Violence in children's programmes on British television

Abstract

This paper presents a study of violence on children's television in Britain. A total of 943 children's programmes were coded in an exercise which content analysed more than 4,700 hours of programmes broadcast on eight television channels. Thirty nine per cent of these children's programmes contained violence. More than 4,000 violent acts and 7.2 hours of violence occurred in these programmes. More than half of the violence occurred in general children's programmes, with somewhat under half being found in children's cartoons. The violence mostly involved shootings or various forms of physical assault, using hand‐held weapons or the hand or foot. Much of the violence occurred in a crime context or following an argument between two or more individuals. Violence was usually committed for negative purposes, rather than to serve socially positive interests. Violent acts were rarely followed by painful consequences. Perpetrators of violence were most likely to be white, male, young adults, or cartoon characters. Results are discussed in relation to implications for effects upon children and those with responsibilities for children.