Page 300 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

11. FRIGHT REACTIONS TO MASS MEDIA 289

parents of almost 500 public schoolchildren in kindergarten through
fourth grade in Rhode Island revealed that the amount of children’s tele-
vision viewing (especially television viewing at bedtime) and having a
television in their own bedroom were significantly related to sleep distur-
bances (Owens et al., 1999). Although these survey data cannot rule out
the alternative explanation that children experiencing trauma or sleep dif-
ficulties are more likely to turn to television for distraction, they are con-
sistent with the conclusion that exposure to frightening and disturbing
images on television contributes to a child’s level of stress and anxiety.
Indeed, 9% of the parents in the study by Owens et al. (1999) reported that
their child experienced TV-induced nightmares at least once a week.
An experimental study suggests that witnessing scary media presenta-
tions may also lead children to avoid engaging in activities related to the
events depicted (Cantor & Omdahl, 1991). In this study, kindergarten
through sixth-grade children who were exposed to dramatized depictions
of a deadly house fire from Little House on the Prairie increased their self-
reports of worry about similar events in their own lives. Moreover, they
were also less interested in learning how to build a fire in a fireplace than
were children who were not shown the episode. Similarly, children who
saw a scene involving a drowning expressed more concerns about water
accidents and were less willing to learn canoeing than were children who
had not watched that scene. Although the duration of such effects was not
measured, the effects were undoubtedly short lived, especially because
debriefings were employed and safety guidelines were taught so that no
child would experience long-term distress (Cantor & Omdahl, 1999).
There is an increasing body of evidence, in fact, that the fear induced by
mass media exposure is often long lasting, with sometimes intense and
debilitating effects (Cantor, 1998). In a study designed to assess the sever-
ity of enduring fright reactions to mass media, Johnson (1980) asked a ran-
dom sample of adults whether they had ever seen a motion picture that
had disturbed them “a great deal.” Forty percent replied in the affirmative,
and the median length of the reported disturbance was 3 days. Respon-
dents also reported on the type, intensity, and duration of symptoms such
as nervousness, depression, fear of specific things, and recurring thoughts
and images. Based on these reports, Johnson judged that 48% of these
respondents (19% of the total sample) had experienced, for at least 2 days,
a “significant stress reaction” as the result of watching a movie.
Recent retrospective studies of adults’ detailed memories of having
been frightened by a television show or movie provide more evidence of
the severity and duration of media-induced fear (Harrison & Cantor, 1999;
Hoekstra, Harris, & Helmick, 1999). In these studies, involving samples of
undergraduates from three universities, the presence of vivid memories of
enduring media-induced fear was nearly universal. All of the participants
in one study (Hoekstra et al., 1999) reported such an incident. In the other