Can the media reduce intergroup prejudice and conflict? Despite the high stakes of this question, understanding of the mass media's role in shaping prejudiced beliefs, norms, and behavior is limited. A yearlong field experiment in Rwanda tested the impact of a radio soap opera featuring messages about reducing intergroup prejudice, violence, and trauma in 2 fictional Rwandan communities. Compar...

As our nation has grown and continued to accept immigrants from around the world, multiculturalism has become the norm, and the growth of different religions or different subunits of certain religions (e.g., Islam and Hispanic Pentecostalism) is part of this trend. The mass media describe the general public’s rising interest in matters spiritual and religious, and point to the incredible range ...

‘Superjudge’ Balthasar Garzón is undoubtedly a phenomenon. In Spain he is popularly known as superjuez (Superjudge). He has pursued, amongst others, international drug traffickers, Arab gun-runners, money launderers, terrorists (ETA), state terrorists (GAL) under the former Socialist Government, and mass media monopolies (SOGECABLE and Silvio Berlusconi’s involvement in the Spanish media). This...

BACKGROUND Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health problem with devastating effects on young women's health. These negative effects increase when the exposure to IPV lasts for a long time and exposure at an early age increases the risk of adult IPV. Despite efforts made in the last few decades, data show little progress has been made towards its reduction. Thus, the aim of the study ...

Homicide is the second leading cause of death for young people, and exposure to violence has a negative impact on youth mental health, academic performance, and relationships. We demonstrate that youth violence, including bullying, gang violence, and self-directed violence, increasingly occurs in the online space. We review the literature on violence and online social media, and show that while...

Media violence poses a threat to public health inasmuch as it leads to an increase in real-world violence and aggression. Research shows that fictional television and film violence contribute to both a short-term and a long-term increase in aggression and violence in young viewers. Television news violence also contributes to increased violence, principally in the form of imitative suicides and...

a r t i c l e i n f o To address the longitudinal relation between adolescents' habitual usage of media violence and aggressive behavior and empathy, N = 1237 seventh and eighth grade high school students in Germany completed measures of violent and nonviolent media usage, aggression, and empathy twice in twelve months. Cross-lagged panel analyses showed significant pathways from T1 media viole...

Years of research documents how witnessing violence and aggression leads to a range of negative outcomes for children. These outcomes result both from witnessing real violence (Osofsky, 1995) as well as from viewing media violence (Anderson et al., 2003; Gentile, 2003). Ironically, the same parents who take great pains to keep children from witnessing violence in the home and neighborhood often...

PURPOSE This article describes epidemiologic evidence concerning risk of gun violence and suicide linked to psychiatric disorders, in contrast to media-fueled public perceptions of the dangerousness of mentally ill individuals, and evaluates effectiveness of policies and laws designed to prevent firearms injury and mortality associated with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders. ...

Riots such as the Cronulla and Macquarie Fields occurrences and media reports of large numbers of individuals gatecrashing parties understandably raise community concern about the prevalence and causes of group violence. This is a difficult area to research as the number of events is typically low, although their impact can be high. There are also different forms of mass groupings of individual...