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Media-Induced Sexual Harassment: The Routes from Sexually Objectifying Media to Sexual Harassment

• Feminist Forum Review Article
• Open access
• Published: 09 October 2020
• Volume 84 , pages 645–669, ( 2021 )

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• Silvia Galdi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1343-9245 1 &
• Francesca Guizzo 2  

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Media that sexually objectify women by portraying them in ways that emphasize physical beauty and sexual readiness as well as reduce them to decorative and sexual objects have been traditionally identified by scholars as a powerful cultural risk factor encouraging sexual harassment and sexual violence. In the present article we review the existing empirical evidence linking sexually objectifying media and sexual harassment of women to the overarching and integrative Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework. This framework offers a coherent scheme for explaining the effects of sexually objectifying media on three target groups directly involved in sexual harassment—perpetrators, victims, and bystanders—and it postulates three cognitive and emotional mechanisms through which sexually objectifying media lead to sexual harassment: dehumanization, disruption of emphatic resonance, and a shift in gender norms. The evidence reviewed on the basis of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework shows that sexually objectifying media converge in normalizing harassing behaviors and can be a causal risk factor for increasing engagement in sexual harassment, heightening victims’ acceptance of sexual harassment and discouraging bystander intervention. We discuss implications of these arguments for effectively preventing negative effects of exposure to sexually objectifying media and for education programs aimed at critical media-consumption.

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Since October 2017 when The New York Times (Kantor and Twohey 2017 ) published an explosive report detailing decades of sexual harassment allegations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein, many Western countries have been taken by storm. Thousands of women have courageously broken their silence and shined a light on how pervasive sexual harassment is in the workplace as well as in public spaces (Stop Street Harassment 2018 ). Sexual harassment is one of the most debated topics now, and a worldwide discussion has begun about what types of behaviors qualify as harassment, what are the causes, and how to prevent and tackle the phenomenon.

The widespread prevalence of sexual harassment is problematic not only for the consequences arising for the victim and for the institution in which the harassment occurs, but also because sexual harassment is typically a precursor of severe forms of sexual violence, such as sexual assault and criminal sexual contact (Capaldi et al. 2001 ; Pryor 1987 ). Some scholars have argued that sexual harassment is especially harmful because it is rarely regarded as what it actually is, that is, a form of sexual violence (Kelly 1987 ; Leidig 1992 ; Osborne 1995 ; Stout 1991 ). This understanding suggests that if we are interested in reducing gender violence, including its more severe forms, efforts should also be invested in addressing sexual harassment and in understanding why and how harassing behaviors become part of our culture.

Therefore, in order to contribute to the current broader conversation about not only causes of sexual harassment but also policy aimed at preventing harassment incidents, in the present work, we propose the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework, which addresses the link between media contents that sexually objectify women (sexually objectifying media) and sexual harassment of women. To present the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework, we will first outline the relevant literature on sexually objectifying media, showing that they implicitly set two cultural standards: (a) how women ought to be (look and behave) and (b) how women ought to be treated by others (Galdi et al. 2014 , 2017 ; Gervais and Eagan 2017 ). Then, we will review the existing evidence from correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies revealing the impact of exposure to sexually objectifying media on different important outcomes that take into account three perspectives: the perpetrator (proclivity to sexual harassment), the victim (women’s reactions), and the bystander (bystander intervention). We will proceed with our account of the routes from sexually objectifying media to sexual harassment by proposing three underlying psychological processes through which sexually objectifying media encourage sexual harassment: dehumanization, disruption of empathic resonance, and a shift in gender norms. We will conclude by pointing to some important suggestions for future research, as well as the practical implications of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework, both for policy and practice aimed at reducing sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conducts of a sexual nature that tend to create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment (Council of Europe 2011 ; U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 2012 ). According to most psychological research, harassing behaviors can be classified into three related categories: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion (Fitzgerald et al. 1995a ; Leskinen et al. 2011 ). Gender harassment includes sexist acts (e.g., sexist comments and slurs, obscene humor and jokes, or displaying sexual materials) that are insulting, hostile, and degrading. Unwanted sexual attention refers to unwelcome and unreciprocated gestures of sexual interest, such as an objectifying gaze, unwanted touching, or pressure for dates. Lastly, sexual coercion typically takes place in situations of power disparities and includes behaviors such as sexual blackmail, bribes, or threats aimed at receiving sexual cooperation.

From verbal to physical acts, sexual harassment occurs in every corner of the world targeting people of all gender identities, although women are the large majority of victims (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2014 ; Stop Street Harassment 2018 ). Sexual harassment, moreover, can have the same severe physical, psychological, and even job-related consequences for the victim as other forms of sexual violence that are considered violent crimes, such as rape and sexual assault (Bell and Naugle 2008 ; Campbell 2002 ; Fitzgerald et al. 1997 ; see Cantisano et al. 2008 ; Willness et al. 2007 , for meta-analyses). Victims of sexual harassment typically report physical effects such as headache, nausea, nightmares or disturbed sleep, loss of appetite, and weight-loss (Magley et al. 1999 ; Willness et al. 2007 ). Psychological problems include general reduction in well-being, life satisfaction, and self-esteem, as well as a number of stress-related symptoms such as depression, anxiety, anger and irritability, uncontrolled crying, and burnout-related symptoms such as emotional exhaustion (Street et al. 2008 ). Victims can also manifest symptoms indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder, suggesting that at least some forms of sexual harassment should be considered serious trauma (see Avina and O’Donohue 2002 , for a discussion). In addition, harassed people often show reduced work and academic performance and satisfaction, decreased motivation and productivity, job loss, and career interruption (Gruber and Fineran 2016 ; Schneider et al. 1997 ).

Research has also identified a number of demographic and psychological factors associated with sexual harassment. Studies have outlined the sociodemographic characteristics of prototypical victims (DeSouza 2010 ; Stockdale and Nadler 2012 ), as well as motivations and personality traits of perpetrators (Maass et al. 2013 ; Pina et al. 2009 , for reviews). However, sociodemographic characteristics, individual motivations, and personality traits alone cannot explain differences in the likelihood of sexual harassment. Prevalence rates indeed vary greatly across countries and professional settings (e.g., European Commission, Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers 2016 ), thus showing that harassing behaviors and the tolerance of sexual harassment by victims and observers/bystanders (who see sexual harassment occurring but are not directly involved in the incident) are primarily a function of the general culture of a country and of the specific climate within an organization (Ilies et al. 2003 ; McMahon and Banyard 2012 ; Meraviglia et al. 2003 ).

Media that sexually objectify women by portraying them in ways that emphasize physical beauty and sexual readiness as well as reduce women to decorative and sexual objects (American Psychological Association 2007 ) have been traditionally identified by scholars as a powerful cultural risk factor encouraging sexual harassment and sexual violence (see Ward 2016 , for a review). However, only recent years have witnessed the emergence of a line of research aimed at investigating the effects of sexually objectifying media on sexual harassment. Drawing from this empirical evidence, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that sexually objectifying media converge in creating a cultural atmosphere that enables and reinforces the existence of sexual harassment by encouraging potential (or existing) perpetrators to engage in sexual harassment, increasing victims’ tolerance for harassing behaviors, and discouraging bystanders from intervening.

Therefore, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework addresses the effects of exposure to sexually objectifying media on three target groups directly involved in sexual harassment, which have been previously studied only in isolation: perpetrators, victims, and bystanders (see Fig.  1 ). The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework also highlights three interrelated cognitive and emotional mechanisms through which sexually objectifying media lead to sexual harassment: (a) changes in people’s perception of women from “social category” to “object” (dehumanization), thus assimilating women to inanimate entities; (b) decreased empathy with women (disruption of emphatic resonance); and (c) shifts in people’s endorsement of gender norms (shift in gender norms). As shown in Fig. 1 , these three mechanisms mediate the relation between sexually objectifying media and perpetrators’ engagement in harassing behaviors, as well as bystanders’ intervention, whereas dehumanization (self-dehumanization, in this case) and a shift in gender norms are predicted to be responsible for victims’ increased tolerance for sexual harassment. We next begin to introduce the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework by outlining features of sexually objectifying media.

Key tenets of the media-induced sexual Harassment model

Sexual Objectification of Women in the Media

Sexual objectification is a form of reduction to body that occurs whenever a person is fragmented into a collection of sexual body parts and functions, evaluated for her/his physical appearance, and considered as a sexual object for the use and enjoyment of someone else wherein personality, abilities, and individuality are devalued (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997 ; see also, Bartky 1990 ; Langton 2009 ; Nussbaum 1995 ). Given that we live in a male-dominated and mostly heterosexual world (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997 ), although men are not excluded from such treatment (Loughnan and Pacilli 2014 ; Martins et al. 2007 ), women are often the targets of sexual objectification, especially in the media.

Content analyses conducted in the United States and European countries indicate that in about one-half of commercials and advertisements women are primarily defined by their bodies, represented in piecemeal ways (i.e., showing only body parts rather than the entire figure), suggestively dressed, or posed in sexually exploitative and submissive postures, with many of these images becoming increasingly “pornified” (Conley and Ramsey 2011 , in the United States; Stankiewicz and Roselli 2008 , in the United States; Valtorta et al. 2016 , in Italy). Along the same line, an analysis of the 100 top-fictional movies of 2018 indicates that female characters were at least three times more likely than men to be presented in sexually revealing attire (women = 29.2%; men = 7.4%) or partially or fully naked (women = 27.3%; men = 8.5%) and to be the target of comments about their appearance (women = 10.2%; men = 2.7%) (Smith et al. 2019 ).

The small screen does not seem to be a more progressive medium than film when it comes to portrayals of women. In contrast to their male counterparts, women in television talk less, appear less in leading (anchorwomen) or professional roles (Lauzen 2017 , in the United States), and, especially in game shows, are more likely to be used as mere decorative accessories, typically dressed in no more than a bra and underwear, compared to the fully dressed male host (Glascock 2001 , in the United States; Zanardo et al. 2009 , in Italy). Dramatically, even children encounter on television a world in which girls and women are sexually objectified. In their analysis of American programs popular among American children, McDade-Montez et al. ( 2017 ) have recently shown that sexual objectification was present in each of the 32 episodes considered, with a total number of 770 instances, and that female characters were sexually objectified in 72% of these cases (e.g., via suggestive clothing and postures).

Furthermore, in music videos women are depicted more often than men in a sexually objectifying manner. Here, heavy emphasis is placed on women’s physical appearance, body shape, and attractiveness, and portrayals frequently promote the idea that women should primarily concern themselves with attracting and sexually satisfying men (Aubrey and Frisby 2011 ; Vandenbosch et al. 2013 ; Ward et al. 2013 ). An analysis of 147 music videos, for example, indicates that women were often relegated to decorative roles and used (in the background) to elicit sexual arousal through revealing and provocative clothing, seductive dancing, or pelvic thrusting (Aubrey and Frisby 2011 ; see also Arnett 2002 ). In a similar vein, Lynch and colleagues (Lynch et al. 2016 ) have investigated images of women in more than 500 video games from the early 1980s through 2014. Despite a decrease in the overall sexual objectification of female characters after 2006, results show that in some categories of video games, such as fighting games (typically targeted to a male consumer market), portrayals of women did not change over time: Female characters were frequently overtly sexually objectified—depicted with enlarged breasts or hips and narrow waists as well as shown in revealing and provocative clothing.

Although extensive data on exposure to sexually objectifying material online is lacking, sexually objectifying portrayals of women are common on the internet as well (Lambiase 2003 , for a review). For example, in a recent research, web users were invited to download the first 20 pictures that appeared in Google Images when entering the words “woman” and “man” separately (Piccoli et al. 2016 , in Italy). Results show that female pictures revealed more skin, were more sexualized (i.e., more sexy, attractive, and objectified), and more fragmented (i.e., only one part, compared to the full body, was presented) than male pictures.

Sexual objectification of women in the media not only is visual but also is expressed by degrading acts (often subtle and ambiguous) of men who interact with them. Women in the media are frequently the target of men’s sexist jokes and statements (e.g., use of deprecating words to describe them), sexual remarks (e.g., comments about their body), and behaviors (e.g., ogling, leering, catcalling, objectifying gaze, touching). For example, entertainment TV programs in Italy often show male presenters in the presence of female assistants who serve no other purpose on the show than being targets of humiliation: They follow orders from the male host; do short, ever-sexier dances to please the audience and the presenter; and are often victims of the host’s sexual teasing, sight gags, jokes focusing on their body parts, and physical acts of flirting, hugging, suggestive looks or touching, all of which aimed at making viewers laugh (Zanardo et al. 2009 ). According to one of the most used classifications of sexual harassment (see Fitzgerald et al. 1995a , 1995b ; Fitzgerald and Hesson-McInnis 1989 ), these acts are all forms of gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention. However, the humorous tone that characterizes and follows such inappropriate and unethical behaviors, as well as the absence of reactions by victims who, conversely, seem to enjoy the situation, makes them appear harmless and unproblematic.

Such treatment is not prevalent only in Italian television programs. Content analyses conducted in the United States indicate that verbal references to women as sexual objects occur 5.9 times per hour on reality dating TV shows (Ferris et al. 2007 ) and that harassing behaviors, such as sexist jokes, innuendo, as well as other offensive comments about female characters, constitute very common messages in situation comedies (Kim et al. 2007 ; see also Grauerholz and King 1997 ). Acts ranging from sexual innuendo and jokes to inappropriate touching and requests for sexual favors were also found on most American situation comedies analyzed by Montemurro ( 2003 ). In a similar vein, Fouts and Burggraf ( 2000 , in Canada) showed that the way female characters were treated on situation comedies was dependent on their body size: Women who were either average or above average in weight were treated more negatively than those who were thinner than average.

To summarize, sexual objectification of women is commonplace in the media across multiple formats. Evidence also indicates that media, and television in particular, sexually objectify women via two insidious routes (Galdi et al. 2014 , 2017 ; Gervais and Eagan 2017 ). The first route is via the role assigned to women, which includes a strong emphasis on their bodies, appearance, and sex appeal, along with a tendency to often use women as decorative elements to attract attention. This route communicates the notion that women are valued primarily for their bodies, beauty, and sexiness rather than for who they are or what they can do. A recent example of this media bias came when a TV sport commentator asked Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard to twirl and show off her outfit. At the time of this request Bouchard had just finished dominating her opponent in the 2015 Australian Open. Unfortunately, it is not rare to run across media formats in which, when they are active and competent, women are prized not only for their achievements and performances, but also for their appearances. For instance, in the summer of 2017, there was a debate in American television about whether female Olympic athletes should wear makeup. Therefore, through the first route, media demand that women are primarily good-looking and sexually desirable and convey the idea that women are valued predominantly for their physical appearance and attractiveness.

The second route is via the verbal and behavioral reactions of those who interact with women. This route conveys the message that it is normal (and funny!) to depreciate, diminish, and harass women, thus defining how they should be treated. In support of this contention are findings from a content analysis by Kim and collaborators (2007), who investigated sexual content on American television to evaluate portrayals of heterosexuality and heterosexual romantic relationships. The authors found that the most frequent message conveyed by primetime sitcoms and dramas was about men and how men think, feel, and behave in romantic and sexual relationships. According to this message, being sexual initiators, actively exhibiting sexual prowess, and accumulating sexual experience with women are important, desirable, and even necessary components of masculinity. Results also indicate that one of the most common ways in which television programs linked sexuality to masculinity was by men sexually objectifying women, unabashedly ogling female characters, openly valuing and judging women by their physical appearance, and treating women as mere objects of desire. Importantly, these behaviors were often depicted as playful, light-hearted, and inconsequential. Therefore, even when media portray masculine identities, they define not only how men should be and behave, but also how they ought to treat women.

Although influences on sexual harassment include a variety of personal, interpersonal, and even social factors, scholars have established that culture plays an indisputable role (Armstrong et al. 2006 ; Banyard 2011 ; Glomb et al. 1999 ; Hesson-Mcinnis and Fitzgerald 1997 ). According to many communication theorists, media can have an influential role in shaping culture (see Bryant and Oliver 2009 ). Media narratives and images indeed not only reflect and maintain, but also provide symbols, myths, and resources that mold the prevalent view of the world, including norms and values (Cialdini and Trost 1998 ). Therefore, through the two routes we highlighted, sexually objectifying media become a pivotal factor that provides the materials that contribute to creating a culture that potentially sexually objectifies women and reduces them to sexual objects (see also Fredrickson and Roberts 1997 ).

In such a cultural context, sexual harassment may become normal and normative. After all, sexual harassment is a typical case in which a woman is considered and treated as a sexual object. The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that sexually objectifying media contribute to condoning sexual harassment, thus increasing its likelihood, because they (a) encourage perpetrators to act out harassing behaviors (perpetrator perspective), (b) induce victims to tolerate the incident of sexual harassment (victim perspective), and (c) discourage bystanders from realizing that sexual harassment is occurring and from intervening promptly in favor of the victim (bystander perspective). In the next sections, we will review existing findings supporting each of these claims. This evidence is also summarized in Table 1 .

