Understanding Media Violence Effects

Dear Colleagues,

Despite the growing body of research addressing the potentially harmful effects of exposure to violent media, current understanding of the short-term effects of using violent media and the long-term effects of habitual media violence exposure over time is limited in several ways. First, there is a shortage of longitudinal research examining the relational patterns of media violence use and aggression over time. Such evidence is crucial for examining hypotheses about the directionality of observed co-variations of media violence use and aggression. Second, most previous longitudinal studies have focused on aggression as the critical outcome variable, paying less attention to other negative outcomes, such as a potential decrease in prosocial behavior. Regarding short-term effects, further experimental evidence is required to identify the psychological processes underlying the effects of media violence exposure on aggression and other domains of social behavior. This Special Issue seeks to bring together a set of papers that analyze the role of cognitive, affective, and physiological responses to violent media stimuli in explaining pathways from violent media exposure to aggression and related negative outcomes in other domains of social behavior, such as a decrease in empathy and prosocial behavior. Contributions are invited from all disciplines, including psychology, communication, media studies, sociology, and criminology, addressing media violence effects in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Papers should have a strong grounding in theory and use experimental or longitudinal methods to elucidate the processes by which exposure to violence in the media may increase aggression and decrease in empathy, helping, and other prosocial behaviors, both during short-term exposure and over extended periods of time.

Prof. Barbara Krahé
Guest Editor

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