Pakistan Association of Anthropology, Islamabad, Pakistan Special issue Sci.int.(Lahore),27(4),3807-3809,2015 ISSN 1013-5316; CODEN: SINTE 8 3807 July-August THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE ON CHILDREN’S EXPRESSED AGGRESSIVENESS: A CASE STUDY OF A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN ISLAMABAD Lubna Sausan Bajwa 1 ,Shaheer Ellahi Khan 1 , Abid Ghafoor Chaudhry 2 , Hamza Ellahi Khan 3 1 Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Bahria University Islamabad, 2 Department of Anthropology, Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, 3 Free-Launce Consultant, Islamabad. Corresponding Author‟s Email: shaheer_ellahi@hotmail.com ABSTRACT: The current study sought to explore the relationship between intake of media violence and expression of aggression amongst a group of 32 fourth graders (20 boys and 12 girls) aged between 7- 9 at a local school in Islamabad. Data was collected using a number of qualitative tools, including in-depth interviews - both structured and semi-structured, participant observation, structured observation as well as the use of some field experiments to elicit and observe reactions. Interviews were done with the teachers, the students themselves as well as their parents and family members. Data obtained was fed into various sub-categories within the domains of physical and verbal aggression. The results pointed towards existence of a positive correlation between amount and quality of media violence witnessed and the levels of verbal and physical aggression observed in children. Key Words: Psychology, Aggression, Media, Violence, Cartoons, Movies, Children, School INTRODUCTION Visual media, like most other inventions of modern times have over time attracted various debates over the kind of consequences it has on different segments of the society. Significant attention has been paid to the effect of violence shown on TV translating into increased aggressiveness in children. For numerous decades, psychologists have tried to establish the relationship between the amount and quality of violence viewed and the level of expressed aggressiveness in children. Most of the research and public attention has focused on the important question of whether viewing media violence makes children and adolescents more violent. The question is not, of course, whether media violence causes violence, but whether viewing violence contributes to the likelihood that someone will commit violence or lead to an increase in the severity of violence when it's committed. The most direct and obvious way in which viewing violence contributes to violent behavior is through imitation or social learning [1]. There is a wealth of psychological research demonstrating that learning often occurs through imitation, and, of course, most parents know that children imitate televised words and actions from an early age [2]. Media apologists, who cannot deny that imitation sometimes happens, try to argue that the effects are trivial because children know better than to imitate anything that's really harmful. Historical evidence exists where incidents in which criminal and lethal violence has had an uncanny resemblance to a scene in a movie [3]. However, the debate progresses by arguing that any crime is the result of many influences acting together, and skeptics and researchers point out that isolated anecdotes cannot be generalized to society at large. Because most children are so fully immersed in our media culture, it is usually difficult to link a specific media program to a specific harmful outcome, even though some similarities between media scenarios and subsequent acts seem too close to be considered coincidences. There is an increasing body of literature supporting the proposition that short-term exposure to video games violence increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions [4]. Recent progression of large-scale longitudinal studies provide convincing evidence that links frequent exposure to violent media in childhood with aggression later in life, including physical assaults and spouse abuse. Extremely violent criminal behaviors (e.g., forcible rape, aggravated assault, homicide) is hard to investigate and research since their occurrence is rare therefore new longitudinal studies with larger samples are needed to estimate accurately how much habitual childhood exposure to media violence increases the risk for extreme violence [5]. Short-term exposure to media violence increases the risk by cultivating existing aggressive tendencies, cognitions, increasing physiological arousal, and triggering impulses and inclination towards imitation of observed behaviors. Media violence is known to produce long-term effects via several types of learning processes leading to the acquisition of lasting interpretational schemas, and aggression-supporting beliefs about social behavior, and by reducing individuals‟ normal negative emotional responses to violence (i.e., desensitization). Certain characteristics of viewers (e.g., identification withaggressive characters), social environments (e.g., parental influences), and media content (e.g., attractiveness of the perpetrator) can influence the degree to which media violence affects aggression [5]. METHODOLOGY This research followed a case-study method where 32 fourth graders were observed and interviewed by the researcher in detail by spending 3 days with them (10-12 hours each day). Direct engagement with every child enabled the researcher to probe into their contexts and accumulate rich information that gelled together the qualitative and quantitative information that the field had to offer. The school, its teachers, the principle, the director and their teaching philosophy and methods were all taken into account. Fourth grade (ages 7-9) was selected since children below that age might not be confident in talking to a stranger and would have with-held information by being reclusive or indifferent and children above that might have a strong sense