The Perpetrator’s Perspective

Sexual harassers permeate all social strata, occupational levels, and age categories (see Pina et al. 2009 , for a review). Although it is difficult to define sociodemographic characteristics of the typical perpetrator, it is relatively easy to identify individuals with a high harassment proclivity. Men’s proclivity to harass is generally assessed through the Likelihood of Sexual Harassment Scale (LSH, Pryor 1987 ), which predicts engagement in harassing behaviors (Dall’Ara and Maass 2000 ) and correlates with a number of critical individual difference variables, such as stronger endorsement of traditional gender roles, hostile sexism, masculine ideology, authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and rape myth acceptance, as well as lower levels of agreeableness and empathy (see O’Leary-Kelly et al. 2009 , for a review).

Research has also identified three basic motivations underlying engagement in sexual harassment: (a) desire for sexual favors, (b) needs for power and dominance, and (c) gender identity enhancement/protection (Maass et al. 2013 ). Whereas the desire for sex and need for power and dominance typically drive behaviors of unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion (Bargh et al. 1995 ; Pryor et al. 1993 ), gender identity enhancement/protection has been found to be the driving force behind gender harassment. Based on social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1986 ), gender harassing behaviors, which are primarily aimed at offending and demeaning women, may constitute a means of outgroup discrimination that derives from the desire to enhance one’s gender identity as male or to defend it when that identity is threatened (Dall’Ara and Maass 2000 ; Maass et al. 2003 ).

Sexual harassment also may depend on exposure to sexually objectifying media that operate by affecting men’s personal beliefs, predispositions, and motivations. For example, after exposure to movies, magazines, music videos, or TV clips showing sexually objectified women, men tended to manifest greater tolerance for behaviors of unwanted sexual attention, sexual coercion, and sexual harassment than participants without this exposure (Aubrey et al. 2011 , in the United States; Bernard et al. 2018 , in Belgium; Kistler and Lee 2009 , in the United States; see also Hust et al. 2019 , for correlational evidence in the United States). Similar results have been obtained among video game players. Compared to playing neutral video games, playing video games that include sexually objectifying female characters increased boys’ (ranging from 12 and 15 years of age) rape myth acceptance (Driesmans et al. 2015 , in Belgium) as well as male adults’ and adolescents’ tolerance for sexual harassment (Dill et al. 2008 , in the United States; Driesmans et al. 2015 ; but see Vance et al. 2015 , in the United States).

Furthermore, sexually objectifying media may have immediate effects on how men behave toward women. Playing with sexually objectifying (vs. non-sexually objectifying) video games increased men’s self-reported tendency to sexually harass (Yao et al. 2010 , in the United States). Men exposed to sexually objectifying TV commercials were more likely to exhibit gender harassing behaviors, such as sitting closer and asking a female confederate sexist and inappropriate questions during a subsequent alleged job-interview, than participants in a control condition (Rudman and Borgida 1995 , in the United States). In a similar vein, after exposure to sexually objectifying movie clips, male participants asked more sexist questions during a mock job interview than those who were not exposed to such content (Hitlan et al. 2009 , in the United States). Moreover, after watching a sexually objectifying TV clip men manifested higher intention to engage in sexual coercion (assessed via the LSH; Pryor 1987 ), and were more prone to engage in actual gender harassing behaviors, namely to send sexist and offensive jokes to an unknown (alleged) female chat-line partner, as compared to a control video and to TV content that featured professional women (Galdi et al. 2014 , in Italy).

Therefore, men exposed to sexually objectifying media may be more likely to show a stronger post-exposure endorsement of attitudes supportive of sexual harassment, as well as to engage in actual harassing behaviors in everyday encounters both in job-related and general social contexts, as compared to those exposed to no content or neutral material. Evidence also shows that such effects increase specifically in reaction to mere exposure to sexually objectifying contents, but not to other portrayals of women in the media.

The Victim’s Perspective

We now move to outline some important effects of exposure to sexually objectifying media on women as potential victims of sexual harassment. As we noted previously, sexual harassment can have severe consequences for the victim’s health and psychological well-being, as well as severe effects related to work and school, thus ultimately impacting communities and society (see Cantisano et al. 2008 ; Willness et al. 2007 ). Exacerbating these consequences, most victims are subjected to repeated experiences of sexual harassment rather than isolated incidents (Stop Street Harassment 2018 ). The #MeToo movement, which began in the United States in 2017, seems to have created a change, leading women from all over the world to expose their experiences of sexual harassment and perpetrators to face the aftermath of their actions. Nonetheless, even nowadays only 1 in 10 women files an official complaint or reports a harassment incident to an authority figure, including filing a police report (Stop Street Harassment 2018 ).

Why do victims often react passively (e.g., avoiding the harasser or denying the experience; European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2014 ), do not claim their rights, or simply ignore the harassment rather than reporting the incident to authorities or to supervisors? Such reactions may have different explanations, including fear of retaliation and of lack of support (Fitzgerald et al. 1995b ); fear of being blamed for the incident or of not being believed; fear that the occurrence was not harmful enough; and/or shame, embarrassment, or uncertainty that sexual harassment was committed (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2014 ; LeMaire et al. 2016 ). The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates an additional reason: exposure to sexually objectifying media that may lead women to be more tolerant toward sexual harassment.

Sexually objectifying media indeed rely on two primary channels, namely the demeaning role assigned to woman and acts of actual gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention of others (by men, in particular) who interact with her. Through the latter channel, media normalize sexual harassment and convey the harmful message to women that they can be openly harassed, in that sexual harassment is a joke and/or an innocuous male behavior of (sexual) interest.

Consistently, regular exposure to TV genres such as soap operas has been found to be related to greater acceptance of dysfunctional relationship beliefs among women (Haferkamp 1999 , in the United States). In a similar vein, female adolescents’ greater exposure and involvement with music videos correlated with acceptance of unwanted sexual advances and sexual comments (Strouse et al. 1994 , in the United States). These correlational findings have been corroborated by experimental research. After exposure to sexually objectifying ads, women showed greater minimization of instances of sexual coercion compared to participants exposed to ads including active and competent women or ads with latent themes of abuse and victimization of women (e.g., women in potentially dangerous locations, women held by men in vulnerable positions; Reichl et al. 2018 , in Canada). In a similar vein, playing with a sexually objectifying video game led to greater tolerance of sexual harassment among female adolescents compared to neutral video games (Driesmans et al. 2015 , in Belgium). Further, young women exposed to sexually objectifying music videos were more accepting of dating violence than were female adolescents without such exposure, whereas male adolescents’ attitudes did not differ between conditions (Johnson et al. 1995 , in the United States). In addition, higher levels of rape myth acceptance have been found among women who were placed in sexually objectified compared to non-sexually objectified virtual bodies in an online video game (Fox et al. 2015 , in the United States; see also Driesmans et al. 2015 ).

Therefore, some experimental studies show that a path from sexually objectifying media to women’s tolerance of sexual harassment may exist. Given this evidence, one could argue that if women are more willing to accept sexual harassment, then they will also be less likely to react or to report the harassment incident to authorities or to supervisors. Thus, it becomes critical to explore other control mechanisms, such as bystander intervention.

The Bystander’s Perspective

To date, the main theoretical framework of reference for many studies and models on bystander intervention in situations of sexual harassment and sexual violence (Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly 2005 ; Burn 2009 ; Foubert et al. 2011 ; Hust et al. 2013 ; Nickerson et al. 2014 ) is the classic work conducted by Latané and Darley ( 1970 ). According to Latané and Darley, bystander intervention is the product of a five-step decision-making process, where the first two critical steps require the observer to notice the event and recognize it as problematic and harassing for the victim. Helping responses are indeed more likely when the situation is interpreted as a clear-cut emergency or ethical problem (O’Leary-Kelly and Bowes-Sperry 2001 ; see Fischer et al. 2011 , for a meta-analytic review). However, the harassing incidents that are more likely to be witnessed are acts of gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention (Fitzgerald et al. 1995a , 1995b ), which include the most ambiguous harassing behaviors. These acts, indeed, are often covert, subtle, and related to “everyday behaviors” (e.g., sexist jokes, degrading language, displaying sexual material, ogling; McMahon and Banyard 2012 ; McMahon et al. 2011 ) and, importantly, they do not pose a clear immediate or high risk of harm to victims (Banyard 2011 ; Stout 1991 ). Compared to sexual coercion and sexual violence, the covert and ambiguous nature of gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention may therefore challenge the bystander’s sense making of the incident (Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly 2005 ; McMahon and Banyard 2012 ), thus representing an interfering factor in actual intervention.

The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that sexually objectifying media may further complicate the bystander’s task. Indeed, sexual objectification of women in the media is often expressed through behaviors of gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention (e.g., sexist remarks, leering, objectifying gaze, touching) in which victims give the impression that they enjoy such treatment. In this way, sexually objectifying media not only contribute to the belief that sexual harassment is innocuous and normal but also may lead individuals to fail to recognize harassment incidents as such when encountering them in the real world, thus influencing helping responses. Evidence consistent with our reasoning comes from a study by Hansen and Hansen ( 1988 , in the United States), who demonstrated that the media contents just watched may affect viewers’ interpretation of an actual incident of sexual harassment. After exposure to sexually objectifying music videos, participants appraised an interaction between a male and a female job applicant. Participants who watched the music videos prior to viewing the interaction were more likely to evaluate the man’s harassing behaviors of unwanted sexual attention as appropriate and judged the male as more skilled when he derogated the woman for not reciprocating. Conversely, participants who watched neutral videos recognized the man’s behaviors as harassing and judged the woman more favorably when she did not reciprocate his advances.

Other research has shown that sexually objectifying media may decrease viewers’ willingness to provide help. For example, exposure to sports programs showing sexually objectified female athletes was found to be negatively associated with both male and female participants’ intentions to provide help in sexual assault incidents (Hust et al. 2013 , in the United States; see also Foubert et al. 2011 , in the United States). As a direct application of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework, Galdi et al. ( 2017 , in Italy) first exposed participants to a sexually objectifying or to a control TV clip. As observers, participants then assisted at an alleged job interview between a male interviewer and a female job applicant via computer-chat. The chat interview was constructed so as to become increasingly harassing as time passed: It started with general neutral questions and progressed with sexist and gender-harassing statements (e.g., “Given that I rather like you, I’ll tell you a joke... Why are women claimed to have supernatural powers? Because they are able to lift something without touching it!”), ending with overt and offensive sexual interests (e.g., “When you are in bed, are you as good as you are now in your verbal abilities?”) and pressure for dates. Participants had the opportunity to intervene interactively in the chat at any time and whenever they felt it appropriate, either in favor of the interviewer or the job applicant. Results showed that, compared to those who had viewed the control clip, participants (both men and women) exposed to the sexually objectifying TV clip took more time before realizing that the interviewer’s questions were harassing, and, importantly, they also intervened in favor of the victim later.

To summarize, according to the dominant trend in communication research, both women and men can be affected by media exposure (Ward 2016 ; see also Wright et al. 2016 , for a meta-analytic review). The findings we briefly reviewed here support this evidence and show that sexually objectifying media may have at least short-term effects on likelihood of sexual harassment by (a) encouraging harassing behaviors, (b) influencing women’s tolerance for sexual harassment, and (c) discouraging bystanders from intervening promptly in favor of the victim (see Table 1 for a summary). This evidence, however, does not speak about how sexually objectifying media increase sexual harassment. In the next section we will first outline the theoretical perspective underlying the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework and then we will address the issue of mechanisms.

The Theoretical Perspective and Underlying Mechanisms

The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework draws from cognitive theories focusing on schema or script activation and accessibility (e.g., Huesmann 1986 ; Wright 2011 ; see Fiske and Taylor 1991 ; Srull and Wyer 1989 , for reviews), which, we believe, provide a straightforward rationale for how media shape consumers’ attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. According to this perspective, schemas or constructs are abstract knowledge structures, stored in long-term memory, that specify the defining features and attributes of a given concept, object, or target (Macrae et al. 1996 ) as well as its relation to other concepts (Huesmann 1998 ). Schemas or constructs may also contain behavioral scripts (Fiske and Linville 1980 ), namely socially constructed guidelines that signal to individuals what behaviors are expected in a specific setting or in response to a specific concept, object, or target (Schank and Abelson 1977 ). Moreover, schemas or constructs can be acquired and can evolve or be adjusted through direct experience or secondhand sources, such as the media (Crocker et al. 1984 ). The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that by depicting how women should look and behave and how women can be treated by others as suitable and typical, sexually objectifying media set two cultural standards that contribute to shaping (or even creating; Bandura 2001 ; Wright 2011 ) a specific construct, such as the construct of women as sexual objects.

Schemas or constructs that come to mind, thus becoming more likely to be applied, can be affected by accessibility, that is, the extent to which they are at the forefront of the mind (Higgins 1996 ; Sanna and Schwarz 2004 ). Accessibility, in turn, is a function of the recency and frequency with which a specific schema or construct has been used. The expansive literature on priming effects (Berkowitz and Rogers 1986 ) has established that schemas or constructs that have been activated in unrelated contexts may continue to automatically (without intention or awareness) exert an influence on judgments and behavior because their previous use has rendered them temporarily highly accessible (Bargh 1996 ; Bargh et al. 1996 ; Higgins and Bargh 1987 ). For example, after exposure to words related to kindness or hostility, participants judged an ambiguous, hypothetical situation according to the construct with which they had been initially presented (Srull and Wyer 1979 ). In a similar vein, participants were more likely to exhibit violent behaviors in unrelated situations after being exposed to violent media images (Bushman 1995 ; Josephson 1987 ).

This existing evidence shows well that situational factors or the presentation and processing of a stimulus with a particular meaning may make the related schemas or constructs temporarily highly accessible, thus increasing significantly the likelihood that subsequently encountered stimuli or events will be appraised in the context of such structures. However, frequent and consistent experience with specific concepts, objects, or targets may render relevant schemas or constructs chronically accessible, that is more likely than others to be used across time and situations (Chen and Andersen 1999 ; Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg 1996 ; Higgins and Brendl 1995 ; Rudman and Borgida 1995 ). Importantly, whereas the temporary accessibility of a schema increases the probability of short-term effects (see Bodenhausen and Macrae 1998 , for a review), chronic accessibility leads to long-term effects on judgments and behaviors (Chen and Andersen 1999 ; Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg 1996 ; Higgins and Brendl 1995 ; Rudman and Borgida 1995 ).

An important implication of schema or construct accessibility is its utility in relation to impression formation. Research has established that categorization is the means by which a schema or construct is accessed, used to draw inferences, and form an impression about a target person (Zarate and Smith 1990 ). Therefore, different defining characteristics, attributes, and behaviors will be enhanced and hence ascribed to a person, depending on how they are classified (e.g., based on gender or their work, social role). Applying this theorizing and evidence to the present issue, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that exposure to sexually objectifying media represents a situational factor that leads consumers to categorize women as sexual objects, thus boosting the temporary accessibility of the corresponding harmful construct. In this way, the likelihood that information included in this structure will be used to appraise, form an impression about, or behave toward women subsequently encountered in the real-world increases significantly.

Evidence that sexually objectifying media enhance the temporarily high accessibility of the construct of women as sexual objects and hence its applicability even to non-objectified women and in inappropriate contexts has been well provided by Rudman and Borgida ( 1995 ). The authors demonstrated that after exposure to sexually objectifying television commercials, male participants interpreted the ambiguous stimuli included in a lexical decision task (i.e., double-entendres such as cherry, easy, strip) consistently with the construct made accessible by the commercials (i.e., women as sexual objects), whereas men in the control condition interpreted the same words as neutral stimuli. Participants exposed to sexually objectifying commercials were also more likely to indulge in gender-harassing behaviors during a subsequent interview with an unknown female job applicant (see also Yao et al. 2010 , for similar results). Moreover, after the interview, these same participants recalled more of the physical attributes of the female job applicant and less of the substantive information compared to those exposed to neutral content.

However, if we are frequently exposed to sexually objectifying media, the construct of women as sexual objects is frequently activated; frequent activation, in turn, can gradually increase the likelihood that this particular way of viewing women will become more generally and easily available to be used. Given that sexual objectification is commonplace in the media across multiple formats, sexually objectifying media may therefore become a crucial factor that contributes to making the construct of women as sexual objects chronic, thus contributing to a cultural context that potentially legitimates a degrading model of women and the existence of sexual harassment.

The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework is very close to the acquisition, activation, application model (3 AM; Wright 2011 ), an excellent recent multi-component perspective on how media contents contribute to increase violence against women. The 3 AM model posits that sexual media contents provide consumers with (or prime previously acquired) sexual scripts that define specific sexual behaviors and roles, the principles of which may be abstracted and applied to behaviors and roles that were not depicted (Wright 2011 ; Wright and Funk 2014 ; Wright et al. 2012 ). According to the 3 AM, the specific script that sexually objectifying media provide people is the notion that women are objects that exist for men’s sexual gratification. This perspective on women, in turn, may be used to inform attitudes toward and violence against women (Wright and Tokunaga 2016 ).

