Media violence: theories and investigations

This article deals with some psychological theories, concepts and lines of research explaining effects of media violence on audience and attractiveness of violence scenes in the mass media. Introduction of the article focuses on the analysis of media violence concepts of different researchers. The author of the article postulates the difference in the use of the terms «influence» and «effects». Then there is a brief review of the concepts («aggression-catharsis», «priming») and the theories («cue arousal theory», «uses and gratifications theory», «mood management theory», «social learning theory», and «cultivation theory»). The studies of media violence are divided into two groups. One group of researchers focuses on how the audience and/or individuals perceive and evaluate media violence. The other group studies the relation of the media violence perception and individual differences and personal traits of the spectators. The article presents the analysis of researches on the traditional (television, movies, musical video, radio) and contemporary media (the Internet, computer games, social networks). The first problem of the article concerns the traditional prevalence of the socio-psychological approach to the media violence research in comparison with the cognitive and personality approaches. It is noted that the cognitive, affective and motivational structures of consciousness (which are not always related to aggression and hostility) are included in the perception and evaluation of violence scenes. The second problem are discrete researches on media violence effects on thoughts, emotions and behavior of the spectators in connection with their personality traits.