To provide a comparison, they were also asked similar questions about their impressions of profanity and sexual content in the media. Participants were also asked about their religious beliefs, general views on aggression, and the kind of television programs they typically watched. Finally, they were asked to answer an open-ended question about why (or why not) they felt offended by violence in the media and how offended they would feel about encountering aggression in real life.
Researchers found that participants were generally more offended by real-life violence than they were by any kind of media violence. As for media violence in particular, participants reported being more offended by violence in music and advertising than what they might encounter in movies or television.
There were also clear
gender differences, with women tending to be more offended by media violence than men. Men also reported being more desensitized to violence than women and also more likely to consider media violence to be a normal part of life. Religion seems to be another factor that can affect how people view media violence. Men reporting strong religious views were more likely to report being offended by violence in the media (while it doesn't appear to have been a factor for women).
As for specific reasons people tend to give for finding media violence offensive, they tended to focus on a few themes: being offended by how violence is often glamorized, regarding violence as inhumane, or
empathy towards the victims. For many participants who denied feeling offended, the most common reason given was that the violence they were seeing tended to be unrealistic. Overall however, most participants were particularly offended by violence directed against women or children and are especially offended if they are watching this kind of violence with children or close family members present.
The most important point raised by Coyne et al. in discussing their findings is that how people view media violence depends on personal and situational factors that can shape whether they feel disgust or find it entertaining. In general, people continue to be more offended by sexual content and profanity than they are by violence, and the trend toward greater violence in the media isn't likely to reverse itself anytime soon. While more research is definitely needed, we have to understand the implications of this growing
desensitization toward media violence and how it might affect the way people respond to violence in real life.