Importantly, according to this model the mechanism through which media exert their influence on consumers’ behavior is (abstract) scripting. Unlike the 3 AM model, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that the accessibility of the construct of women as sexual objects boosted by exposure to sexually objectifying media may affect potential perpetrators’, victims’, and bystanders’ behaviors through three mechanisms of cognitive, emotional, and normative nature: (a) dehumanization, (b) disruption of emphatic resonance, and (c) shift in gender norms, respectively. We will therefore discuss each of these mechanisms in the next sections, also incorporating whenever possible findings that corroborate the statements of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework. The evidence supporting the relation between sexually objectifying media and each mechanism is also summarized in Table 2 .

Sexually Objectifying Media → Dehumanization

Dehumanization can be a worrying and degrading consequence of sexual objectification of women (Loughnan and Pacilli 2014 ; Vaes et al. 2014 ; Vaes et al. 2011 ). Research has established that sexually objectified women, but not men, not only are visually processed in a piecemeal fashion, similar to the processing style involved in the recognition of objects (Bernard et al. 2012 ; Cogoni et al. 2018a ; Gervais et al. 2012 ; see also Bernard et al. 2013 ; Civile and Obhi 2016 ; Schmidt and Kistemaker 2015 ; Tarr 2013 , for a debate), but also are perceived as more similar to real objects (Vaes et al. 2019 ).

These effects of sexual objectification can also extend beyond how a woman is cognitively processed and perceived. Sexually objectified women are appraised as less than humans (Morris et al. 2018 ; Vaes et al. 2011 ; see also Pacilli et al. 2019 , for similar results among children) and as deprived of their mind and agency (Cikara et al. 2011 ; Gray et al. 2011 ), all of which are core characteristics that distinguish human beings from animals and objects (see Heflick and Goldenberg 2014 , for a review). Also, people tend to attribute to sexually objectified women less competence and intelligence (Fasoli et al. 2018 ; Glick et al. 2005 ), and less warmth and morality (Heflick and Goldenberg 2009 ; Heflick et al. 2011 ; Loughnan et al. 2010 ; Pacilli et al. 2017 ). Therefore, this literature indicates that sexually objectified women tend to be seen as lacking some of the most basic aspects of personhood.

Applying this evidence to the present issue, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that the model of women activated by exposure to sexually objectifying media (i.e., the concept of women as sexual objects) may trigger a cognitive shift in people’s perception of women as a whole from “social category” to “object” (i.e., dehumanization). This cognitive shift, in turn, may affect the way in which women in real life are perceived and treated. Consistently, men (especially those with stronger endorsement of masculine norms) who viewed sexually objectifying movies subsequently rated their female partner’s intellectual competence lower than did participants who were not exposed to such contents (Jansma et al. 1997 , in the United States). In a similar vein, exposure to television depictions of sexually objectified women affected male participants’ impression of a fictitious female partner encountered during a subsequent chat interaction (Galdi et al. 2014 , Study 1, in Italy; see also Guizzo and Cadinu 2020 , Study 1, in Italy). Although there was no logical connection between the women portrayed in the objectifying TV clip and the unknown female chat partner, participants judged the interaction partner as less competent after watching the sexually objectifying TV clip as compared to nature images or non-objectified professional women.

Studies on everyday media use have also led to the recognition of a relation between exposure to sexually objectifying media, dehumanization of women, and sexual harassment. For example, the more men regularly consume sexually objectifying media, such as magazines, reality TV programs, sitcoms, and drama programs, the more likely they are to think of women as mere objects that exist for men’s sexual pleasure (Seabrook et al. 2018 , in the United States; Wright and Tokunaga 2016 , in the United States). This dehumanized perspective on women, in turn, has been found to predict rape myth acceptance (Seabrook et al. 2018 ), attitudes supportive of sexual violence (Wright and Tokunaga 2016 ), and engagement in behaviors of sexual deception (e.g., lying about one’s identity or feelings to gain sexual favors or inducing potential partners to get drunk or stoned in order to have sex with them; Seabrook et al. 2018 ). Corroborating this correlational evidence, Rudman and Borgida ( 1995 , in the United States) showed that after exposure to sexually objectifying commercials, men were more likely not only to think of women as sexual objects, but also to exhibit inappropriate gender-harassing behaviors in a subsequent interaction with a non-objectified female confederate than participants in a control condition.

As postulated by the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework, dehumanization of women is also responsible for reduced bystander intervention. No known research to date has directly investigated the relation among sexually objectifying media, dehumanization of women as a whole, and bystanders’ behavior. Nonetheless, preliminary support to this prediction shows that both men and women were less willing to help when the victim of an incident of sexual harassment, portrayed in a fictitious online newspaper article, was sexually objectified versus non-sexually objectified (Gramazio et al. 2019 , in Italy). In their study, reduced willingness to help was driven by increased victim-blame and decreased attribution of morality, a fundamental dimension related to human beings (see also Holland and Haslam 2016 , for similar results, in Australia). Similar evidence was reported by Pacilli et al. ( 2017 , in Italy) who demonstrated that sexually objectified victims are seen as less capable of suffering and as lacking moral standing. The authors also found that when the victim of intimate partner violence is portrayed in sexually objectifying (vs. non-objectifying) manner by social media, people report less willingness to intervene on her behalf. Importantly, the data showed that decreased attribution of moral patiency (i.e., the capability of experiencing pain) mediated the link between sexual objectification of the victim and reduced bystander intervention.

Therefore, when victims of gender violence are sexually objectified in the media, viewers may dehumanize them and manifest reduced willingness to provide them with help. This evidence suggests that dehumanization triggered by the concept of women as sexual objects might also contribute toward explaining the relation between exposure to sexually objectifying media and reduced bystander intervention in cases of sexual harassment (Galdi et al. 2017 ).

Turning specifically to women as potential victims of sexual harassment, according to objectification theory (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997 ), the way women and their bodies are represented in the media contributes to the creation of a cultural context that potentially sexually objectifies women and establishes how they should be or appear. This cultural context can coax women and girls to self-objectify, that is, to focus on their appearance attributes and to adopt an observer’s perspective on their physical selves. This focus on the body and physical appearance may ultimately lead women to treating and experiencing themselves as objects to be looked at and evaluated as well as instruments to satisfy the needs and desires of others. Since the introduction of objectification theory, an abundance of research has accumulated demonstrating a link among exposure to sexually objectifying media, self-objectification, and a variety of harmful psychological and health consequences among girls and women, such as appearance anxiety, body shame, self-surveillance, body dissatisfaction, self-disgust, eating disorders, and depression (see Grabe et al. 2008 ; Karsay et al. 2018 , for meta-analyses).

Self-objectification, however, can also imply self-dehumanization. Some studies have indeed shown that self-objectified women perceive themselves as powerless and as lacking the means to make autonomous decisions (Yang et al. 2015 ), that is, they perceive themselves as less than human. In a similar vein, Baldissarri et al. ( 2019 ) have recently found that compared to participants in non-objectifying and control conditions, after receiving comments focusing on their physical appearance women self-attributed fewer human mental states and lower free will as well as perceived themselves more as being an instrument rather than as a human being. Furthermore, after recollecting instances of sexual objectification, female participants rated themselves as less warm, competent, and moral as well as lacking in human nature and human uniqueness (Loughnan et al. 2017 ; see also Chen et al. 2013 ). It is worth noting that women who self-objectify also tend to dehumanize other women (Puvia and Vaes 2013 ).

Is it possible that self-dehumanization increases women’s tolerance for harassment? Bernard and collaborators (2018, in Belgium) have found that tolerance for sexual harassment increased among undergraduate students the more they self-objectified. A similar pattern emerges for sexually objectifying media. For example, after playing in a virtual environment with a sexually objectified (vs. non-sexually objectified) avatar, women were more likely to self-objectify and to endorse rape myth acceptance (Fox et al. 2015 , in the United States). Importantly, self-objectification mediated the relation between experimental condition (playing with a sexually objectified vs. a non-sexually objectified avatar) and subsequent greater rape myth acceptance. Therefore, evidence supports the link between exposure to sexually objectifying media and self-objectification—a state that may also imply a specific cognitive shift in women’s self-construal from human being to less than human (self-dehumanization). Self-objectification, moreover, not only may affect women’s views of themselves, but also may induce them to dehumanize other women, endorse attitudes that condone sexual violence, and manifest greater tolerance for sexual harassment.

Sexually Objectifying Media → Disruption of Emphatic Resonance

Research has established that lack of empathy, an emotional mechanism of moral disengagement (Bandura 1999 ), is one of the most defining personality traits of sexual assailant and sexual harasser profiles (see Awasthi 2017 ; Pina et al. 2009 , for reviews). Moreover, lack of empathic resonance is associated with sexual offense and sexual harassment proclivity (Bartling and Eisenman 1993 ; Geer et al. 2000 ; Pryor 1987 ). Empathy has also been linked with helping behaviors (Eisenberg and Fabes 1990 ) and defending victims of bullying and sexual violence (Banyard 2011 ; Caravita et al. 2009 ).

As postulated by the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework, the accessibility of the construct of women as sexual objects boosted by sexually objectifying media disrupts empathic resonance with women, thus encouraging harassing behaviors and discouraging bystander intervention. Preliminary support to this claim comes from a recent line of research on empathy with sexually objectified women. For example, Cogoni, Carnaghi, and Silani ( 2015 , in Italy) have adopted the Empathy for Affective Touch paradigm, a task based on a visuo-tactile stimulation of the participant and of a confederate acting as a second participant. Depending on the experimental condition, the confederate was a mannequin (i.e., a human-like object), a sexually objectified woman (i.e., a woman dressed in a sexually objectifying manner), or a non-sexually objectified woman. Tactile stimulation consisted of touching the participant’s or the confederate’s palm with materials that, when combined with matching pictures, may solicit either a pleasant, an unpleasant, or a neutral feel. Participants’ task was to evaluate their personal emotional experience as well as rate how the confederate was feeling during the stimulation. Participants reported more empathy when interacting with non-sexually objectified women than when interacting either with sexually objectified women or with mannequins.

Other evidence indicates that, at the brain level, empathy for victims of social exclusion recruits areas coding the affective and the somatosensory components of pain. However, this happens to a greater extent when the social exclusion is experienced by non-sexually objectified rather than by sexually objectified women (Cogoni et al. 2018b , in Italy). These effects have been extended to sexually objectifying media images. For example, Loughnan et al. ( 2010 , country not specified) have investigated empathy with targets depicted in a sexually objectifying manner by media (i.e., pictures of women in bikinis and shirtless men taken from the internet). As in many studies on empathy, the authors operationalized empathy by measuring participants’ tendency to administer pain to the sexually objectified targets (Decety and Jackson 2004 ; Jackson et al. 2005 ; Singer et al. 2004 ). Results showed that both male and female participants manifested more willingness to administer pain to the sexually objectified than non-sexually objectified targets. Therefore, empathy can be disrupted and the tendency to harm can increase if the target is sexually objectified both within and outside the media. This evidence suggests that the concept of women as sexual objects activated by sexually objectifying media may reduce empathy with women, thus increasing the likelihood of harmful behaviors including sexual harassment.

Turning to bystanders, research has shown that exposure to sexually objectifying clips or movies decreases empathy toward the female victim of a rape incident as well as toward rape victims in general (Burgess and Burpo 2012 , country not specified; Linz et al. 1988 , in the United States; Millburn et al. 2000 , in the United States). To our knowledge, only one study to date has explored the relation among sexually objectifying media, empathy, and bystander intervention. After exposure to music videos depicting sexually objectified Black women in provocative poses and movements, participants manifested reduced willingness to provide help to a Black woman in need (Johnson et al. 2009 , in the United States). Decreased empathic responses, in turn, were found to be responsible for this decrement, thus supporting the mediating role of empathy in the relation between sexually objectifying media and bystander intervention. Therefore, sexually objectifying media may lead potential perpetrators and bystanders to manifest reduced empathy with women, thus increasing the likelihood of harassing behaviors and reducing helping responses.

It is worth noting that in the study we briefly described Cogoni et al. ( 2018a , 2018b ) have also shown that reduced empathy toward sexually objectified women at the neural level was not related with individuals’ personal levels of dispositional empathy, hostile or benevolent sexism, or social dominance attitudes. Instead, it was associated with dehumanization. Both male and female participants dehumanized the sexually objectified women, rating them as less intelligent and less agentic than non-sexually objectified targets. These findings support the evidence that empathy is undermined when the target is dehumanized and seen more as an object than as a complete human being experiencing feelings and concerns (Čehajić et al. 2009 ; see also Page and Pina 2015 ).

Similarly, Quinn ( 2002 , in the United States) interviewed a sample of employed men and women to investigate gender differences in interpreting sexual harassment incidents at work. The author found that men often failed to recognize behaviors such as sexual body evaluation of employed women as instances of sexual harassment because of a combination of sexual objectification/dehumanization and decreased empathy with their female coworkers. Moreover, in a study by Holland and Haslam ( 2016 ) college students were first exposed to real advertisements depicting sexually objectified versus non-sexually objectified female adolescents and then learned that the young women portrayed in the advertisements had been harmed. Results revealed lower attributions of personhood, reduced concern toward the victims, more perceived victims’ responsibility, and more negative attitudes toward helping the victims in the sexually objectifying than non-sexually objectifying condition. Overall, the evidence we reviewed suggests that dehumanization may contribute to account for the link between the construct of women as sexual objects, disruption of empathic resonance toward women, and increased engagement in sexual harassment, as well as reduced bystander intervention.

Sexually Objectifying Media → Shift in Gender Norms

What specific norms may be influenced by exposure to sexually objectifying media and how do these norms affect sexual harassment? Particularly central in this context may be traditional masculinity and femininity ideologies (Levant et al. 1992 ; Mahalik et al. 2005 ), namely the constellation of social norms, behavioral standards, and expectations associated with traditional male and female roles. Mass media may act as a sounding board for those specific masculine and feminine norms that prescribe women to be silent, submissive, compliant, dependent on men, sexy, and always available sexual partners, and men to be dominant, sex driven, and fearful of commitment (Sprecher and McKinney 1993 ; see also Preddie and Biernat 2020 ).

Not surprisingly, the belief system surrounding traditional masculinity has been found to be linked consistently to men’s sexual harassment, rape-supportive attitudes, violence against women, and sexual assault (see McDermott et al. 2015 ; Murnen et al. 2002 , for reviews). For example, conformity to masculine norms of being playboys (according to which men are sexually promiscuous) and having power over women (i.e., the belief that men should control women) are related to men’s tendencies of gazing at, inspecting, and evaluating women’s bodies, as well as to higher levels of unwanted sexual advances toward women (Mikorski and Szymanski 2017 ). At the same time, women who endorse traditional feminine norms typically show decreased sexual assertiveness (Curtin et al. 2011 ), invest more in their appearances (Kling et al. 2017 ), and are more likely to enjoy being sexualized, to engage in self-objectification (Hurt et al. 2007 ; Liss et al. 2011 ), and to perceive sexual harassment as a normative male-female sexual behavior (Jensen and Gutek 1982 ).

Extending these findings, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that the construct of women as sexual objects activated by exposure to sexually objectifying media promotes a shift in gender norms, thus enhancing viewers’ endorsement of norms associated with men’ and women’s roles. Consistently, men’s greater consumption of magazines, television programs (e.g., situation comedies, dramas, sports programs), movies, video games, and internet sites is associated with stronger endorsement of traditional masculine norms (Giaccardi et al. 2016 , in the United States; Scharrer and Blackburn 2018 , in the United States). For example, exposure to music videos and TV programs has been found to be linked to greater endorsement of masculinity norms according to which men are sexually dominant and women are sexual objects, as well as to increased objectification of women’s bodies, even among male adolescents (Rousseau et al. 2019 , in Belgium).

Moreover, in a longitudinal study, Wright and Tokunaga ( 2015 , in the United States) found that men’s regular exposure to sexually objectifying media was related to greater conformity to the masculine norm of non-relational attitudes toward sex. Results also demonstrated that recent exposure to similar media contents had immediate strengthening effects on the same norms among men who viewed sexually objectifying media less frequently. Importantly, such effects persisted for two days. In a similar vein, greater exposure to or involvement with sexually objectifying media, such as soap operas, talk shows, prime-time programs, and music videos, is related with women’s greater endorsement of both traditional femininity and masculinity ideologies (Blackburn and Scharrer 2019 , in the United States; Scharrer and Blackburn 2018 , in the United States; Ward and Friedman 2006 , in the United States), in particular with the beliefs that women are sex objects and that men are sex-driven, lack relationship skills, and are fearful of commitment (Kim and Ward 2004 , in the United States; Ward 2002 , in the United States).

As postulated by the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework, higher conformity to traditional masculine and feminine norms due to exposure to sexually objectifying media should lead to an increase in sexual harassment. Consistently, after exposure to a sexually objectifying TV clip (vs. control programs and TV clips showing non-objectified professional women), male participants manifested not only increased conformity to traditional masculinity norms regarding non-relational attitudes toward sex, dominance, and aggression, but also greater gender-harassing behavior (Galdi et al. 2014 , in Italy). Results also revealed that the masculine norm of non-relational attitudes toward sex mediated the relation between experimental condition and participants’ gender-harassing behavior (see also Guizzo and Cadinu 2020 , in Italy, for similar results with gender attitudes as mediator). A similar norm shift was observed among video game players (Gabbiadini et al. 2016 , in Italy). Playing sexually objectifying video games increased participants’ endorsement of masculine norms, especially among male participants who strongly identified with the game character. Masculine norms, in turn, led to reduced empathy toward female victims of violence.

