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Release Date: Monday, April 05, 2004 Type: Article Subject: Academic Department: AR-CCR Centre for Communication Research NZ television violence similar to US and UK

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New Zealand television screens a similar amount of violence to that shown in the United States and United Kingdom, according to research by the Auckland University of Technology.

But promotions for upcoming programmes are a concern because they often select the most violent incidents and concentrate them into a short time slot, the study conducted by the Centre for Communication Research at AUT has found.

Centre Director Professor Allan Bell said that the high level of violence within promotions was just one of the findings of the research commissioned by the Government appointed Working Group on TV Violence which presented its recommendations to the Minister of Broadcasting today (April 1, 2004).

The researchers found that promotions for later adult programmes might feature several violent incidents and be broadcast in children’s viewing time before 8.30 pm.

The Centre’s research report titled Television Violence in New Zealand: A study of Programming and Policy in International Context, also compared the number of incidents of violence per hour from their New Zealand sample with recent studies in other countries.

New Zealand levels of violence were found to be very close to those in the comprehensive prestigious US National Television Violence Survey (1994-1997) and the most recent British Broadcasting Standards Commission survey (2002), although slightly lower that the most recent US Centre for Media Policy and Analysis survey (2002).
New Zealand’s high proportion of programmes originating from the United States is believed to contribute to its count of eight violent incidents per hour.

Compared with previous New Zealand studies into television violence the 2003 levels were higher than in the last study in 1995, but similar to levels found in the early 1990s.

Professor Bell said the findings are based on recordings of a full week’s television on eight channels in 2003, with 572 screen hours being analysed.

Television One had the lowest levels of violence (just over 2 incidents per hour) because of the amount of non-fictional programming and lesser proportion of American-originated material. TV2, TV3, Prime and SKY1 were similar in their violent counts at between 6 and 8 incidents per hour. The highest violence occurred on SKY movies (12 incidents per hour) and on Nickelodeon (13 per hour), which was indicative of their respective genres of movies and animations.

The research also showed that cartoons were the genre with the most violent content on New Zealand television, which was similar to results found in earlier local and international research.

The Centre’s report also investigated hundreds of international studies that had looked for a direct link between watching television violence and aggression during the past 50 years.

Research was also conducted with various groups and gave an insight into the different interpretations of television violence by New Zealanders from the various ethnic backgrounds of Pakeha/European, Maori, Pasifika and Asian.

A survey of the wide range of approaches to regulating television violence by other countries was also included.

The research team included Associate-Professor Barry King, Dr Geoff Bridgman, Ms Philippa Smith, Professor Allan Bell, Ms Andrea King, Ms Sharon Harvey, Professor Charles Crothers and Dr Ian Hassall.

Established at AUT in 2001, the Centre for Communication Research focuses on research in a broad range of fields associated with communication, such as media, new media, visual communication, applied linguistics, language and society, critical approaches to communication issues, communication and society.

Television Violence in New Zealand: A study of programming and policy in international context can be viewed electronically from 12pm today on
www.tv-violence.org.nz . Bound photocopies can be purchased c/o Ministry for Culture and Heritage, PO Box 5364, Wellington for $28.

ENDS

For more information please contact : Philippa Bell