The Effect of Nonsanitized Violence on Media Enjoyment: Reduced Character Identification or Enhanced Narrative Transportation?

• In Event: Media Violence and Aggression

Abstract

Informed by the moral disengagement approach, a one-factor experiment examined how exposure to non-sanitized violence affects viewers’ subsequent enjoyment of traditional “Hollywood” violence through the mediating pathways of negative affect, character identification, and narrative transportation. Study results found that non-sanitized violence inhibits enjoyment of traditional violence. Furthermore, serial and parallel analyses of indirect effects find that non-sanitized violence has both negative and positive effects on enjoyment as predicted by identification and mood management theory. These findings have significant implications for scholars and parents concerned with the reciprocal relationship between the preference for violent media, the use of violent media, and the subsequent effects that violent media may produce.

Authors

• Thomas Franklin Waddell, Penn State

• Erica Bailey, Pennsylvania State University

• James D. Ivory, Virginia Tech