To summarize, evidence shows that exposure to sexually objectifying media leads to shifts in gender norms that establish which behaviors are appropriate for men and women. Such norms, in turn, have been found not only to encourage proclivity to sexual harassment, but also to decrease empathy with victims of sexual violence, thus pointing to a possible relation between norms and empathy as additional mechanism responsible both for engagement in harassing behaviors and reduced bystander intervention. No known study to date, however, has investigated the link between sexually objectifying media, conformity to traditional gender-role norms, and women’s tolerance for sexual harassment. Nonetheless, data suggest that traditional feminine norms dictate how women who have been sexually harassed are going to feel about the incident. If harassed women endorse traditional feminine beliefs, they are more likely to blame themselves for the incident, to believe that victims of sexual harassment have provoked advances, have done something to bring them about, and could do something to prevent them (Jensen and Gutek 1982 , in the United States). Importantly, harassed women who endorse traditional feminine norms are also less likely to report the incident to someone in authority (Jensen and Gutek 1982 ). Traditional feminine norms, therefore, may lead women to assign more responsibility to themselves and to other women in general for incidents of sexual harassment, as well as to be less likely to react and seek help.

Sexual harassment is both a form of aggression against women and a form of gender discrimination, and it represents a serious and widespread social problem (Stop Street Harassment 2018 ). With the present work, we aimed at contributing to the current conversation about its causes by synthesizing the existing empirical evidence on the link between sexually objectifying media and sexual harassment into the novel and integrative Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework. We believe that the present framework extends the understanding of this growing body of research in multiple ways.

First, for the first time the overarching Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework incorporates all three target groups involved in sexual harassment, namely perpetrator, victim, and bystander. It also shows that sexually objectifying media may represent a crucial cultural factor that encourages sexual harassment (a) increasing perpetrators’ proclivity to sexually harass, (b) encouraging victims’ tolerance for harassing behaviors, and (c) discouraging bystanders from intervening. In the last two decades a great deal of research has examined the effects of sexually objectifying media on objectification of women and women’s self-objectification (e.g., Ward 2016 ). Extending these findings to the issue of sexual harassment, our reviewed evidence demonstrates that exposure to sexually objectifying media affects not only women’s self-perceptions and behavior, but also the way women are perceived and treated by others.

Second, a notable facet of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework is that it speaks to how sexually objectifying media lead to sexual harassment. We have demonstrated that sexually objectifying media implicitly set two cultural standards: (a) how women should behave and look (i.e., sexy, available, and good-looking) and (b) how women can be treated by others (as bodies that exist for the pleasure of others). Drawing from cognitive theories focusing on schema activation and accessibility (see Fiske and Taylor 1991 ) and on script-based models of media effects (Wright 2011 ), the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that these two cultural standards inform, and even may help to create, the construct of women as sexual objects. The evidence reviewed in the present work shows that the accessibility of the construct of women as sexual object after exposure to sexually objectifying media may result not only in negative attitudes and emotions, but also (through dehumanization, disruption of empathic resonance, and shift in gender norms) in actual harassing behaviors toward women, greater acceptance by women of sexual harassment, and reduced bystander intervention in subsequent unrelated contexts.

Third, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework can be relevant for explaining media connections to sexual violence in general. For example, many studies we reviewed in the present work indicate that exposure to sexually objectifying media may increase both women’s and men’s rape myth acceptance (Driesmans et al. 2015 ; Reichl et al. 2018 ), men’s engagement in sexual aggression (Lanis and Covell 1995 ), and women’s acceptance of dating violence (Johnson et al. 1995 ). Moreover, research has established that reduction of women to sexual objects, dehumanization, disruption of emphatic resonance, and shifts in gender norms are mechanisms involved in all forms of violence against women, including rape and sexual assault (Beech et al. 2006 ; Hlavka 2014 ; Rudman and Mescher 2012 ).

Finally, according to current approaches, the concept of sexual violence includes a range of behaviors that are linked to one another and escalate in severity (Kelly 1987 ; Leidig 1992 ; Osborne 1995 ; Stout 1991 ). At one end of this continuum are sexually violent behaviors, such as rape, sexual assault, and criminal sexual contact; at the other end are those behaviors, often culturally accepted, of gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention. Showing that sexually objectifying media may converge in normalizing harassing behaviors, the evidence we reviewed in the present paper demonstrates that sexually objectifying media may help to create a culture that not only enables the existence of sexual harassment but also may ultimately support and tolerate more severe forms of gender violence.

Practice Implications

By improving our understanding of sexual harassment and sexually objectifying media as a factor that contributes to its perpetration, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework has the potential to aid in the development of more effective prevention and education efforts, as well as to inform interventions and social policy. First, evidence shows that media may exert a role especially because they affect viewers’ attitudes, emotions, and behaviors in subtle ways. Nonetheless, it is possible to control these automatic influences. Researchers have identified three steps that could enable individuals to gain conscious control over automatic behavioral and attitudinal responses: (a) awareness of the influence or the possibility of influence, (b) motivation to control the influence and response, and (c) mental capacity to engage in the control process (Bargh 1989 ; Wegner 1994 ). These suggestions imply that if women and men are educated to view sexually objectifying media with a more critical, aware eye, as opposed to simply allowing them to permeate their leisure and work lives, the effects of sexually objectifying media on sexual harassment can be reduced.

Importantly, the research we reviewed in the present paper shows that not only adults’, but also adolescents’ and children’s, attitudes, norms, and behaviors can be affected by exposure to sexually objectifying media. Therefore, school-based media literacy programs should be implemented to teach critical viewing skills, to enable youngsters to detect objectifying contents, and to raise awareness of the consequences. When carried out, such programs have been shown to be effective (e.g., Choma et al. 2007 ; see also Liao et al. 2020 ; Rodgers et al. 2019 ). Also parents represent important targets for interventions. For example, parents may be educated to discuss with children the subtle sexually objectifying acts exhibited in the media and may be encouraged to promote the development of positive and egalitarian gender-related attitudes and behaviors among their sons and daughters.

It is worth noting that not only may media be one of the causes of the problem, but they also can be the source of possible solutions. For example, media-sensitizing messages against sexual objectification of women have proven to be successful both in motivating women to take action and fight for gender equality (Guizzo et al. 2017 ) and in decreasing men’s perpetration of sexual harassment (Guizzo and Cadinu 2020 ). Therefore, media promoting a critical and active rather than passive consumption can represent valuable tools that media specialists should employ. At the same time, advertising and media makers should also consider other strategies to attract viewers and consumers rather than presenting women in sexually objectifying fashions. Ironically, such degrading portrayals not only damage our society at large, as we discussed previously, but also may represent a counterproductive strategy to sell products. For example, exposure to sexually objectifying (vs. neutral) ads did not increase men’s willingness to purchase the products promoted but they did decrease women purchase intentions (Gramazio et al. 2020 ; see also Bushman 2005 ; Zawisza et al. 2018 ). Thus, the commercial ideology behind them may ultimately prove to be counter-productive.

Another crucial intervention should be to educate women about self-objectification and strategies to avoid the experience and consequences of it. These strategies may include increasing self-awareness as well as developing awareness of the dissonance between the reality of actual women and the contrived women portrayed in the media, the latter of whom convey not only an unrealistic, but also a demeaning and degrading female representation (see Tylka and Augustus-Horvath 2011 , for a review).

Finally, by linking media culture, social norms, and sexual harassment, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework suggests that restrictive versus permissive norms regarding sexual harassment may be communicated through media and attests to the responsibility of the media industry in creating a cultural environment that can be either derogatory or respectful of individuals’ gender identity. Practitioners from a wide range of professions (including teachers, counselors, game developers, journalists, and advertisers) should be aware that media represent a powerful vehicle for sexualized social norms by (a) providing legitimacy to potential male harassers, (b) increasing tolerance of women and girls for sexual harassment, and (c) discouraging bystanders from intervening because they are unable to promptly recognize sexual harassment.

Research Agenda

Despite the impressive set of scholarship we summarized here on the link between sexually objectifying media and sexual harassment, some questions remain, and additional research is needed in various areas. We will therefore conclude by pointing out some directions and topics for future research, along with important suggestions to further test the tenets of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework.

Web and Social Media

Sexually objectifying media include not only “traditional mass media” (e.g., magazines, film, television, music videos, video games, internet sites), but also recent advances in internet technologies that have led to the revolutionary new trend represented by social media (e.g., applications such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Second Life, Tinder, TikTok, and Twitter). The participatory nature of social media entails an open forum for information exchange, thus widening the dissemination of episodes, images, and words that sexually objectify women. To date, however, research on the effects of sexually objectifying contents via social media on sexual harassment and sexual violence in general is still in its very early stages (see Felmlee et al. 2020 ; Gramazio et al. 2019 ; Spaccatini et al. 2019 , for some early research). Therefore, although the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework encompasses the role played by the full extent of sexually objectifying media, most studies we reviewed in in the present article focused on “traditional media.” We hope future research will expand the emerging evidence on the role played by sexually objectifying contents via social media and the web in general on sexual harassment.

Weak Connections

As shown in Fig. 1 , the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework includes three mechanisms of cognitive, emotional, and normative nature through which the concept of women as sexual objects activated by exposure to sexually objectifying media leads to sexual harassment: dehumanization, disruption of empathic resonance, and shift in gender norms. Specifically, all three mechanisms mediate the relation between sexually objectifying media and perpetrators’ engagement in harassing behaviors, as well as bystander intervention. However, as pointed out in Table 2 , no known research to date has directly investigated the links among exposure to sexually objectifying media, dehumanization of women, and bystander intervention. Similarly, more research is needed to support the links among exposure to sexually objectifying media, empathy toward women, and sexual harassment proclivity. Moreover, strong evidence indicates that exposure to sexually objectifying media enhances consumers’ endorsement of traditional masculine and feminine norms (Blackburn and Scharrer 2019 ; Wright and Tokunaga 2015 ) and that endorsement of gender norms reduces empathy with victims of violence (Gabbiadini et al. 2016 ). However, research testing the path from shift in gender norms to bystander intervention is still absent.

Turning to women as potential victims, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates that the mechanisms responsible for victims’ increased tolerance for sexual harassment are (self-)dehumanization and shift in gender norms. Concerning the latter mechanism, findings show that exposure to sexually objectifying media is related with women’s greater endorsement of both traditional femininity and masculinity ideologies (Scharrer and Blackburn 2018 ). However, no known study has directly tested these links in their entirety—that is, whether shifts in gender norms explain the relation between exposure to sexually objectifying media and women’s tolerance for sexual harassment.

Further, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework postulates interconnections among the three cognitive, affective, and normative mechanisms that research has not yet openly addressed. For example, a path between dehumanization and disruption of empathic resonance (Cogoni et al. 2018a , 2018b ; Holland and Haslam 2016 ) should help to better explain relations between sexually objectifying media and both engagement in harassing behavior and bystander intervention. Therefore, we strongly encourage future work to address all these important issues. A goal of future studies should be also to expand the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework by exploring additional potential interconnections among the three proposed mechanisms, as well as testing whether other cognitive and/or affective processes may account for the link among sexually objectifying media, the construct of women as sexual object, and sexual harassment.

Multiple Meanings and Viewers’ Skills

In the present work we exclusively focused on the negative effects of exposure to sexually objectifying media depicting submissive, compliant, and sexy women. However, it is not rare to run across media content in which women are both strong and sexually objectified. For example, the popular TV series “Sex and the City” revolved around the lives of four professional and independent women who, nonetheless, paid great attention to their appearance and sex appeal. It is very likely that these portrayals convey multiple meanings to viewers. To our knowledge, however, no known study has investigated how consumers interpret such messages, whether they actually associate multiple meanings to them, and, importantly, what effects these messages may have on consumers’ attitudes and behaviors.

In addition to increasing awareness of alternative and multiple meanings, researchers are encouraged to investigate the issue of how sexually objectifying content is interpreted by consumers. Not all consumers interpret the same content in the same way (Brown 2000 ; Livingstone 1990 ) and not all consumers accept the messages presented; some may reject and resist them. If not all consumers are negatively affected by sexually objectifying media, what skills do these consumers have to face the potential negative effects of exposure to sexually objectifying media? It is possible that consumers with lower endorsement of masculine and/or feminine ideologies, with more advanced critical thinking skills, or with greater media literacy may be better able to reject sexually objectifying contents and to resist their influence. In general, therefore, a better understanding is needed of how and when sexually objectifying content is accepted, critiqued, and/or rejected.

Ethnic Minorities

It is also critical to think more carefully about how sexual objectifying media intersect with various social identities of women. For example, the research we reviewed here mainly tested the effects of sexually objectifying media portrayals of White/European or American women on samples of White/European or American consumers, whereas ethnic minorities have been largely ignored, both as targets and as consumers. Therefore, one might wonder whether women and men of other races/ethnicities may associate different meanings to these media messages. Concerning race/ethnicity, however, the available evidence is still scarce. Nonetheless, some studies indicate that sexual objectification in the media may target women and girls of all ethnicities (Aubrey and Frisby 2011 ; McDade-Montez et al. 2017 ; Prieler and Centeno 2013 ), even though some cross-cultural differences have also been reported (see Frith et al. 2005 ; Nelson and Paek 2005 ).

Furthermore, exposure to and identification with portrayals of sexually objectified Black women in the media has been found to be linked with increased importance of appearance and physical attractiveness among Black female adolescents (Gordon 2008 ; but see Schooler et al. 2004 , for null results on body image concerns). Importantly, exposure to sexually objectifying (vs. neutral) music videos may increase not only White, but also Black, female and male adolescents’ acceptance of rape myths and interpersonal violence, as well as their endorsement of the belief that women are sexual objects and men are sex-driven (Johnson et al. 1995 ; Kalof 1999 ; Ward et al. 2005 ). Although this existing research suggests that at least some tenets of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework might be extended to other ethnicities, further extensive research is needed to get a complete picture.

Sexual Identity

Future endeavors should also investigate whether the postulates of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework may vary as a function of women’s sexual orientation. Some preliminary evidence shows that lesbian women report the same levels of harassing experiences and similar levels of self-objectification as heterosexual women (Hill and Fischer 2008 ; see also Kozee and Tylka 2006 ). Thus, there is reason to believe that sexually objectifying media increase the likelihood of men’s harassment of women independent of the sexual orientation of the female victim. However, it remains unclear whether the same pattern holds for the relation between sexually objectifying media and women’s acceptance of being harassed, which may well vary as a function of their sexual orientation.

Sexual Harassment of Men

The Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework focuses on media effects on sexual harassment only considering women as the potential victims and men as the potential perpetrators. Although men are overall much less likely to become victims of sexual harassment, they are the most common target of same-gender harassment (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2012 ; McDonald and Charlesworth 2016 ). In these cases, the motivation behind sexual harassment seems to be gender-identity protection, given that it is often used as a weapon against those men who violate gender norms (Maass et al. 2013 ). Portrayals of sexually objectified men are increasing in prevalence (Hatton and Trautner 2011 ) but, unlike sexually objectified women, sexually objectified men are typically depicted as strong, dominant, and with a muscular body. It is likely, therefore, that exposure to these images increases men’s sexual harassment toward other men who do not comply to these masculine norms. However, it is difficult to believe that exposure to sexually objectified portrayals of men could explain women’s sexual harassment of men, although this remains an interesting possibility to be investigated by future research.

Longitudinal Designs

From a methodological point of view, many studies summarized in this review used correlational designs that are open to different interpretations. Sexually objectifying media may affect attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors or, instead, consumers may seek out content that validates their current attitudes and beliefs. Nonetheless, many of these correlational studies have experimental counterparts, as we reported in the present review. Yet, these experimental studies examined short-term effects of sexually objectifying media after only a few minutes of exposure to such content, thus raising potential concerns about their external validity and demand characteristics. Given that sexually objectifying contents are commonplace in the media, we believe that results of these studies might even represent an underestimation of actual (daily) exposure to sexually objectifying media. At the same time, the degree to which viewers’ attitudes and expectations are affected by media exposure are likely to vary, for example depending on age and experience. To date, however, very few studies have employed longitudinal designs to explore whether and how the media’s influence changes over time. Many scholars have concluded that media certainly exert an influence on viewers (e.g., Wright 2011 ) and the evidence we reviewed here suggests that sexually objectifying media do, indeed, affect sexual harassment. Nonetheless, to draw firm conclusions more longitudinal work is needed.

Conclusions

The recent #MeToo movement has helped raising awareness about sexual harassment. However, to implement effective intervention strategies aimed at tackling sexual harassment, not only is it necessary to acknowledge its prevalence, but also action is required to clearly identify its causes. Taking into account three perspectives simultaneously [i.e., the perpetrator’s, the victim’s, and bystander(s)], as well as integrating several lines of research, the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework offers an original scheme for explaining how sexually objectifying media lead to sexual harassment and also shows that media contents matter. We therefore hope that research within this framework will continue to grow.

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The authors thank Anne Maass for her invaluable helpful feedback on a draft of the present manuscript.

