Violence in Japanese Television Commercials: Application of the NTVS Coding System to Commercial Analysis

Abstract

In this paper, a content analysis of 7,599 Japanese TV commercials was conducted to examine the characteristics of commercials that showed violence and violent behaviour. By applying the National Television Violence Study (NTVS) method (Smith et al., 1998), we modified coding items for the content analysis. The results showed that 4.51 percent of the examined commercials contained violent behaviour. These were often aired in the late evening and morning, and found in animation programmes and movies. As for the types of products in the commercials, they are mostly advertisements for video games, music, movies and TV programmes. The commercials also contained elements such as the means and realism of violent behaviour that promote the learning of aggression from the perspective of social learning theory. We discuss the possibility of applying the NTVS coding system to commercial analysis.