individuals can now
learn life-saving (or life-destroying or
safe·cracking) as well from TV as they
would be able to learn from the thou–
sands of individual teachers ( or gang–
sters) that would be required for
conventional teaching."
And summing up all the research,
which unquestionably shows how effec–
tive television is in teaching, Dr.
Skornia said, t'Judged by those criteria
which educators fiod useful in pre–
dicting effectiveness in teaching, the
principal characters in westerns, crime
and private-eye series, situation come–
dies, and other popular TV programs
would seem to rate fairly high in teach–
ing effectiveness.
"There is considerable evidence or
danger that what these individuals dem·
5
onst,.ate regularly will, by all valid
learning theory criteria, be learned. To
believe that all or most of these attrac–
tive, admired characters, often using
and iUustrating techoiques of physical
violence, revenge, burglary, escape,
.fighting, and do-it-yourself justice, are
unsuccessful as teachers, failing to teach
what they demonstrate, is directly at
variance with what we know about tele–
vision's superiority, specifically for dem–
omtration purposes in teachiog specific
skills and behavior."
Results of Laboratory Research
Leading social scientists like Dr. Al–
bert Bandura, professor of psychology at
Stanford, Dr. Leonard Berkowitz, pro–
fessor of psychology at the University of
Wisconsin, and others, have conducted
laboratory experiments specifically for
the purpose of evaluating the impact of
televised aggression on children.
For instance, Dr. Bandura designed
a series of experiments using nursery
school children averaging 2 years and
3 months of age.
The children were divided into four
different groups. One group witnessed a
real-life adult model kick, punch and
beat on the head with a mallet a 1ive–
foot Bobo doll.
A second group wítnessed an adult
model beat up the Bobo doll on film.
The third group watched a movie, pro–
jected through a television console, that
also showed an adult model beating up
the Bobo doll, but this time the adult
was costumed as a cartoon cat. The
fourth group (the control group) didn't
see any aggressive models.
After this viewing, each child was
iodividually taken to a room which con–
tained a Bobo doll, aggressive toys -
dart guns and a mallet like the one used
by the adult model, and nooaggressive
toys - tea sets, crayons, coloring paper,
dolls, cars, trucks and plastic farm
animals.
The children witnessing the adult
model aJtack the Bobo doll - tive, on
film and on television - shawed al–
most twice as mrtch aggression as the
control grot<p. The group seeing the
model attack the doll tended to IMITATE
the same type of violent aggression. The
difference in arousing aggression of the