Open access funding provided by Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. Our work was supported by PRIN grant number 20123X2PXT_003 (2012) from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

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Galdi, S., Guizzo, F. Media-Induced Sexual Harassment: The Routes from Sexually Objectifying Media to Sexual Harassment. Sex Roles 84 , 645–669 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-020-01196-0

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30 Media, Gender, Sex, and Crime

Lynn S. Chancer is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College – City University of New York.

• Published: 01 July 2014
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Second-wave feminism, the exponential growth and transformation of mass media, and academic interest in culture as mediator have each contributed to an intensification of research on media representations of gender, sex, and crime. This essay reviews research on the relationships between news media and perceptions of rape, domestic violence, and female offenders and victims. It then discusses the media as a gendered institution and the consequences of this for the public’s perceptions of and attitudes toward crime and criminals. Cultural criminology has made important contributions to our understanding of fictional, visual portrayals of gender, sex, and crime, and several of these contributions are highlighted. An important theme in the essay is that the ways in which gender, sex, media, and crime intersect have “real life” ramifications, affecting policies as well as perceptions. For this reason, further research is needed on the media’s potential to challenge traditional stereotypes about the relationships between crime and gender (as well as ethnicity, race, and class) as a way to encourage more progressive responses to gendered violence and crime.

30.1. Introduction

Starting in the 1960s, sociology and criminology experienced an intensification of research about media coverage and representations of gender, sex, and crime. Once unusual, articles on these topics have become more common; presentations frequently occur at the American Society of Criminology and American Sociological Association; and new volumes are published regularly (e.g., Boyle 2005 ; Stabile 2006 ; Humphries 2009 ; Monckton-Smith 2012 ). Even college and university courses now bring “Gender, Crime, Media, and Culture” together. 1 Why the accelerated scholarly and journalistic interest in this particular intersection of topics, and what does this bode for the future of criminology as both a sociological and interdisciplinary field of inquiry?

Three factors come to mind, each linked to research and publications that have appeared from the 1970s onward. First, in the aftermath of the second wave of American feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, it is virtually impossible to trace how criminology has unfolded without taking issues of gender and sexuality into account. Gender studies have revolutionized many fields, criminology being no exception. Early feminist theorists, from Simone de Beauvoir (1952) through Shulamith Firestone (1970) and Kate Millett (1970) , insisted that exercises of power occur not only in the conventionally understood political sphere but in the personal sphere of “sexual politics” as well. This opened the way for crimes that were previously treated as though merely “private” matters—such as rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and stalking—to be recognized as social problems entailing serious and widespread gender-based injustices. Another key concern for feminist scholars was how popular media and academic work portrayed female victims and offenders and thereby reinforced these injustices ( Millman 1975 ; Smart 1977 ).

A second reason for intensified interest in the intersection of gender, sex, crime, and media is historical and technological: the magnification, growth, and virtual explosion of modern mass media. At present, there are simply more ways that people can form impressions about crime in general, and gender, sex, and crime in particular, vis-à-vis media. Since the time of radio and newspaper representations of crime in the 1930s and the advent of television in the 1960s through the present, the media has multiplied in forms, evolving through cable television and new Internet social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, that have become national and international in scope. News stories “go viral” in ways unheard of in previous generations, making it incumbent on researchers to gauge how mass-mediated representations affect attitudes about a range of issues related to gender, sex, crime, and criminal justice. In other words, media matters, now more than ever. This realization has led criminologists to study people’s responses and attitudes to crime as well as the characteristics and processes of journalistic institutions in their own right.

Third, studying gender, sex, crime, and media parallels a growing academic preoccupation with culture as a mediator—literally and figuratively—between social institutions and individuals. Dissatisfaction with predominantly structural (e.g., Marxism) or psychological (e.g., Freudianism) theories directed interest toward culture as a salient dimension and to the need to avoid frustratingly one-dimensional “structure versus agency” modes of understanding. Consequently, in American sociology, culture is now the largest section of the American Sociological Association; in criminology, in the United Kingdom as well as in the United States, “cultural” criminology has attracted interest seemingly in tandem. Thus criminologists have scrutinized representations widely, not only in news stories about crime but also in the fictional depictions of crime in films and novels (e.g., Rafter 2000 ; Hendin 2004 ; Hayward and Presdee 2010 ). Increasingly, then, both sociologists and criminologists evince concern with the direction of broad cultural trends that affect how people process gender and sex-related aspects of their lives.

Common to all three sources of interest—feminist work on gender and sex, an explosive growth of media (and therefore crime in the media), and renewed concerns with culture—is the realization that how gender, sex, media, and crime intersect has “real life” ramifications, affecting policies as well as perceptions. For instance, policy reforms may be affected by media portrayals of rape victims as helpless or fighting back, the latter assertiveness characterizing the main character in the well-known film about a group rape, The Accused . Precisely for these reasons, criminology must continue to research interactions among gender, sex, media, and crime lest it lose its relevance to people’s day-to-day lives.

This essay elaborates on why media and the aforementioned intersection matters. It focuses on research corresponding with three sources of interest. First is a recent history of research on representations of gender and crime in news media, with special attention to scholarship that recognizes rape and domestic violence as social problems disproportionately affecting women. This section also discusses scholarship on portrayals of female offenders and of race, gender, and crime in news media. Second is an overview of recent studies of media institutions and gender and of how public perceptions of crime are influenced by the news media. The third section looks at work by cultural criminologists and scholars interested in fictionalized, visual portrayals of crime and gender. Finally, a concluding section broaches potentially useful directions for future research.

30.2. Gender, Sex, and Crime in the News

The findings from research on media portrayals of violence against women are complex and reflect changes in media practices over time; nonetheless, some key themes consistently emerge. Among these are the ways in which media portrayals tend to reflect and reinforce (rather than challenge) broad cultural notions and myths about female victims and male offenders, double standards in media representations of gender violence, and tendencies to ignore or obscure the social context for this violence. Research on media coverage of rape and intimate-partner violence stretching back to the 1970s provides numerous illustrations of, as well as important variations on, these themes (e.g., Smart and Smart 1978 ; Dobash and Dobash 1979 ; Lees 1995 ; Moorti and Cuklanz 2009 ; Monckton-Smith 2011 ). More recently, literature on news media representations of female offenders and of gender, race, and crime extends and diversifies earlier work on violence against women.

Analyses of news coverage of the 1983 sexual assault of a young woman in a New Bedford, Massachusetts bar and the trials of the men charged with the crime mark the beginning of heightened attention by feminist scholars to the power of the media (and the legal system) to shape public understandings of sexual violence, its victims, and its perpetrators ( Chancer 1987 ; Bumiller 1990 ; Benedict 1992 ; Cuklanz 1996 ). 2 Chancer’s examination of this case, in which a woman was raped by a number of men on a pool table while other men looked on and shouted encouragement, shows how media coverage tapped into popular myths about “real rape” and negative attitudes toward women engaged in unconventional gendered behavior. In the community where the crime occurred, this encouraged both victim-blaming and, after the trial and convictions, a view of the men as victims. According to Chancer’s discussion of attribution theory, people tend to blame victims who are raped in their own neighborhoods, or who know or are acquainted with their attackers. Blame also tends to increase when alcohol is present, and in barroom situations. Each of these circumstances characterized the New Bedford case (the young woman had gone out for a drink leaving her children at home with her boyfriend). Chancer’s analysis also points to the absence of media attention to the social context of the incident, and anticipates later feminist calls to consider intersections of gender with class, race, ethnic, and other inequalities by linking the neighborhood’s and the assailants’ working class, Portuguese background to the character of media coverage.

The New Bedford rape also figures prominently in Benedict’s (1992) analysis of media coverage of well-known cases of violence against women in the 1980s, including the Rideout case (involving marital rape), the killing of Jennifer Levin, and the Central Park jogger case. According to Benedict, reporters covering these cases often dichotomized their representations of “good” as opposed to allegedly promiscuous, “bad” women: Through the lens of their own gender, race, and class biases, journalists recycled the so-called “madonna/whore” (or “virgin/vamp”) division feminists have long bemoaned as rampant in the press and society as a whole. Benedict suggests various reforms to break this pattern, including greater sensitivity in press coverage language to avoid sexism, providing context for stories so that fears and misconceptions are not recirculated, and diversifying the press corps covering sex crimes in terms of reporters’ gender, race, and class backgrounds.

Much subsequent feminist research on media coverage of sexual violence reiterates Chancer’s and Benedict’s conclusions and elaborates on their implications. For example, Meyers (1997 , p. 9) observes that “news reports of women as victims of sexist violence act as both a warning to women and a form of social control that outlines the boundaries of acceptable behavior and the forms of retribution they can expect for transgression.” Who is likely to deliver that retribution, however, is often inaccurately presented, with important implications. For example, Soothill and Walby (1991) find that rapists are often portrayed as monsters, psychopaths, or “sex fiends” by the British press. Assailants are marked as distinctly different from “normal” men, and larger structures of gender inequality that lie behind such attacks are ignored ( Kozol 1995 ).

The idea that the media can challenge, rather than simply reinforce or ignore, pervasive beliefs about rape galvanized feminist scholars such as Marcus (1992) in the 1990s. As Hirsch (1994 , p. 1025) states, these scholars recognized that “media representations are potential sites for contesting cultural ideas about deviance and law and about gender, race, and class relations.” Hirsch’s comparison of the US and Kenyan media coverage of the 1991 rape and killing of girls at a Kenyan boarding school by their male schoolmates shows unintended consequences that can result from this potential by showing how “legal and feminist discourses are often incorporated into media accounts in ways that serve quite perverse ends” (p. 1055). While the Kenyan media coverage reinforced stereotypic images of the victims and their assailants, the US coverage attempted to provide context by attributing the incident to women’s subordinate position in and the traditional patriarchal nature of Kenyan society. The “perverse” effect of the latter was that “[b]‌y reinforcing images of African women as passively enduring abuse, ineffective or uninterested in resisting their own oppression, it raised the possibility that adult women share the blame for the violence” (p. 1045).

Caringella (2009) argues the legal system in the early twenty-first century remains daunting for women who wish to prosecute rapists in spite of feminist efforts to change victim-blaming media depictions and public perceptions (see Bumiller this volume). She acknowledges the influence of media while laying out a set of legal reforms, such as developing a “reasonable woman’s point of view” in addition to rape shield laws already widely implemented, so meaningful legal reform can result. She also sees a key reforming role for media in disseminating the meaningful phrase “no means no” and by journalists “policing themselves” to ensure that sensitive and ethical guidelines of reporting are followed (pp. 214, 281).

Other research examines press coverage of domestic violence. As with rape, heightened interest in domestic violence can be traced back to early insistence by feminists that the personal is political ( Firestone 1970 ; Millett 1970 ; also see Williams, McKelvey, Frieze this volume). Yet domestic violence was often considered a “private” matter that should be handled within families rather than with the assistance of police, communities, and larger publics. Not surprisingly, then, following second-wave feminism, battering has been the focus of research by scholars interested in media coverage of both highly and not-so-highly profiled crimes.

The extensive press coverage of the O. J. Simpson double-homicide case and trial in the mid-1990s heightened both journalistic and legal attention to the issue of domestic violence ( Chancer 2005 ). Subsequent research on news coverage of intimate-partner violence against women reveals a complicated picture. Berns (2004) , for example, argues that the media has constructed this violence as a social problem about victims who are either applauded for leaving their abusers or implicated in the violence by not doing so. She identifies three typical “frames” used by the media in portraying intimate-partner violence: a victim empowerment frame, an antifeminist frame, and a social justice frame. These frames rarely engage with abusers or the way their motivations reflect larger processes of gender inequality. Boyle (2005) identifies a contrasting set of narrative conventions around intimate-partner violence, including individual pathology, sin, and redemption on one hand and confession and counseling on the other. Arguing from a different vantage point, Monckton-Smith (2012) suggests that intimate-partner violence is typically represented as a problem faced by couples struggling with jealousy, anger, and depression. Similarly Nikunen (2011 , p. 94) finds that femicide-suicide, an extreme form of intimate-partner violence, tends to be naturalized as though “a normal feature of heterosexual relationships.”

The differences in these findings may reflect the news sources and the time periods studied. Television and print news have different styles and rely on different journalistic conventions, and the political orientations of news sources often vary. So, for example, in a study of the coverage of intimate-partner violence in two highly regarded California newspapers in 2000, McManus and Dorfman (2005) find that female victims were rarely blamed and male perpetrators’ accountability was rarely mitigated; they suggest the location of these newspapers in counties that “may be more progressive in coping with intimate violence” (p. 59) may account for these findings. At the same time, they note that intimate-partner violence received less and less in-depth coverage than other types of violence, which “reinforces the notion that domestic violence is a private rather than public problem” (pp. 58–59). This pattern shifts attention from how gender violence is portrayed to how much attention it receives in the news. Despite their differences, what these and many other analyses have in common is the view that media coverage tends to obscure the structured gender underpinnings of intimate-partner violence.

Women in abusive relationships who kill their partners present a particular challenge to the media because they do not appear to fit the typical frames used in coverage of intimate-partner violence and because they blur the lines between perpetrators and victims. In these cases, the range of representations appears to narrow to three: the mad, the bad, and the victim. In their analysis of newspaper coverage of battered women who killed their partners, Noh, Lee, and Felty (2010 , p. 126) report that journalists presented “typified models” wherein the predominant social construction of battered women who killed “was one of female deviants: they were either mad or bad.” In other words, press coverage seemed to perpetuate rather than debunk sexist beliefs that held women responsible for their own victimization in cases of intimate partner violence should they fight back.

Jones’ (2003) analysis of the case of Francine Hughes, who in 1977 killed her abusive husband by lighting his bed on fire, provides a variation on the mad/bad dichotomy. 3 The media (as well as the legal system) used Hughes’ extensive victimization at the hands of her husband to explain and excuse her act, by introducing the concept that became known as “battered women’s syndrome.” According to this narrative, Hughes was temporarily insane at the time of the killing as a consequence of the years of abuse she had suffered. However, according to Jones, a paradoxical result of such depictions is that journalists relied on traditional notions of feminine subservience, fragility, and emotionality—even in the face of contradictory evidence of agency rather than passivity—to construct Hughes as not fully responsible for her act. This in turn reinforces, rather than undermines, stereotypes about femininity ( Allen 1987 ). When violent females cannot be fit into the victim narrative, their violence is used to deny their femininity. In these cases, Jones argues, “criminal women are defeminized in legal, journalistic, and dramatic discourse; they are separated from ‘normal’ women, thereby assuring the patriarchy that women embrace their submissive status” (p. xi). Other commentators (e.g., Chesney-Lind and Eliason 2006 ) also describe the tendency of the media to masculinize women and girls who engage in crime.

The idea that “when actual women become violent some sense must be made of their actions if the myth of feminine passivity is to be maintained” ( Jones 2003 , p. x) is reiterated in Morrissey’s (2003) work on the discursive strategies used by the media and the law to construct women who kill. Whether applied to battered women, female serial killers, or mothers who kill their children, the stock characters she identifies—the psychologically disordered, the inhuman monster, and the victim of male violence—all work to deny women agency and their full humanity, a theme that appears in Hendin’s (2004) work as well. Morrissey’s challenge to feminists, the media, and the law is to embrace and encourage a more complex and diverse view of women who kill. A recent analysis by Seal (2009 , p. 73) of British newspapers’ campaign for the release of a woman convicted of murder demonstrates that the media representations of violent women can be both “complex and ambivalent” and reveal a “multiplicity of signs and discourses.” Shifting the focus of analysis from media coverage of high-profile cases to coverage of more ordinary or routine crimes by women—which Seal (2010) does in a subsequent book—is likely to provide examples of more multifaceted characterizations.

For most research on media representations of gender and crime, women—whether as victims or offenders—are center stage. However, investigating men and masculinities has also, and increasingly, interested scholars who study gender, crime, and media. In some of this work, scholars argue that men’s crime typically escapes the depth of media scrutiny given women’s since their crimes and violence may be assumed to be “natural” and thus not necessitating more in-depth explanation ( Boyle 2005 ; Klein 2006 ); by comparison crimes committed by women seem relatively more “deviant” and, from the media’s standpoint, thereby more noticeable. For example, Naylor’s (2001) analysis of violent crime stories in four British newspapers reports that compared to women’s violence—which received more coverage and was seen as more in need of explanation—men’s violence was presented as “normal.” In a variation on this theme, Consalvo (2003 , p. 40) argues that media coverage of the Littleton, Colorado, school shootings evokes R. W. Connell’s concept of not singular but plural “masculinities.” Consalvo suggests that the killers did not conform to what Connell calls “hegemonic” masculinity and were depicted as “deviant” in relation to the dominant socially constructed ideal. The idea that the shooters’ underlying sickness trumped every other cause meant that the more “everyday” school culture, as well as issues of racialization and masculinities in US society overall, tended to be let off the hook. For Naylor, Consalvo, and others, then, news coverage of specific acts of violence committed by men does not challenge links between masculinities and aggression in the broader culture.

