Television audiences might enjoy action over violence

As the battle for viewership rages on among television networks, televised violence has been intensifying at unprecedented levels. Trends of gore and physical violence are becoming ingrained into the very fabric of action, drama and suspense genres.

Gradually, violence is becoming a yardstick for the measurement of expected viewership.

But does that mean viewers love violence?

Recent research by IU telecommunications professor Andrew Weaver and University of Illinois communications professor Barbara Wilson suggests it doesn’t.

“We were interested in exploring the argument that producers make as to why there is so much violence in the media,” Weaver said. “They will say ‘People love violence, and we are just giving people what they want.’”

In the study, Wilson and Weaver asked 400 college students to watch doctored clips of five primetime shows that normally depict violence: “The Sopranos,” “24,” “Kingpin,” “Oz” and “The Shield.” Each student watched one randomly selected episode.

The clips used in the research were grouped into three levels of violence. One kept the graphic violence intact, another kept the action, but edited out the blood and gore and the last featured the lowest levels of violence.

Violence was identified as onscreen, intentional acts in which there is an intent to harm, Weaver said. Action was identified as fast pacing or visual activity, such as car chases.

The results concluded it is not the violence that viewers enjoy, but the exciting action sequences that often accompany it. The higher the levels of violence, the less viewers enjoyed it. Even after taking personality and gender differences into account, the results remained significant.

Weaver said he has talked to a few producers about how these results can be implemented.

“If you can show conflict and generate suspense without relying on violence, then you will have more enjoyable content,” he said.

Telecommunications senior lecturer Steven Krahnke, who was unaffiliated with the study, said one should look to independent studies for direction rather than for conclusions.

“It makes sense to me that many viewers are attracted to action,” he said in an e-mail. “The question is whether or not action alone will keep them watching.”

“In a sense, then, we’ve been trained to expect that the violent programs are going to give us what we want, even if the violence itself actually reduces enjoyment,” Weaver told Discovery News.

New questions are presented by the study, Krahnke said.

“If people are mostly interested in the action, should we take out the blood? That question seems to me to be a demographic one,” he said. “But that also goes to style, and it is hard to imagine Quentin Tarentino taking the blood out of ‘Inglorious Basterds.’”