Prosocial media

Research on prosocial media suffers from the lack of a definition, not only of what constitutes prosocial content in media but also how to measure prosocial outcomes. For the Children’s Television Act of 1990, legislators arrived at the definition of programming that “further(s) the positive development of the child in any respect, including the child’s cognitive/intellectual or emotional/social needs.”

Mares and Woodward define prosocial content and effects more precisely as friendly play, inclusiveness, aggression reduction, altruism, and stereotype reduction. Prosocial content has “the potential for fostering social interactions that are nonviolent and positive in tone” or can “encourage or enable children to interact with each other in friendly, inclusive ways.” Wilson defines prosocial behavior as voluntary behavior intended to benefit someone else. Gentile and Crick (Douglas Gentile, University of Iowa, personal communication, May 2006) devised a prosocial scale using peer nomination:

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  Who does nice things for others?

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  Who tried to cheer up other kids who are upset or sad about something and makes them feel happy again?

Content analysis

“Media are not intrinsically good or bad.” Content, context, and coviewing are all important variables. Few programs are created with prosocial modeling for child viewers in mind; however, we know that children often view adult-themed programming, situation comedies, reality television, and other adult fare. Content analyses confirm that most prosocial shows (72% for children) are on public television and are aimed at children less than 5 years of age. “Therefore, the most important question is not how much prosocial content there is in children’s programming, but how much there is in adult programming that children are likely to watch.”

Content analyses several years ago found that few mainstream television programs featured prosocial content: 4 of 20 programs in 1999 had prosocial messages and only 2 of the most popular programs in 2001 portrayed friendliness, altruism, or aggression reduction. Children’s programming during this time did better, with 50% of children’s shows containing at least 1 prosocial lesson. Smith and colleagues in 2006 sampled content from 2227 programs over many channels and found that 73% of the programs had 2.92 helping or sharing incidents per hour. Most incidents involved White males and many had a humorous, realistic, or rewarded context. Dedicated children’s programming had just more than 4 altruistic incidents per hour. Comparing broadcast television with the National Television Violence Study, children were more likely to see altruism (3 of 4 shows) than violence (2 of 3 shows), but they view altruistic events only 3 times per hour compared with 6 violent events per hour. In children’s programming, violent events occur more than 3 times more often than altruistic events, so an average American child watching 3 hours of children’s programming daily see 4380 acts of altruism and 15,330 act of violence annually.

Content analysis

“Media are not intrinsically good or bad.” Content, context, and coviewing are all important variables. Few programs are created with prosocial modeling for child viewers in mind; however, we know that children often view adult-themed programming, situation comedies, reality television, and other adult fare. Content analyses confirm that most prosocial shows (72% for children) are on public television and are aimed at children less than 5 years of age. “Therefore, the most important question is not how much prosocial content there is in children’s programming, but how much there is in adult programming that children are likely to watch.”

Content analyses several years ago found that few mainstream television programs featured prosocial content: 4 of 20 programs in 1999 had prosocial messages and only 2 of the most popular programs in 2001 portrayed friendliness, altruism, or aggression reduction. Children’s programming during this time did better, with 50% of children’s shows containing at least 1 prosocial lesson. Smith and colleagues in 2006 sampled content from 2227 programs over many channels and found that 73% of the programs had 2.92 helping or sharing incidents per hour. Most incidents involved White males and many had a humorous, realistic, or rewarded context. Dedicated children’s programming had just more than 4 altruistic incidents per hour. Comparing broadcast television with the National Television Violence Study, children were more likely to see altruism (3 of 4 shows) than violence (2 of 3 shows), but they view altruistic events only 3 times per hour compared with 6 violent events per hour. In children’s programming, violent events occur more than 3 times more often than altruistic events, so an average American child watching 3 hours of children’s programming daily see 4380 acts of altruism and 15,330 act of violence annually.

How children and teens use media

Children and teens spend a lot of time with media, significantly more in the Kaiser Foundation’s 2010 survey compared with the 2006 data. On average, 7 hours 38 minutes daily are devoted to media use: 53 hours weekly for 8-year-olds to 18-year-olds. Because these youth are skillful multitaskers, “they pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes into those 7 1/2 hours.” Since the last survey, use of every form of media (television, video games, computers, and music) has increased, with the exception of reading. This increase in media use is fueled by an explosion in online and mobile media, notably cell phones, iPods, handheld video players, laptops, and now, iPads and other similar multiuse platforms. In the Kaiser survey, 71% of children and teens have a television in their bedroom; many of these have cable or satellite access. Most 8-year-olds to 18-year-olds report no parental rules about media content or time limits, with the exception of computer use. Whether anyone is watching or not, 64% of homes have the television on during meals and 45% leave the set on virtually all of the time. “For many families, media use has become part of the fabric of daily life.”

Research on prosocial media and impact on children

Negative effects related to media messages and images are the result of 2 mechanisms:

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  Children learn how to do things (and whether behavior is appropriate) by observation, incorporating scripts into their behavioral repertoire

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  Emotional responses to media images and messages affect responses to real-life events.

Intuitively, these mechanisms could also encourage prosocial attitudes and behavior. The General Learning Model describes “various pathways by which both prosocial and antisocial learning from the media can occur.” Children and teens may imitate positive behaviors, draw on scripts for use in similar situations, and show certain emotional responses to compelling, positive media images.

