Although research interest in the effects of media violence extends as far back as the 1950s, concerns have become stronger and stronger in recent years. Even though the overwhelming majority of researchers on the subject agree that the research on media violence's negative effects is conclusive, arguments in and by the media continue to circulate, contending that there is very little research or that it is inconsistent (see Cantor, 2002). Although a recent meta-analysis of media violence studies (Bushman & Anderson, 2001) shows that the findings on the antisocial effects of media violence are strong and consistent, many people are interested in identifying studies that support individual types of findings in this broad area. Moreover, in spite of the overwhelming consensus in the research, new research continues to be conducted at a steady rate, and studies are emerging from many countries around the world, studies that amplify and broaden our understanding of the scope of the effects.

In order to help scholars, reporters, physicians, parents, policymakers and others understand this research better, the Center for Successful Parenting has developed this media violence bibliography.

In order to be systematic in our selection of studies, we began with the studies used in Bushman and Anderson's (2001) meta-analysis and brought it up-to-date by searching the American Psychological Association’s PsychINFO database using the identical terms they had used in their search, and exploring the years 2000-2004 (through July). The search terms are as follows: violen* or aggress* AND TV, televis*, film, movie, screen, music, radio, video game, computer game, electronic game, cartoon, comic, pornograph*, erotic* news, book, magazine, or sport. We restricted the search to empirical studies involving human participants. By examining abstracts and studies, we eliminated those studies that were unrelated to media violence effects.

This bibliography presents the citations of the studies in this collection as well as an abstract summarizing the studies’ contents. (See Copyright Notice about these abstracts.) We are in the process of making the bibliography sortable on a variety of characteristics. In addition, it is our hope to be able to update the bibliography periodically to include additional studies that emerge on this topic.

Joanne Cantor, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bibliography Coordinator

Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2001). Media violence and the American public: Scientific facts vs. media misinformation. American Psychologist, 56, 477-489.

Cantor, J. (2002). The psychological effects of media violence on children and adolescents. Presented at the Colloquium on Television Violence in Society, HEC Montreal, Quebec. http://joannecantor.com/montrealpap_fin.htm