Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 2,3, University of Applied Sciences Köln RFH, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Definition 2.1 Horror films 2.1.1 Splatter films 3. Medial effectiveness from portrayal of violence in horror films 3.1 Review 3.2 Portrayal violence in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” 3.2.1 Film Review 3.2.2 Real documented violence in a splatter film 3.3 Portrayal violence in “The Blair Witch Project” 3.2.1 Film Review 3.2.2 Fictional violence in a horror film 4. Conclusion

An international manual is like a world cruise: a once-in-a-lifetime experience. All the more reason to consider carefully whether it is necessary. This can hardly be the case if previous research in the selected field has already been the subject of an earlier review-or even several competing surveys. On the other hand, more thorough study is necessary if the intensity and scope of research are increasing without comprehensive assessments. That was the situation in Western societies when work began on this project in the summer of 1998. It was then, too, that the challenges emerged: any manual, espe cially an international one, is a very special type of text, which is anything but routine. It calls for a special effort: the "state of the art" has to be documented for selected subject areas, and its presentation made as compelling as possible. The editors were delighted, therefore, by the cooperation and commitment shown by the eighty-one contributors from ten countries who were recruited to write on the sixty-two different topics, by the con structive way in which any requests for changes were dealt with, and by the patient re sponse to our many queries. This volume is the result of a long process. It began with the first drafts outlining the structure of the work, which were submitted to various distinguished colleagues. Friedheim Neidhardt of Berlin, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler of Munich, and Roland Eckert of Trier, to name only a few, supplied valuable comments at this stage.

Violence sells. The media industries say they are simply businesses responding to market desires, but when they are criticized for contributing to a culture of violence, they claim First Amendment protection. If anything, media violence is more prevalent today than at any other time in the past. Yet, although scientific researchers have produced a strong body of evidence demonstrating that exposure to media violence harms society, that evidence has never been translated into practical and accessible ideas. This book clearly explains why media violence has not only been allowed but encouraged to escalate. The author challenges many of our assumptions about the relationship between media and violence. He argues that these assumptions are the primary barriers preventing us from confronting the issue of violence in films, TV, and video games. While dispelling misperceptions and evoking emotions, each chapter: identifies a myth, its origin, its acceptance by the public, and its growth in popularity; analyzes the faulty nature of the myth and shows how it deflects attention away from the truth; presents dilemmas that challenge readers to reconsider their assumptions; and includes a list of indispensable references. The book provides an in-depth review of how Congress, journalists, and researchers contribute to the problem and raises important questions that place the reader at the heart of the conflict. Consumer activists, teachers, and families will find it an essential resource and invaluable step toward finding solutions to this critical social issue.

This book offers a detailed approach to studying media influences and presents a vision of what it means to operate at a higher level of media literacy. The author agues that media have a profound influence on the way we perceive the world, shaping our beliefs and expectations. By becoming more media literate, we can avoid the potentially negative effects of those media messages as well as amplify the potentially positive effects. Topics covered include content, audience, media industries, media ownership, privacy, violence, sports, social media, and piracy of media messages.

This book describes how the violent dimension of intergroup relations can be better understood if the interplay between psychological and social-developmental factors is taken into account. Ten unique, innovative and original chapters by international scholars of social and developmental psychology address the way how social reality is constructed as a hierarchical order, and how social norms, beliefs and cognitive-behavioral patterns are learned, shared and repeatedly processed on how to uphold or challenge this social order. The volume covers diverse issues such as the effects (or lack thereof) of power and violent video games on people’s thinking and behavior, the acquisition of social norms and attitudes during childhood, minorities’ identity management strategies, the role of mothers’ educational beliefs and the impact of ideologies. This volume is inspired by the oeuvre of Maria Benedicta Monteiro, emphasizing the psychogenetic and sociogenic diacronies that are too often neglected by the predominantly synchronic paradigm of social psychology. It is therefore an indispensable reading for researchers and advanced students in social, community and developmental psychology, for scientifically interested practitioners working with families, school contexts or intergroup conflict, and for everyone interested in the expanding field of the social developmental approaches to attitudes and behaviour.

The chapters contained in this handbook address key issues concerning the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of violence in film and media. In addition to providing analyses of representations of violence, they also critically discuss the phenomenology of the spectator, images of atrocity in international cinema, affect and documentary, violent video games, digital infrastructures, cruelty in art cinema, and media and state violence, among many other relevant topics. The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Film and Media updates existing studies dealing with media and violence while vastly expanding the scope of the field. Representations of violence in film and media are ubiquitous but remain relatively understudied. Too often they are relegated to questions of morality, taste, or aesthetics while judgments about violence can themselves be subjected to moral judgment. Some may question whether objectionable images are worthy of serious scholarly attention at all. While investigating key examples, the chapters in this handbook consider both popular and academic discourses to understand how representations of violence are interpreted and discussed. They propose new approaches and raise novel questions for how we might critically think about this urgent issue within contemporary culture.

From Frankenstein and Dracula to Psycho and The Chainsaw Massacre, horror fiction has provided our culture with some of its most enduring themes and narratives. Considering horror fiction both as a genre and as a social phenomenon, Joseph Grixti provides a theoretical and historical framework for reconsidering horror and the cultural apparatus that surrounds it. First published in 1989, this book looks at shifts in the genre’s meaning – its fascination with excess, its commentaries on the categories and boundaries of culture – and at interpretations of horror from psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, cultural and media studies. Terrors of Uncertainty brings together a provocative range of perspectives from across the disciplines, which combine to raise important questions about the relationship between fiction and society, and the way in which we use fiction to resolve or evade our fears of uncertainty.

Pop culture—and the advertising that surrounds it—teaches young girls and boys five myths about sex and sexuality: Girls don't choose boys, boys choose girls—but only sexy girls; there's only one kind of sexy—slender, curvy, white beauty; girls should work to be that type of sexy; the younger a girl is, the sexier she is; and sexual violence can be hot. Together, these five myths make up the Lolita Effect, the mass media trends that work to undermine girls’ self-confidence, that condone female objectification, and that tacitly foster sex crimes. But identifying these myths and breaking them down can help girls learn to recognize progressive and healthy sexuality and protect themselves from degrading media ideas and sexual vulnerability.

Media and Violence pays equal attention to the production, content and reception involved in any representation of violence. This book offers a framework for understanding how violence is represented and consumed. It examines the relationship of media, gender, and real-world violence; representations of violence in screen entertainment; the effects of violent media on consumers; the ethics and gender politics of the production processes of screen violence; and the discussions are illustrated with topical and well-known examples, enabling the reader to critically engage with the debates.