The ways in which the media implicate race, ethnicity, or social class in coverage of male violence (and female victimization) are well documented in analyses of historical as well as contemporary news coverage ( Weiner 2004 ; Freedman 2011 ; Worthington 2012 ). Press reports about crime from the early nineteenth century onward in the United States reviewed by Stabile (2006) largely ignored the victimization of black men and women and constructed black men as threats to vulnerable, pure white women who could be protected only by white men. Underlying these reports was concern about an unacknowledged threat that black men supposedly posed to a specifically “white” hegemonic masculinity—a threat that could be mitigated through a system of “racialized androcentrism.” This theme is given contemporary relevance by Russell (1998) , Oliver (2003) , and Enck-Wanzer (2009) , who argue that crime news depicts black men as aggressive in ways that deflect attention from gendered violence committed by white “hegemonic” men.

Approaches that stress how gender and race-based discriminations relate can also be found, if less easily, in some studies of female offenders. One notable example is Stabile’s (2004) comparison of media coverage of the financial crimes and trials of Martha Stewart and male Enron executives. For the latter, being white, successful, and rich meant more factual, balanced, “objective” reports, whereas for Stewart, these characteristics “laid her open to vicious, personal attacks...Martha, the media suggested, like all women in a sexist culture, had somehow ‘asked for it’ —she had turned herself into a brand, she had sold out the domestic sphere, she was too confident, too ‘brash,’ too much” (p. 328).

30.3. The Media as a Gendered Institution and Crime

A sophisticated literature in both sociology and criminology also examines the media qua institution to probe the gendered nature of its values and culture and the effects of these on its day-to-day operations and audiences. Such studies have mushroomed in historical lockstep with changes in the complex character of mass media. This evolution has been facilitated partly by technological developments but also by intense intra- and intermedia competition as radio gave way to newspaper and television coverage and as television has competed with the advent of cable, the Internet, and new social media from the 1990s onward.

As an institution, the news media is seen and criticized by many scholars as significantly gendered ( Ross 2010 ; Kimmel 2011 ; Kearney 2012 ; Pugh Yi and Dearfield 2012 ). What Allan (1998) calls “the truth politics of news discourse,” whereby standards such as objectivity are not questioned, is one target of criticism. For some analysts, the concept of objectivity reifies a patriarchal way of knowing the world through logic and rationality ( Carter, Branston, and Allan 1998 ). Lotz (1991 , p. 63) describes the sway of objectivity as a news value and argues that “rules of objectivity force reporters to isolate crimes and treat each as a sample of one,” thereby failing to provide a broader sense of social and historical context. As a consequence, “news is not simply...mostly about and by men, it is overwhelmingly seen through the eyes of men” ( Hartley 1982 , p. 146; see also Croteau and Hoynes 2005 ).

What is chosen for news coverage is affected by news practices as well as journalists’ often subtle, hard-to-notice social biases. In a classic article about newspaper story selection, Tuchman (1974) explains that editors appear to prioritize novelty but only in relation to the “routine.” This combined emphasis means that recognizable themes recur through successive attention to a certain kind of crime, all the while fresh “news pegs” are sought in the interest of variety. Chancer (2005) posits that members of the press themselves believe and report that their decisions are based on what she calls “journalistic individualism,” the belief that story selection is made on the basis of sui generis traits of a particular story. According to reporters, the reason that the O. J. Simpson homicide case, which involved intimate-partner violence and accusations of racism, was covered intensively was because Simpson was a celebrity ( Chancer 2005 ).

To illustrate both Tuchman’s and Chancer’s points, take by way of example what the latter dubs a pattern of “playing gender against race” through the Tyson/Thomas/Simpson gender-and-crime stories of the 1990s ( Chancer 1998 ). In each of these highly publicized cases, an alleged sexist crime brought to cultural attention by feminists came to be distinctly symbolized in the figure of a black male who was prominent or a celebrity. Different, though, was that the particular crime in these cases varied from rape (alleged against Mike Tyson) to sexual harassment (alleged against Clarence Thomas) to intimate-partner violence (alleged against O. J. Simpson). This pattern illustrates Tuchman’s observation of media interest in routine as well as novelty. At the same time, it bears out Chancer’s(1998) contention that cases are selected on the basis of journalistic precedents, reporters’ and editors’ own past choices, and the historical/social/political context in which they operate. An insidious effect of this pattern is to “play gender against race” by raising concerns about racial biases in the course of calling feminist attention to crimes against women.

Clearly both racial and gender biases figure into which crimes, victims, and/or offenders are selected for coverage and how much coverage they receive ( Meyers 2004 ). For instance, in a study of newspaper coverage of all homicides occurring in Newark, New Jersey, between 1997 and 2005, Gruenewald, Pizarro, and Chermak (2009) find that crimes involving white female victims received significantly more news attention than crimes involving African American female victims. Stabile (2006) describes a similar pattern in her historical analysis of the press and emphasizes a pattern in which black women were excluded from the category of “worthy victims” (see also Beckett and Sasson 2000 ). Race and gender also affect selection of crime stories for television coverage. Research examining three popular political talk shows (CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight , MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor ) for a six-month period during 2005 and 2006 finds that in comparison to the picture that emerges around the same time from the National Crime Victimization Survey data, these programs overrepresented white female victims while minimizing the victimization of males and minorities ( Britto and Dabney 2010 ).

These results are troubling because, as Eschholz (2002) and others note with regard to the “reception” of news, people who watch television frequently have heightened fears of crime. Eschholz argues that disproportionate television coverage of racial or ethnic minority offenders increases fear of crime for whites who may become more punitive and “tough on crime”—especially crime by racial or ethnic minorities—as a result of frequent viewing. This sort of concern lies behind other research into the effects of news coverage of crime on audiences. These “reception studies” typically assume that people respond differently to the same exposure identically, an assumption that contrasts with the so-called mass culture approach of the Frankfurt School and its presumption that audience/readers could always be duped by what they see and read. Consistent with the premise of reception research, Chiricos, Esholz, and Gertz (1997) find that exposure to crime news had the strongest effects on fear of crime among white, middle-aged women.

Women’s fear of crime also has been linked to their viewing of reality television shows and news coverage of female victims ( Madriz 1997 ; Cavender, Bond-Maupin, and Jurik 1999 ). As a consequence, women may feel particularly vulnerable, see the world as a dangerous place, and grant greater legitimacy to male authority figures that are framed as experts and particularly authoritative on television. Ultimately then, according to Madriz (1997) , crime television operates as a form of social control of women. Yet other studies suggest a more complicated picture. Chiricos, Padgett, and Gertz (2000) find that frequency of watching local news is associated with greater fear of crime among black as well as white women and among males with recent victimization experiences. Further research, such as that by Custers and van den Bulck (2013) , is needed to understand the conditions under which people are affected by viewing crime news across social differences.

Another important consequence of viewing crime news is the distortion of people’s understandings of not only how much crime occurs but who commits it, under what circumstances, and who is typically victimized. For example, women and men may develop misleading assessments of the risks of certain activities, people, and places to the extent that sexual assaults by strangers are overrepresented in crime news, while attacks by acquaintances and intimate partners are underrepresented ( Greer 2003 ; Jewkes 2004 ).

30.4. Gender, Crime, and Culture

The significance of culture as a mediator between individuals and society—literally and figuratively—has been recognized over the past several decades within both criminology and sociology. This tendency was historically presaged in the writings of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, which produced Hall and colleagues’ (1978) criminological classic Policing the Crisis. A more recent “cultural turn” can be identified within criminology in the writings of Ferrell, Hayward, and Young (2008) , among others, and by the establishment in 2005 of the journal Crime Media Culture . For cultural criminologists, the ways people generate meaning are a key focus of inquiry. From this perspective, crime and its control are cultural products or constructs that arise in part from “deep within the vast proliferation of media images of crime and deviance, where every facet of offending is reflected in a vast hall of mirrors...[Cultural criminology] attempts to make sense of a world in which the street scripts the screen and the screen scripts the street...the line between the real and the virtual is profoundly and irrevocably blurred” ( Hayward and Young 2004 , p. 259).

Cultural criminologists have joined feminist criminologists in examining popular representations of gender and crime in diverse fictional and visual media. For instance, feminist criminologists Rafter and Brown (2011 , p. 1) begin their work “with the assumption that criminology is hard at work in culture and that culture is hard at work in criminology”; they focus “on the cultural site that exemplifies this engagement perhaps better than any other—Hollywood cinema.” In applying this perspective to films like Thelma and Louise (which stirred controversy because Louise shoots and kills a man attempting to rape Thelma), Rafter and Brown suggest that artistic representations can protest sexism and point beyond women’s experiences of victimization.

Other fictional visual representations of rape, both in movies and television, are highlighted in other scholars’ studies. In an analysis of 100 prime-time television shows between 1976 and 1990, Cuklanz (2000) finds distinct differences between those broadcast before and after the mid-1980s. In the earlier period, rapes largely were represented in stock story lines as attacks by strangers who seriously injured their victims; victims, however, were not the focus of these stories. Rather, rapists and male detectives took center stage, the former portrayed as monstrous and the latter as violent avengers sympathetic to and protective of the victims. In a follow-up piece, Cuklanz and Moorti (2006) explore the depiction of sexual assault in the television program Law and Order: Special Victims Unit . While acknowledging the feminist influence and perspective of the show, they argue that female criminals and qualities are denigrated in certain respects and that “the tradition of the historically masculine detective genre” is upheld (p. 302).

Fictionalized portrayals of sexual assault can have important consequences. For instance, Young (2010) argues that it should not automatically be assumed that popular cultural representations convey the trauma and violence of rape in ways most feminists would approve. Indeed McKinnon (1993) suggests that, by titillating audiences, media depictions of rape function as pornography more than condemnation. 4 Relatedly Kahlor and Eastin (2011) find that television viewing can encourage the acceptance of rape myths, including the myth that women “enjoy” rape. On the whole, then, some research in this area interprets dominant representations of sexual assault as insidiously undermining progressive approaches to understanding and preventing violence against women ( Cuklanz 2000 ).

Cultural criminologists and criminologists interested in fictional representations of crime highlight the ideological and political texture of movies, television, and other visual media as well as multiple understandings these media evoke ( Cavender 1999 ; Rafter 2000 ; Jones and Wardle 2008 ). For example, as Rafter (2007 , p. 403) comments about sex and crime in film, “[i]f we define criminology as the study of crime and criminals, then it becomes clear that film is one of the primary sources (albeit an unscientific one) through which people get their ideas about the nature of crime.” Visual representations of crime also reflect and reinforce popular notions about gender. For Sparks (1996) , this is a key element of the effects of screen violence. His analysis of masculinity and heroism in Hollywood movies concludes that although men’s fantasies are fed by images of the sacrifice, courage, and risk-taking of filmic heroes, this is only one of many products of these images. More troubling for Sparks is the argument made by Tompkins (1992 , pp. 228–29, emphasis in original) that “The entire purpose of the pattern...[is] to get the audience to the point where it can’t wait till the hero lets loose with his six-shooters...Vengeance, by the time it arrives, feels biologically necessary...This is the moment of moral ecstasy. The hero is so right (that is, so wronged) that he can kill with impunity.”

30.5. Future Directions for Media and Crime Research

Research on media representations of gender, sex, and crime is a significant and growing subarea within the study of crime and deviance generally. As this essay indicates, a number of themes have emerged from this research. Many representations of women and men as victims and offenders in news media, movies, and television tend to reinforce gender stereotypes, as well as other stereotypes concerning ethnicity, race, and class. In addition, crime stories selected for media coverage seem to influence beliefs and fears about crime differently for women and men. At the same time, many scholars believe media representations can challenge traditional notions and encourage more progressive responses to gendered violence. For cultural criminologists (and as has happened analogously in sociology), crime, criminal justice, media, and culture are closely interconnected; these scholars have called for criminologists to pay much closer attention to the importance of culture. Cultural criminology is likely to have an even greater impact as the interdisciplinary orientation of criminology and the complexity of mass media continue to expand.

What directions in the study of gender, sex, media and crime deserve further exploration going forward? For one thing, cultural criminology, as introduced in the work of Ferrell, Hayward, and Young (among others), emphasizes the need to further explore crimes’ cultural meaning for participants. One criticism of this rich and emerging subfield of media and crime research, though, is that while cultural criminology has produced some analysis of masculinities and crime (e.g., Winlow and Hall 2009 ), cultural criminologists have not devoted much attention to gender overall (the work of Cunneen and Stubbs [2004] is an exception). Still, cultural criminology has the potential to be used such that gender as it affects both women and men is highlighted and insights from a rich array of feminist theories are more noticeably incorporated.

A second direction for gender, crime, and media studies is toward greater inclusion of film and television studies. This suggestion acknowledges the strong influence of crime news as well as popular cultural media like television and film in affecting how people imagine, perceive, and even make policies regarding crime. Further work is needed to recognize, as do Rafter and Brown (2011) , how lines between fictional and nonfictional “realities” of crime can become blurred in contemporary media.

Third, much can be learned from the theoretically sophisticated development of film studies and cinema research in the humanities. For instance, classic film discussions of the male gaze and of different spectator positions taken when watching movies may be applicable to criminology by providing insight into how people “read” representations of gender and crime sometimes consciously but also in unconscious ways. This is precisely the focus of Duncan’s (1999) interesting work on outlaws and American culture, a study that creatively incorporates psychoanalytic ideas.

A fourth and increasingly rich area of study concerns new media that are digitally interactive and produced directly by users. Similar to older forms of mass media, new media can produce, reproduce, transform, and challenge images of gender and crime. They also can provide more opportunities for gender violence (e.g., Dimond, Fiesler, and Bruckman 2011 ), more methods by which women can respond to gender violence (e.g., Daniels 2009 ), while affecting perceptions of gender stratification of crime (e.g., Adams 2003 ). Indeed, the growth of cyberculture, the globalization of new media, and the emergence of virtual communities seem likely to alter the relationships among gender, crime, and media in significant ways.

The vibrant subfields of gender, media, sex, and crime—and their interaction—are here to stay. As the twenty-first century unfolds, examining both nonfictional and fictional media is likely to become increasingly important. Crime is intimately bound up with our definitions, perceptions, and social reactions, making the media a key dimension for understanding issues of sexism and heterosexism that feminists from the second wave through the present have brought into the spotlight of our cultural awareness.

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Article contents

Violence, media effects, and criminology.

• Nickie D. Phillips Nickie D. Phillips Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, St. Francis College
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.189
• Published online: 27 July 2017

Debate surrounding the impact of media representations on violence and crime has raged for decades and shows no sign of abating. Over the years, the targets of concern have shifted from film to comic books to television to video games, but the central questions remain the same. What is the relationship between popular media and audience emotions, attitudes, and behaviors? While media effects research covers a vast range of topics—from the study of its persuasive effects in advertising to its positive impact on emotions and behaviors—of particular interest to criminologists is the relationship between violence in popular media and real-life aggression and violence. Does media violence cause aggression and/or violence?

The study of media effects is informed by a variety of theoretical perspectives and spans many disciplines including communications and media studies, psychology, medicine, sociology, and criminology. Decades of research have amassed on the topic, yet there is no clear agreement about the impact of media or about which methodologies are most appropriate. Instead, there continues to be disagreement about whether media portrayals of violence are a serious problem and, if so, how society should respond.

Conflicting interpretations of research findings inform and shape public debate around media effects. Although there seems to be a consensus among scholars that exposure to media violence impacts aggression, there is less agreement around its potential impact on violence and criminal behavior. While a few criminologists focus on the phenomenon of copycat crimes, most rarely engage with whether media directly causes violence. Instead, they explore broader considerations of the relationship between media, popular culture, and society.

• media exposure
• criminal behavior
• popular culture
• media violence
• media and crime
• copycat crimes

Media Exposure, Violence, and Aggression

On Friday July 22, 2016 , a gunman killed nine people at a mall in Munich, Germany. The 18-year-old shooter was subsequently characterized by the media as being under psychiatric care and harboring at least two obsessions. One, an obsession with mass shootings, including that of Anders Breivik who ultimately killed 77 people in Norway in 2011 , and the other an obsession with video games. A Los Angeles, California, news report stated that the gunman was “an avid player of first-person shooter video games, including ‘Counter-Strike,’” while another headline similarly declared, “Munich gunman, a fan of violent video games, rampage killers, had planned attack for a year”(CNN Wire, 2016 ; Reuters, 2016 ). This high-profile incident was hardly the first to link popular culture to violent crime. Notably, in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine shooting massacre, for example, media sources implicated and later discredited music, video games, and a gothic aesthetic as causal factors of the crime (Cullen, 2009 ; Yamato, 2016 ). Other, more recent, incidents have echoed similar claims suggesting that popular culture has a nefarious influence on consumers.

Media violence and its impact on audiences are among the most researched and examined topics in communications studies (Hetsroni, 2007 ). Yet, debate over whether media violence causes aggression and violence persists, particularly in response to high-profile criminal incidents. Blaming video games, and other forms of media and popular culture, as contributing to violence is not a new phenomenon. However, interpreting media effects can be difficult because commenters often seem to indicate a grand consensus that understates more contradictory and nuanced interpretations of the data.

