Christopher Hunter
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Christopher Hunter
The Dangers of Pornography? A Review of the Effects Literature
by Christopher D. Hunter
One constant in the study of mass communication has been the never ending battle between the limited and powerful effects paradigms. Like the eternal debate about Bud Light -- tastes great vs. less filling -- communication scholars have been debating the relative power of the mass media to shape opinions and social structure for some 50 years.
The limited effects model, often cited as the dominant paradigm in the field (Katz, 1987), is identified with the Columbia election studies (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944; Berelson et al., 1954) and Hovland's research into the effectiveness of Army training films (1965). These studies generally asked the question "what do the media make people think/do?" In the case of the election studies this meant voting behavior, and with Hovland's research whether films could change soldiers morale and willingness to fight. Both studies found that the media did provide information, but that it had little effect in changing people's opinions or behavior. These limited effects findings were summarized by Klapper (1960) who concluded that:
Mass communication ordinarily does not serve as a necessary and sufficient cause of audience effects, but rather functions among and through a nexus of mediating factors and influences. These mediating factors are such that they typically render mass communication a contributory agent, but not the sole cause, in a process of reinforcing existing conditions. (p. 8).
Klapper's summation, and the limited effects paradigm in general, has been blamed for driving sociologists away from the study of media resulting in a "famine" of communication research during the 1960's (Gans, 1972).
Unsatisfied with the limited effects paradigm, beginning in the 1970's a number of scholars came forward to reconceptualize effect, and call for new powerful media effects. Katz (1987) summarizes these new theories as institutional, critical, and technological. Institutional theories argue that the media don't tell us "what to think" so much as "what to think about." Chief among institutional theories is agenda setting which claims that the media set an agenda which the public follows (McCombs and Shaw, 1972). Critical theories argue that limited effects findings are actually an attribute of a larger hegemonic social system which encourages no change at all. To critical theorists, the media serve as legitimating tools of a capitalist status-quo, keeping the public blissfully unaware of their subordination (Gitlin, 1978; Hall, 1973; Horkheimer and Adorno, 1973). Finally, technological theories argue that the very nature of mass media help to determine social structure. Examples of this theory include Eisenstein's argument that the printing press led to the Protestant Reformation, and Carey's finding that the telegraphy helped create a nation wide marketplace for American business. The classic statement of this paradigm is Marshall McCluhan's oft quoted aphorism, "the medium is the message (1964)."
A very interesting subset of traditional media effects research is the study of "pornography effects." While the limited effects - powerful effects debate has largely been confined to the halls of academia (with the notable exception of media violence) the pornography debate is infinitely public and political. Indeed, the pornography issue has served as a lightning rod for attention and polemics over the past 30 or so years. The debate has brought out religious conservatives, political conservatives, feminists, anti-porn feminists, anti-censorship feminists, civil libertarians, free speech advocates, and a host of other interested groups. All have engaged in an intense and ongoing debate about the potential harms of pornography, and whether or not such content should be censored.
Interest in pornography effects began during the 1960's as the U.S. and a number of other industrialized nations began to see a sharp rise in the quantity and availability of pornography and other forms of sexually explicit entertainment. This rise occurred concurrently with what is often referred to as the "sexual revolution (Goldstein and Kant, 1973; McNair, 1996)." The rise in pornography led to a number of studies investigating pornography's role in sexual arousal, and sexually deviant behavior. In particular, early research asked if exposure to pornography was related to sex crimes, and oddly enough, the truancy of minors. Early concerns over pornography's effects culminated in the 1968 appointment of the United States President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. The Commission was charged with understanding "the effect of obscenity and pornography upon the public and particularly minors, and its relationship to crime and other antisocial behaviors (U.S. Commission, 1970: 1)." After two years of study and testimony, the Commission concluded that pornography had no discernibly harmful effects on society:
In sum, empirical research designed to clarify the question has found no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behavior among youths or adults. The Commission cannot conclude that exposure to erotic materials is a factor in the causation of sex crime or sex delinquency.
In fact, the Commission made the argument that pornography likely had a cathartic effect for citizens, pointing out that the majority of sex offenders surveyed had come from sexually repressive homes where pornography was not available. Similar conclusions were reached nine years later by the
Williams Committee in England (Home Office, 1979). Due to these "no effect" results, the Johnson and Williams Commissions are largely analogous to the Columbia school of limited effects. And just like the Columbia school, the "limited porn effects" findings came under enormous criticism.
Politicians and feminist scholars alike simply could not believe the limited effects conclusions of the two commissions. Their objections, along with a general agreement among scholars that pornography was becoming more and more violent, led to a reassessment of the limited effects of pornography. In the U.S. the relationship between violent pornography and attitudes and crimes towards women was taken up by a group of experimentalists (Donnerstein, Malamuth, Linz, Zillmann, Bryant, etc.) who attempted to find new powerful effects. Their "powerful porn effects" findings (although this will be shown later to be an exaggeration) culminated in the 1985, Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, otherwise known as the Meese Commission. The Meese Commission concluded that "the research shows a causal relationship between exposure to sexually violent material and aggressive behavior toward women" and that such material "leads to greater acceptance of the 'rape myth' it its broader sense -- that women enjoy being coerced into sexual activity, that they enjoy being physically hurt in sexual context (1986, p. 327)." The Commission additionally concluded that even some forms of "non-violent" pornography resulted in anti-social behavior (Linz, 1989). Despite a great body of criticism for the Meese Commission, it is still identified by many as the statement of "powerful pornography effects."
Concurrent with experimentalists attempts to find powerful effects for pornography, anti porn feminist scholars (Dworkin and MacKinnon) developed their own answer to the limited effects of the Johnson and Williams Committee findings. They developed what is often referred to as the "ideological" view of pornography's effects, which argues that pornography is the main weapon by which a patriarchal society maintains dominance over women. As such, the ideological view of pornography can operate without causal findings of harm, although anti porn feminists do use experimental evidence to support their larger theory. This ideological/hegemonic view of the effects of pornography would seem very similar to the critical school in traditional mass communication research.
This brief overview of the history and development of the pornography effects literature shows just how similar it is to traditional conceptualizations of the mass media effects debate. The pornography issue started out with findings of limited effects (similar to the Columbia school), these findings were questioned, and effects were retested and reconceptualized. This resulted in the emergence of two powerful effects traditions, one experimental (similar to the cognitive revolution) and one ideological (similar to the critical school). Still other off shoots of pornography effects research has investigate how people use pornography (similar to uses and gratifications), and how groups receive and manipulate pornographic texts (reception theory).
The goal of this paper is to outline a number of powerful, limited, and alternative conceptualizations of pornography's effects. Powerful effects of pornography include arousal, desensitization, increased aggression, attitude change towards women, catharsis, and male hegemony. Limited effects generally encompass research which questions claimed powerful effects. Finally, alternative conceptions such as uses and gratification and reception analyses attempt to go beyond the effects "muck" and find out what people actually do, both socially and politically, with pornography. --Christopher Hunter via http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/chunter/porn
effects.html