Safermedia is a charity working to protect children and the vulnerable from media harm.

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Other research into media effects on behaviour

Screening Violence - edited by Stephen Prince (Athlone Press London).

This is a compilation. Some of the contributors: Mass Media Effects on Violent Behaviour by Richard B. Felson. He quotes F.S.Andison (1977) TV Violence and viewer aggression : A cumulation of study results 1956-1976.

R A Baron and P A Bell 1973 "Effects of heightened sexual arousal on physical aggression and in 1977 - Sexual arousal and aggression by males: Effects of type of erotic stimuli and prior provocation."

L Berkowitz - several studies - many appeared in 'Journal of Personality and Social Psychology' 1965, 1973, 1984; 'American Psychologist'; 'Public Opinion Quarterly' - (Berkowitz, Corwin & Heironimus 1962 - Film Violence and Subsequent aggressive tendencies)

S. Boeringer 1994 - Pornography and Sexual Aggression: Associations of violent and non-violent depictions with rape and rape proclivity. This list continues for several pages, showing just how much research there has been!¨The Effects of Television - edited by James Hallorana - Panther Modern Society 1970

The 'Copycat' effect:

"Compelling evidence that extensive media coverage of a suicide is followed by an increase in the number of people taking their lives the same way.  This pattern has been observed around the world.  A World Health Organisation report in 2000 warned that repeated coverage of suicides tends to encourage suicidal preoccupations particularly among young people.

What especially concerns the American Psychiatric Association is that the effect applies equally to suicides that are preceded by mass murder.  In the months after Teenagers Klebold and Harris killed a teacher, 12 students and themselves at Columbine High School in April 1999, police received hundreds of related incidents. ...Students mimicked the killers' behaviour and style of dress, and praised them on the Internet."  The number of copycat suicides is proportional to the amount of media coverage they get. (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, vol 35 p251)