The bulk of research on prosocial media is 20 to 30 years old and there are no longitudinal studies in the literature. In addition, this research involves only television (although television is still the most used of the mass media for all age groups):

If observational learning from TV has such striking and lasting antisocial consequences, it is reasonable to expect that the medium also has the potential for modifying behavior in desirable, prosocial directions. Recent studies in laboratory and naturalistic settings have provided evidence supportive of this hypothesis, although the correlations are not generally as strong or as clear as those between viewing TV violence and subsequent aggressive behavior.

Mares and Woodward reviewed research on programming not intended for young audiences in terms of prosocial content, but limitations included definitional ambiguity of prosocial, both of programming and outcomes (most studies measured educational or cognitive rather than social outcomes). A variety of field or naturalistic studies observed young children’s behaviors after exposure to televised prosocial content, compared with children watching programs with aggressive or neutral themes, and generally found trends toward more cooperative interaction or helping behavior. The longevity and robustness of the behaviors could not be analyzed given the design of the studies.

Correlational studies (analyzing which programs children self-select at home) do not help in the understanding of causality: do prosocial programs influence children to behave in a more cooperative, positive manner or do prosocial children choose programs with positive content? Are there other variables, including gender, parent influence, or socioeconomic status? Older research again suggested a relationship between educational or prosocial content and positive behaviors.

More robust studies, although few, include meta-analyses and longitudinal designs.

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  A meta-analysis of 230 studies carried out before 1978 showed prosocial effects (book buying, library card use, safety, and conservation activism) to be twice as strong as antisocial effects (aggression, criminality, stereotyping) of media viewing. Both in laboratory and in naturalistic settings, the prosocial effects were more enduring.

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  Another meta-analysis, in 1994, found antisocial and prosocial effects of media viewing to be equivalent.

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  The most recent meta-analysis evaluated 34 studies after 1978 for positive interaction, aggression reduction, altruism, and stereotype reduction. Prosocial media have a weak to moderate effect, strongest for altruism. As a result, the “best guess is that the effects of violent content and prosocial content are reasonably close in magnitude, though violent content may be somewhat more powerful.”

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  An impressive longitudinal study from the University of Iowa measured the long-term association between violence and educational media exposure, both in terms of the subtypes of aggressive behavior and prosocial behavior. Study results suggest that both violent and educational media affect young children and lead to mainly relational aggression for young girls and physical aggression for boys. “Identification with same-gender television and media characters is a key component of this process.” Parental monitoring of media use was negatively associated with aggression for both girls and boys. In this study, educational programming was not associated with positive behaviors, and the association with relational aggression suggests that not only is content important but also that excessive media consumption (of any genre) can have negative consequences for peer interaction. Relational aggression may be modeled in an educational program and misconstrued. For example, children may be shown excluding others in the playground only to reconcile at the end of the program; the investigators note that some young children may miss this lesson, having age-appropriate difficulty understanding plots.

These studies suggest that “for young children, viewing prosocial TV per se facilitates acquisition or enhancement of prosocial behavior”; however, “the influences are not as powerful or direct as influences of specially-designed school programs, training in role playing, or a combination of prosocial TV, role-playing and verbal labeling.” Perhaps prosocial actions modeled on television are “less salient for young children or less attention-grabbing than active participation in role playing and discussion. Young children are less likely to think about or remember the messages of the programs or make inferences or generalizations.” The “results of experimental interventions in which viewing is accompanied by related activities and curriculum are generally encouraging, particularly in comparison to the weaker or nonexistent effects observed without additional materials.” So, parents and other adults can optimize the messages from positive television programs by encouraging discussion and even role playing about the lessons of the programming.

Research on children’s programming

Many Public Broadcasting Service productions, as well as some designed by Disney and Nickelodeon, “meet the social and emotional needs of children” and experts opine that prosocial values and behavior can be modeled and taught through thoughtful programming. These programs include the well-known Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Electric Company, Arthur, and Barney and Friends.

Sesame Street, initially developed to enhance preschoolers’ cognitive ability, incorporated additional goals to encourage prosocial attitudes and behavior, specifically tolerance, cooperation, and friendliness. Fisch and Truglio acknowledge that television has documented effects on children’s behavior, both prosocial and antisocial, but for unclear reasons found that children were less able to generalize modeled prosocial behavior to new situations than they were able to imitate behavior in a context and situation like that modeled on the screen. One-time exposure to a prosocial scene was not sufficient for behavioral change; apparently, repeated exposure to prosocial behavior is necessary for positive effects to occur.

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  Several studies of “Sesame Street” viewership led to some predictable conclusions, although the results were not uniform. Young viewers tended to play more cooperatively, show more tolerance for others, or choose nonaggressive approaches to problem solving; some studies showed persistence of positive behaviors over time.

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  Another seminal program designed for preschoolers, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” focused on positive affective, social messages rather than cognitive gain. Children experienced “such positive behaviors as nurturance and sympathy, task persistence, empathy, and imaginativeness from viewing the program”

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  Calvert and Kotler used both experimental and naturalistic methodologies to examine several prosocial programs on cable, broadcast, and public television. Elementary school-aged children learned more from these prosocial programs than from traditional school-related educational offerings, specifically being able to identify emotions of televised characters and apply lessons learned to their own experiences.

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  To sum up the research, Mares and Woodard conducted a meta-analysis in 2005 of 34 studies on prosocial television. Their analysis involved more than 5000 children and found a medium-sized effect of .27, consistent with prosocial programming enhancing the prosocial behavior of children. The strongest effect was on altruism, with positive interaction and tolerance slightly weaker. These outcomes most likely reflect that television can more easily show helping others; cooperation or tolerance may be more abstract.