In fact, there is a consensus among many media researchers that media violence has an impact on aggression although its impact on violence is less clear. For example, in response to the shooting in Munich, Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology, avoided pinning the incident solely on video games, but in the process supported the assertion that video gameplay is linked to aggression. He stated,

While there isn’t complete consensus in any scientific field, a study we conducted showed more than 90% of pediatricians and about two-thirds of media researchers surveyed agreed that violent video games increase aggression in children. (Bushman, 2016 )

Others, too, have reached similar conclusions with regard to other media. In 2008 , psychologist John Murray summarized decades of research stating, “Fifty years of research on the effect of TV violence on children leads to the inescapable conclusion that viewing media violence is related to increases in aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors” (Murray, 2008 , p. 1212). Scholars Glenn Sparks and Cheri Sparks similarly declared that,

Despite the fact that controversy still exists about the impact of media violence, the research results reveal a dominant and consistent pattern in favor of the notion that exposure to violent media images does increase the risk of aggressive behavior. (Sparks & Sparks, 2002 , p. 273)

In 2014 , psychologist Wayne Warburton more broadly concluded that the vast majority of studies have found “that exposure to violent media increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in the short and longterm, increases hostile perceptions and attitudes, and desensitizes individuals to violent content” (Warburton, 2014 , p. 64).

Criminologists, too, are sensitive to the impact of media exposure. For example, Jacqueline Helfgott summarized the research:

There have been over 1000 studies on the effects of TV and film violence over the past 40 years. Research on the influence of TV violence on aggression has consistently shown that TV violence increases aggression and social anxiety, cultivates a “mean view” of the world, and negatively impacts real-world behavior. (Helfgott, 2015 , p. 50)

In his book, Media Coverage of Crime and Criminal Justice , criminologist Matthew Robinson stated, “Studies of the impact of media on violence are crystal clear in their findings and implications for society” (Robinson, 2011 , p. 135). He cited studies on childhood exposure to violent media leading to aggressive behavior as evidence. In his pioneering book Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice , criminologist Ray Surette concurred that media violence is linked to aggression, but offered a nuanced interpretation. He stated,

a small to modest but genuine causal role for media violence regarding viewer aggression has been established for most beyond a reasonable doubt . . . There is certainly a connection between violent media and social aggression, but its strength and configuration is simply not known at this time. (Surette, 2011 , p. 68)

The uncertainties about the strength of the relationship and the lack of evidence linking media violence to real-world violence is often lost in the news media accounts of high-profile violent crimes.

Media Exposure and Copycat Crimes

While many scholars do seem to agree that there is evidence that media violence—whether that of film, TV, or video games—increases aggression, they disagree about its impact on violent or criminal behavior (Ferguson, 2014 ; Gunter, 2008 ; Helfgott, 2015 ; Reiner, 2002 ; Savage, 2008 ). Nonetheless, it is violent incidents that most often prompt speculation that media causes violence. More specifically, violence that appears to mimic portrayals of violent media tends to ignite controversy. For example, the idea that films contribute to violent crime is not a new assertion. Films such as A Clockwork Orange , Menace II Society , Set it Off , and Child’s Play 3 , have been linked to crimes and at least eight murders have been linked to Oliver Stone’s 1994 film Natural Born Killers (Bracci, 2010 ; Brooks, 2002 ; PBS, n.d. ). Nonetheless, pinpointing a direct, causal relationship between media and violent crime remains elusive.

Criminologist Jacqueline Helfgott defined copycat crime as a “crime that is inspired by another crime” (Helfgott, 2015 , p. 51). The idea is that offenders model their behavior on media representations of violence whether real or fictional. One case, in particular, illustrated how popular culture, media, and criminal violence converge. On July 20, 2012 , James Holmes entered the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises , the third film in the massively successful Batman trilogy, in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He shot and killed 12 people and wounded 70 others. At the time, the New York Times described the incident,

Witnesses told the police that Mr. Holmes said something to the effect of “I am the Joker,” according to a federal law enforcement official, and that his hair had been dyed or he was wearing a wig. Then, as people began to rise from their seats in confusion or anxiety, he began to shoot. The gunman paused at least once, several witnesses said, perhaps to reload, and continued firing. (Frosch & Johnson, 2012 ).

The dyed hair, Holme’s alleged comment, and that the incident occurred at a popular screening led many to speculate that the shooter was influenced by the earlier film in the trilogy and reignited debate around the impact about media violence. The Daily Mail pointed out that Holmes may have been motivated by a 25-year-old Batman comic in which a gunman opens fire in a movie theater—thus further suggesting the iconic villain served as motivation for the attack (Graham & Gallagher, 2012 ). Perceptions of the “Joker connection” fed into the notion that popular media has a direct causal influence on violent behavior even as press reports later indicated that Holmes had not, in fact, made reference to the Joker (Meyer, 2015 ).

A week after the Aurora shooting, the New York Daily News published an article detailing a “possible copycat” crime. A suspect was arrested in his Maryland home after making threatening phone calls to his workplace. The article reported that the suspect stated, “I am a [sic] joker” and “I’m going to load my guns and blow everybody up.” In their search, police found “a lethal arsenal of 25 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition” in the suspect’s home (McShane, 2012 ).

Though criminologists are generally skeptical that those who commit violent crimes are motivated solely by media violence, there does seem to be some evidence that media may be influential in shaping how some offenders commit crime. In his study of serious and violent juvenile offenders, criminologist Ray Surette found “about one out of three juveniles reports having considered a copycat crime and about one out of four reports actually having attempted one.” He concluded that “those juveniles who are self-reported copycats are significantly more likely to credit the media as both a general and personal influence.” Surette contended that though violent offenses garner the most media attention, copycat criminals are more likely to be career criminals and to commit property crimes rather than violent crimes (Surette, 2002 , pp. 56, 63; Surette 2011 ).

Discerning what crimes may be classified as copycat crimes is a challenge. Jacqueline Helfgott suggested they occur on a “continuum of influence.” On one end, she said, media plays a relatively minor role in being a “component of the modus operandi” of the offender, while on the other end, she said, “personality disordered media junkies” have difficulty distinguishing reality from violent fantasy. According to Helfgott, various factors such as individual characteristics, characteristics of media sources, relationship to media, demographic factors, and cultural factors are influential. Overall, scholars suggest that rather than pushing unsuspecting viewers to commit crimes, media more often influences how , rather than why, someone commits a crime (Helfgott, 2015 ; Marsh & Melville, 2014 ).

Given the public interest, there is relatively little research devoted to exactly what copycat crimes are and how they occur. Part of the problem of studying these types of crimes is the difficulty defining and measuring the concept. In an effort to clarify and empirically measure the phenomenon, Surette offered a scale that included seven indicators of copycat crimes. He used the following factors to identify copycat crimes: time order (media exposure must occur before the crime); time proximity (a five-year cut-off point of exposure); theme consistency (“a pattern of thought, feeling or behavior in the offender which closely parallels the media model”); scene specificity (mimicking a specific scene); repetitive viewing; self-editing (repeated viewing of single scene while “the balance of the film is ignored”); and offender statements and second-party statements indicating the influence of media. Findings demonstrated that cases are often prematurely, if not erroneously, labeled as “copycat.” Surette suggested that use of the scale offers a more precise way for researchers to objectively measure trends and frequency of copycat crimes (Surette, 2016 , p. 8).

Media Exposure and Violent Crimes

Overall, a causal link between media exposure and violent criminal behavior has yet to be validated, and most researchers steer clear of making such causal assumptions. Instead, many emphasize that media does not directly cause aggression and violence so much as operate as a risk factor among other variables (Bushman & Anderson, 2015 ; Warburton, 2014 ). In their review of media effects, Brad Bushman and psychologist Craig Anderson concluded,

In sum, extant research shows that media violence is a causal risk factor not only for mild forms of aggression but also for more serious forms of aggression, including violent criminal behavior. That does not mean that violent media exposure by itself will turn a normal child or adolescent who has few or no other risk factors into a violent criminal or a school shooter. Such extreme violence is rare, and tends to occur only when multiple risk factors converge in time, space, and within an individual. (Bushman & Anderson, 2015 , p. 1817)

Surette, however, argued that there is no clear linkage between media exposure and criminal behavior—violent or otherwise. In other words, a link between media violence and aggression does not necessarily mean that exposure to violent media causes violent (or nonviolent) criminal behavior. Though there are thousands of articles addressing media effects, many of these consist of reviews or commentary about prior research findings rather than original studies (Brown, 2007 ; Murray, 2008 ; Savage, 2008 ; Surette, 2011 ). Fewer, still, are studies that specifically measure media violence and criminal behavior (Gunter, 2008 ; Strasburger & Donnerstein, 2014 ). In their meta-analysis investigating the link between media violence and criminal aggression, scholars Joanne Savage and Christina Yancey did not find support for the assertion. Instead, they concluded,

The study of most consequence for violent crime policy actually found that exposure to media violence was significantly negatively related to violent crime rates at the aggregate level . . . It is plain to us that the relationship between exposure to violent media and serious violence has yet to be established. (Savage & Yancey, 2008 , p. 786)

Researchers continue to measure the impact of media violence among various forms of media and generally stop short of drawing a direct causal link in favor of more indirect effects. For example, one study examined the increase of gun violence in films over the years and concluded that violent scenes provide scripts for youth that justify gun violence that, in turn, may amplify aggression (Bushman, Jamieson, Weitz, & Romer, 2013 ). But others report contradictory findings. Patrick Markey and colleagues studied the relationship between rates of homicide and aggravated assault and gun violence in films from 1960–2012 and found that over the years, violent content in films increased while crime rates declined . After controlling for age shifts, poverty, education, incarceration rates, and economic inequality, the relationships remained statistically non-significant (Markey, French, & Markey, 2015 , p. 165). Psychologist Christopher Ferguson also failed to find a relationship between media violence in films and video games and violence (Ferguson, 2014 ).

Another study, by Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna, examined violent films from 1995–2004 and found decreases in violent crimes coincided with violent blockbuster movie attendance. Here, it was not the content that was alleged to impact crime rates, but instead what the authors called “voluntary incapacitation,” or the shifting of daily activities from that of potential criminal behavior to movie attendance. The authors concluded, “For each million people watching a strongly or mildly violent movie, respectively, violent crime decreases by 1.9% and 2.1%. Nonviolent movies have no statistically significant impact” (Dahl & DellaVigna, p. 39).

High-profile cases over the last several years have shifted public concern toward the perceived danger of video games, but research demonstrating a link between video games and criminal violence remains scant. The American Psychiatric Association declared that “research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression . . .” but stopped short of claiming that video games impact criminal violence. According to Breuer and colleagues, “While all of the available meta-analyses . . . found a relationship between aggression and the use of (violent) video games, the size and interpretation of this connection differ largely between these studies . . .” (APA, 2015 ; Breuer et al., 2015 ; DeCamp, 2015 ). Further, psychologists Patrick Markey, Charlotte Markey, and Juliana French conducted four time-series analyses investigating the relationship between video game habits and assault and homicide rates. The studies measured rates of violent crime, the annual and monthly video game sales, Internet searches for video game walkthroughs, and rates of violent crime occurring after the release dates of popular games. The results showed that there was no relationship between video game habits and rates of aggravated assault and homicide. Instead, there was some indication of decreases in crime (Markey, Markey, & French, 2015 ).

Another longitudinal study failed to find video games as a predictor of aggression, instead finding support for the “selection hypothesis”—that physically aggressive individuals (aged 14–17) were more likely to choose media content that contained violence than those slightly older, aged 18–21. Additionally, the researchers concluded,

that violent media do not have a substantial impact on aggressive personality or behavior, at least in the phases of late adolescence and early adulthood that we focused on. (Breuer, Vogelgesang, Quandt, & Festl, 2015 , p. 324)

Overall, the lack of a consistent finding demonstrating that media exposure causes violent crime may not be particularly surprising given that studies linking media exposure, aggression, and violence suffer from a host of general criticisms. By way of explanation, social theorist David Gauntlett maintained that researchers frequently employ problematic definitions of aggression and violence, questionable methodologies, rely too much on fictional violence, neglect the social meaning of violence, and assume the third-person effect—that is, assume that other, vulnerable people are impacted by media, but “we” are not (Ferguson & Dyck, 2012 ; Gauntlett, 2001 ).

Others, such as scholars Martin Barker and Julian Petley, flatly reject the notion that violent media exposure is a causal factor for aggression and/or violence. In their book Ill Effects , the authors stated instead that it is simply “stupid” to query about “what are the effects of [media] violence” without taking context into account (p. 2). They counter what they describe as moral campaigners who advance the idea that media violence causes violence. Instead, Barker and Petley argue that audiences interpret media violence in a variety of ways based on their histories, experiences, and knowledge, and as such, it makes little sense to claim media “cause” violence (Barker & Petley, 2001 ).

Given the seemingly inconclusive and contradictory findings regarding media effects research, to say that the debate can, at times, be contentious is an understatement. One article published in European Psychologist queried “Does Doing Media Violence Research Make One Aggressive?” and lamented that the debate had devolved into an ideological one (Elson & Ferguson, 2013 ). Another academic journal published a special issue devoted to video games and youth and included a transcript of exchanges between two scholars to demonstrate that a “peaceful debate” was, in fact, possible (Ferguson & Konijn, 2015 ).

Nonetheless, in this debate, the stakes are high and the policy consequences profound. After examining over 900 published articles, publication patterns, prominent authors and coauthors, and disciplinary interest in the topic, scholar James Anderson argued that prominent media effects scholars, whom he deems the “causationists,” had developed a cottage industry dependent on funding by agencies focused primarily on the negative effects of media on children. Anderson argued that such a focus presents media as a threat to family values and ultimately operates as a zero-sum game. As a result, attention and resources are diverted toward media and away from other priorities that are essential to understanding aggression such as social disadvantage, substance abuse, and parental conflict (Anderson, 2008 , p. 1276).

Theoretical Perspectives on Media Effects

Understanding how media may impact attitudes and behavior has been the focus of media and communications studies for decades. Numerous theoretical perspectives offer insight into how and to what extent the media impacts the audience. As scholar Jenny Kitzinger documented in 2004 , there are generally two ways to approach the study of media effects. One is to foreground the power of media. That is, to suggest that the media holds powerful sway over viewers. Another perspective is to foreground the power and heterogeneity of the audience and to recognize that it is comprised of active agents (Kitzinger, 2004 ).

The notion of an all-powerful media can be traced to the influence of scholars affiliated with the Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School, in the 1930–1940s and proponents of the mass society theory. The institute was originally founded in Germany but later moved to the United States. Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes outlined how mass society theory assumed that members of the public were susceptible to media messages. This, theorists argued, was a result of rapidly changing social conditions and industrialization that produced isolated, impressionable individuals “cut adrift from kinship and organic ties and lacking moral cohesion” (Jewkes, 2015 , p. 13). In this historical context, in the era of World War II, the impact of Nazi propaganda was particularly resonant. Here, the media was believed to exhibit a unidirectional flow, operating as a powerful force influencing the masses. The most useful metaphor for this perspective described the media as a “hypodermic syringe” that could “‘inject’ values, ideas and information directly into the passive receiver producing direct and unmediated ‘effects’” (Jewkes, 2015 , pp. 16, 34). Though the hypodermic syringe model seems simplistic today, the idea that the media is all-powerful continues to inform contemporary public discourse around media and violence.

Concern of the power of media captured the attention of researchers interested in its purported negative impact on children. In one of the earliest series of studies in the United States during the late 1920s–1930s, researchers attempted to quantitatively measure media effects with the Payne Fund Studies. For example, they investigated how film, a relatively new medium, impacted children’s attitudes and behaviors, including antisocial and violent behavior. At the time, the Payne Fund Studies’ findings fueled the notion that children were indeed negatively influenced by films. This prompted the film industry to adopt a self-imposed code regulating content (Sparks & Sparks, 2002 ; Surette, 2011 ). Not everyone agreed with the approach. In fact, the methodologies employed in the studies received much criticism, and ultimately, the movement was branded as a moral crusade to regulate film content. Scholars Garth Jowett, Ian Jarvie, and Kathryn Fuller wrote about the significance of the studies,

We have seen this same policy battle fought and refought over radio, television, rock and roll, music videos and video games. Their researchers looked to see if intuitive concerns could be given concrete, measurable expression in research. While they had partial success, as have all subsequent efforts, they also ran into intractable problems . . . Since that day, no way has yet been found to resolve the dilemma of cause and effect: do crime movies create more crime, or do the criminally inclined enjoy and perhaps imitate crime movies? (Jowett, Jarvie, & Fuller, 1996 , p. 12)

As the debate continued, more sophisticated theoretical perspectives emerged. Efforts to empirically measure the impact of media on aggression and violence continued, albeit with equivocal results. In the 1950s and 1960s, psychological behaviorism, or understanding psychological motivations through observable behavior, became a prominent lens through which to view the causal impact of media violence. This type of research was exemplified by Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll studies demonstrating that children exposed to aggressive behavior, either observed in real life or on film, behaved more aggressively than those in control groups who were not exposed to the behavior. The assumption derived was that children learn through exposure and imitate behavior (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963 ). Though influential, the Bandura experiments were nevertheless heavily criticized. Some argued the laboratory conditions under which children were exposed to media were not generalizable to real-life conditions. Others challenged the assumption that children absorb media content in an unsophisticated manner without being able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. In fact, later studies did find children to be more discerning consumers of media than popularly believed (Gauntlett, 2001 ).

