In September 2006, in the town of Pocatello, Idaho, Cassie Jo Stoddart, a high-school senior, was murdered by two classmates, Torey Adamcik and Ryan Draper. Cassie had been housesitting for her uncle and aunt when Torey and Ryan entered through the unlocked basement door and murdered her. They weren’t very good at covering their tracks, and were swiftly caught. Upon interrogation, they described the murder: they had made loud noises and used the circuit breaker to switch the lights on and off to scare Cassie before they stabbed her to death. On top of that, they admitted to gaining inspiration from the ‘Scream’ horror movies, their goal being to replicate the killing spree and achieve infamy. While Cassie’s murder was carried out by Torey and Ryan, it is impossible to ignore the fact that she wouldn’t have died if her murderers hadn’t been inspired by what they watched on TV. What we watch has a profound impact on our lives, it shapes our opinions and thought processes. The consumption of media violence results in people viewing real-life violence as entertainment, which can result in victims of violence receiving little to no support from bystanders. Additionally, the way violence is presented on-screen encourages viewers to imitate and carry out violence in real life.
The first noticeable effect of exposure to violent media is desensitization, it is when the viewer experiences a gradual decrease in their emotional reaction to violence. This can result in a multitude of negative effects on a person’s mental state while also affecting the people around them. Individuals who have been desensitized to violence have been observed to lose their sense of empathy, the ability to feel others’ emotions. People who lose empathy experience negative impacts on their social life, such as having a harder time connecting with people and maintaining friendships. The loss of empathy desensitized individuals feeling little sympathy for victims of actual violence, leading to them not intervening in fights to protect victims of violence from aggression; instead choosing to adopt roles of passive and facilitating bystanders in violent situations. Passive bystanders are people who witness an act of violence and ignore it, while facilitating bystanders are people who provide indirect support to the act. Facilitating bystanders can support a violent act by encouraging the aggressor, laughing at the victim, or simply just watching and providing an audience. Desensitized individuals who become facilitators view violence as a form of entertainment — a spectacle — which brings excitement into their otherwise monotonous lives.
Some take it a step further, instead of just encouraging it, they begin to incite violence. When we watch violent sequences in movies, we receive an adrenaline rush, a surge of excitement. These people, who at this point have what could be called addictions, seek to replicate that feeling in real life by inflicting violence on others. They have difficulty separating the fiction of movies from reality, resulting in them disregarding or even enjoying the pain of their victims. Others can be influenced by violent media and start to imitate what they watch. Albert Bandura was a renowned psychologist who developed the Social Cognitive Theory, a theory which lays down the characteristics a particular behavior must have to be imitated through observation. The Social Cognitive Theory states that for something to be imitated, it must grab the viewer’s attention by being out-of-the-ordinary, and be presented to the viewer often enough that it is remembered. Both of these characteristics are commonly seen in violent media, it shows ‘shock’ content: violent, gory scenes designed to grasp your attention. This content is shown often enough that it is ingrained into viewers’ brains. In fact, by the time children leave elementary school, they will have seen on average 100,000 acts of violence on television.
Glorification of violence is the representation of violence as something admirable or heroic. Examples can be seen with films and TV shows like ‘Batman’ and ‘Fight Club, where Bruce Wayne and Tyler Durden are shown in a heroic light and given charismatic personalities that are attractive to viewers. Additionally, violent characters often add tragic backstories or a desire for revenge and justice, resulting in their violent actions being accepted and admired. This was the case with Adamcik and Draper, who were inspired by the Scream franchise to murder Cassie, with the intention of acheiving infamy.