Hugely influential in our understandings of human behavior, the concept of social learning has been at the core of more contemporary understandings of media effects. For example, scholar Christopher Ferguson noted that the General Aggression Model (GAM), rooted in social learning and cognitive theory, has for decades been a dominant model for understanding how media impacts aggression and violence. GAM is described as the idea that “aggression is learned by the activation and repetition of cognitive scripts coupled with the desensitization of emotional responses due to repeated exposure.” However, Ferguson noted that its usefulness has been debated and advocated for a paradigm shift (Ferguson, 2013 , pp. 65, 27; Krahé, 2014 ).

Though the methodologies of the Payne Fund Studies and Bandura studies were heavily criticized, concern over media effects continued to be tied to larger moral debates including the fear of moral decline and concern over the welfare of children. Most notably, in the 1950s, psychiatrist Frederic Wertham warned of the dangers of comic books, a hugely popular medium at the time, and their impact on juveniles. Based on anecdotes and his clinical experience with children, Wertham argued that images of graphic violence and sexual debauchery in comic books were linked to juvenile delinquency. Though he was far from the only critic of comic book content, his criticisms reached the masses and gained further notoriety with the publication of his 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent . Wertham described the comic book content thusly,

The stories have a lot of crime and gunplay and, in addition, alluring advertisements of guns, some of them full-page and in bright colors, with four guns of various sizes and descriptions on a page . . . Here is the repetition of violence and sexiness which no Freud, Krafft-Ebing or Havelock Ellis ever dreamed could be offered to children, and in such profusion . . . I have come to the conclusion that this chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction by comic books, both their content and their alluring advertisements of knives and guns, are contributing factors to many children’s maladjustment. (Wertham, 1954 , p. 39)

Wertham’s work was instrumental in shaping public opinion and policies about the dangers of comic books. Concern about the impact of comics reached its apex in 1954 with the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Wertham testified before the committee, arguing that comics were a leading cause of juvenile delinquency. Ultimately, the protest of graphic content in comic books by various interest groups contributed to implementation of the publishers’ self-censorship code, the Comics Code Authority, which essentially designated select books that were deemed “safe” for children (Nyberg, 1998 ). The code remained in place for decades, though it was eventually relaxed and decades later phased out by the two most dominant publishers, DC and Marvel.

Wertham’s work, however influential in impacting the comic industry, was ultimately panned by academics. Although scholar Bart Beaty characterized Wertham’s position as more nuanced, if not progressive, than the mythology that followed him, Wertham was broadly dismissed as a moral reactionary (Beaty, 2005 ; Phillips & Strobl, 2013 ). The most damning criticism of Wertham’s work came decades later, from Carol Tilley’s examination of Wertham’s files. She concluded that in Seduction of the Innocent ,

Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain. (Tilley, 2012 , p. 386)

Tilley linked Wertham’s approach to that of the Frankfurt theorists who deemed popular culture a social threat and contended that Wertham was most interested in “cultural correction” rather than scientific inquiry (Tilley, 2012 , p. 404).

Over the decades, concern about the moral impact of media remained while theoretical and methodological approaches to media effects studies continued to evolve (Rich, Bickham, & Wartella, 2015 ). In what many consider a sophisticated development, theorists began to view the audience as more active and multifaceted than the mass society perspective allowed (Kitzinger, 2004 ). One perspective, based on a “uses and gratifications” model, assumes that rather than a passive audience being injected with values and information, a more active audience selects and “uses” media as a response to their needs and desires. Studies of uses and gratifications take into account how choice of media is influenced by one’s psychological and social circumstances. In this context, media provides a variety of functions for consumers who may engage with it for the purposes of gathering information, reducing boredom, seeking enjoyment, or facilitating communication (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973 ; Rubin, 2002 ). This approach differs from earlier views in that it privileges the perspective and agency of the audience.

Another approach, the cultivation theory, gained momentum among researchers in the 1970s and has been of particular interest to criminologists. It focuses on how television television viewing impacts viewers’ attitudes toward social reality. The theory was first introduced by communications scholar George Gerbner, who argued the importance of understanding messages that long-term viewers absorb. Rather than examine the effect of specific content within any given programming, cultivation theory,

looks at exposure to massive flows of messages over long periods of time. The cultivation process takes place in the interaction of the viewer with the message; neither the message nor the viewer are all-powerful. (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Singnorielli, & Shanahan, 2002 , p. 48)

In other words, he argued, television viewers are, over time, exposed to messages about the way the world works. As Gerbner and colleagues stated, “continued exposure to its messages is likely to reiterate, confirm, and nourish—that is, cultivate—its own values and perspectives” (p. 49).

One of the most well-known consequences of heavy media exposure is what Gerbner termed the “mean world” syndrome. He coined it based on studies that found that long-term exposure to media violence among heavy television viewers, “tends to cultivate the image of a relatively mean and dangerous world” (p. 52). Inherent in Gerbner’s view was that media representations are separate and distinct entities from “real life.” That is, it is the distorted representations of crime and violence that cultivate the notion that the world is a dangerous place. In this context, Gerbner found that heavy television viewers are more likely to be fearful of crime and to overestimate their chances of being a victim of violence (Gerbner, 1994 ).

Though there is evidence in support of cultivation theory, the strength of the relationship between media exposure and fear of crime is inconclusive. This is in part due to the recognition that audience members are not homogenous. Instead, researchers have found that there are many factors that impact the cultivating process. This includes, but is not limited to, “class, race, gender, place of residence, and actual experience of crime” (Reiner, 2002 ; Sparks, 1992 ). Or, as Ted Chiricos and colleagues remarked in their study of crime news and fear of crime, “The issue is not whether media accounts of crime increase fear, but which audiences, with which experiences and interests, construct which meanings from the messages received” (Chiricos, Eschholz, & Gertz, p. 354).

Other researchers found that exposure to media violence creates a desensitizing effect, that is, that as viewers consume more violent media, they become less empathetic as well as psychologically and emotionally numb when confronted with actual violence (Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, 2006 ; Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, 2007 ; Cline, Croft, & Courrier, 1973 ; Fanti, Vanman, Henrich, & Avraamides, 2009 ; Krahé et al., 2011 ). Other scholars such as Henry Giroux, however, point out that our contemporary culture is awash in violence and “everyone is infected.” From this perspective, the focus is not on certain individuals whose exposure to violent media leads to a desensitization of real-life violence, but rather on the notion that violence so permeates society that it has become normalized in ways that are divorced from ethical and moral implications. Giroux wrote,

While it would be wrong to suggest that the violence that saturates popular culture directly causes violence in the larger society, it is arguable that such violence serves not only to produce an insensitivity to real life violence but also functions to normalize violence as both a source of pleasure and as a practice for addressing social issues. When young people and others begin to believe that a world of extreme violence, vengeance, lawlessness, and revenge is the only world they inhabit, the culture and practice of real-life violence is more difficult to scrutinize, resist, and transform . . . (Giroux, 2015 )

For Giroux, the danger is that the normalization of violence has become a threat to democracy itself. In our culture of mass consumption shaped by neoliberal logics, depoliticized narratives of violence have become desired forms of entertainment and are presented in ways that express tolerance for some forms of violence while delegitimizing other forms of violence. In their book, Disposable Futures , Brad Evans and Henry Giroux argued that as the spectacle of violence perpetuates fear of inevitable catastrophe, it reinforces expansion of police powers, increased militarization and other forms of social control, and ultimately renders marginalized members of the populace disposable (Evans & Giroux, 2015 , p. 81).

Criminology and the “Media/Crime Nexus”

Most criminologists and sociologists who focus on media and crime are generally either dismissive of the notion that media violence directly causes violence or conclude that findings are more complex than traditional media effects models allow, preferring to focus attention on the impact of media violence on society rather than individual behavior (Carrabine, 2008 ; Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2015 ; Jewkes, 2015 ; Kitzinger, 2004 ; Marsh & Melville, 2014 ; Rafter, 2006 ; Sternheimer, 2003 ; Sternheimer 2013 ; Surette, 2011 ). Sociologist Karen Sternheimer forcefully declared “media culture is not the root cause of American social problems, not the Big Bad Wolf, as our ongoing public discussion would suggest” (Sternheimer, 2003 , p. 3). Sternheimer rejected the idea that media causes violence and argued that a false connection has been forged between media, popular culture, and violence. Like others critical of a singular focus on media, Sternheimer posited that overemphasis on the perceived dangers of media violence serves as a red herring that directs attention away from the actual causes of violence rooted in factors such as poverty, family violence, abuse, and economic inequalities (Sternheimer, 2003 , 2013 ). Similarly, in her Media and Crime text, Yvonne Jewkes stated that U.K. scholars tend to reject findings of a causal link because the studies are too reductionist; criminal behavior cannot be reduced to a single causal factor such as media consumption. Echoing Gauntlett’s critiques of media effects research, Jewkes stated that simplistic causal assumptions ignore “the wider context of a lifetime of meaning-making” (Jewkes, 2015 , p. 17).

Although they most often reject a “violent media cause violence” relationship, criminologists do not dismiss the notion of media as influential. To the contrary, over the decades much criminological interest has focused on the construction of social problems, the ideological implications of media, and media’s potential impact on crime policies and social control. Eamonn Carrabine noted that the focus of concern is not whether media directly causes violence but on “how the media promote damaging stereotypes of social groups, especially the young, to uphold the status quo” (Carrabine, 2008 , p. 34). Theoretically, these foci have been traced to the influence of cultural and Marxist studies. For example, criminologists frequently focus on how social anxieties and class inequalities impact our understandings of the relationship between media violence and attitudes, values, and behaviors. Influential works in the 1970s, such as Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order by Stuart Hall et al. and Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics , shifted criminological critique toward understanding media as a hegemonic force that reinforces state power and social control (Brown, 2011 ; Carrabine, 2008 ; Cohen, 2005 ; Garland, 2008 ; Hall et al., 2013 /1973, 2013/1973 ). Since that time, moral panic has become a common framework applied to public discourse around a variety of social issues including road rage, child abuse, popular music, sex panics, and drug abuse among others.

Into the 21st century , advances in technology, including increased use of social media, shifted the ways that criminologists approach the study of media effects. Scholar Sheila Brown traced how research in criminology evolved from a focus on “media and crime” to what she calls the “media/crime nexus” that recognizes that “media experience is real experience” (Brown, 2011 , p. 413). In other words, many criminologists began to reject as fallacy what social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson deemed “digital dualism,” or the notion that we have an “online” existence that is separate and distinct from our “off-line” existence. Instead, we exist simultaneously both online and offline, an

augmented reality that exists at the intersection of materiality and information, physicality and digitality, bodies and technology, atoms and bits, the off and the online. It is wrong to say “IRL” [in real life] to mean offline: Facebook is real life. (Jurgenson, 2012 )

The changing media landscape has been of particular interest to cultural criminologists. Michelle Brown recognized the omnipresence of media as significant in terms of methodological preferences and urged a move away from a focus on causality and predictability toward a more fluid approach that embraces the complex, contemporary media-saturated social reality characterized by uncertainty and instability (Brown, 2007 ).

Cultural criminologists have indeed rejected direct, causal relationships in favor of the recognition that social meanings of aggression and violence are constantly in transition, flowing through the media landscape, where “bits of information reverberate and bend back on themselves, creating a fluid porosity of meaning that defines late-modern life, and the nature of crime and media within it.” In other words, there is no linear relationship between crime and its representation. Instead, crime is viewed as inseparable from the culture in which our everyday lives are constantly re-created in loops and spirals that “amplify, distort, and define the experience of crime and criminality itself” (Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2015 , pp. 154–155). As an example of this shift in understanding media effects, criminologist Majid Yar proposed that we consider how the transition from being primarily consumers to primarily producers of content may serve as a motivating mechanism for criminal behavior. Here, Yar is suggesting that the proliferation of user-generated content via media technologies such as social media (i.e., the desire “to be seen” and to manage self-presentation) has a criminogenic component worthy of criminological inquiry (Yar, 2012 ). Shifting attention toward the media/crime nexus and away from traditional media effects analyses opens possibilities for a deeper understanding of the ways that media remains an integral part of our everyday lives and inseparable from our understandings of and engagement with crime and violence.

Over the years, from films to comic books to television to video games to social media, concerns over media effects have shifted along with changing technologies. While there seems to be some consensus that exposure to violent media impacts aggression, there is little evidence showing its impact on violent or criminal behavior. Nonetheless, high-profile violent crimes continue to reignite public interest in media effects, particularly with regard to copycat crimes.

At times, academic debate around media effects remains contentious and one’s academic discipline informs the study and interpretation of media effects. Criminologists and sociologists are generally reluctant to attribute violence and criminal behavior directly to exposure to violence media. They are, however, not dismissive of the impact of media on attitudes, social policies, and social control as evidenced by the myriad of studies on moral panics and other research that addresses the relationship between media, social anxieties, gender, race, and class inequalities. Scholars who study media effects are also sensitive to the historical context of the debates and ways that moral concerns shape public policies. The self-regulating codes of the film industry and the comic book industry have led scholars to be wary of hyperbole and policy overreach in response to claims of media effects. Future research will continue to explore ways that changing technologies, including increasing use of social media, will impact our understandings and perceptions of crime as well as criminal behavior.

Further Reading

• American Psychological Association . (2015). Resolution on violent video games . Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/about/policy/violent-video-games.aspx
• Anderson, J. A. , & Grimes, T. (2008). Special issue: Media violence. Introduction. American Behavioral Scientist , 51 (8), 1059–1060.
• Berlatsky, N. (Ed.). (2012). Media violence: Opposing viewpoints . Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven.
• Elson, M. , & Ferguson, C. J. (2014). Twenty-five years of research on violence in digital games and aggression. European Psychologist , 19 (1), 33–46.
• Ferguson, C. (Ed.). (2015). Special issue: Video games and youth. Psychology of Popular Media Culture , 4 (4).
• Ferguson, C. J. , Olson, C. K. , Kutner, L. A. , & Warner, D. E. (2014). Violent video games, catharsis seeking, bullying, and delinquency: A multivariate analysis of effects. Crime & Delinquency , 60 (5), 764–784.
• Gentile, D. (2013). Catharsis and media violence: A conceptual analysis. Societies , 3 (4), 491–510.
• Huesmann, L. R. (2007). The impact of electronic media violence: Scientific theory and research. Journal of Adolescent Health , 41 (6), S6–S13.
• Huesmann, L. R. , & Taylor, L. D. (2006). The role of media violence in violent behavior. Annual Review of Public Health , 27 (1), 393–415.
• Krahé, B. (Ed.). (2013). Special issue: Understanding media violence effects. Societies , 3 (3).
• Media Violence Commission, International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA) . (2012). Report of the Media Violence Commission. Aggressive Behavior , 38 (5), 335–341.
• Rich, M. , & Bickham, D. (Eds.). (2015). Special issue: Methodological advances in the field of media influences on children. Introduction. American Behavioral Scientist , 59 (14), 1731–1735.
• American Psychological Association (APA) . (2015, August 13). APA review confirms link between playing violent video games and aggression . Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/08/violent-video-games.aspx
• Anderson, J. A. (2008). The production of media violence and aggression research: A cultural analysis. American Behavioral Scientist , 51 (8), 1260–1279.
• Bandura, A. , Ross, D. , & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 66 (1), 3–11.
• Barker, M. , & Petley, J. (2001). Ill effects: The media violence debate (2d ed.). London: Routledge.
• Bartholow, B. D. , Bushman, B. J. , & Sestir, M. A. (2006). Chronic violent video game exposure and desensitization to violence: Behavioral and event-related brain potential data. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 42 (4), 532–539.
• Beaty, B. (2005). Fredric Wertham and the critique of mass culture . Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
• Bracci, P. (2010, March 12). The police were sure James Bulger’s ten-year-old killers were simply wicked. But should their parents have been in the dock? Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1257614/The-police-sure-James-Bulgers-year-old-killers-simply-wicked-But-parents-dock.html
• Breuer, J. , Vogelgesang, J. , Quandt, T. , & Festl, R. (2015). Violent video games and physical aggression: Evidence for a selection effect among adolescents. Psychology of Popular Media Culture , 4 (4), 305–328.
• Brooks, X. (2002, December 19). Natural born copycats . Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/dec/20/artsfeatures1
• Brown, M. (2007). Beyond the requisites: Alternative starting points in the study of media effects and youth violence. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture , 14 (1), 1–20.
• Brown, S. (2011). Media/crime/millennium: Where are we now? A reflective review of research and theory directions in the 21st century. Sociology Compass , 5 (6), 413–425.
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Sexual Violence in the Media: An Exploration of Traditional Print Media Reporting in the United States, 2014–2017

Weekly / November 27, 2020 / 69(47);1757–1761

Olivia Egen, MPH 1 ,2 ; Laura M. Mercer Kollar, PhD 2 ; Jenny Dills, MPH 2 ; Kathleen C. Basile, PhD 2 ; Bethlehem Besrat, MPH 3 ; Laura Palumbo, MA 4 ; Kellie E. Carlyle, PhD 5 ( View author affiliations )

What is already known about this topic?

Sexual violence media portrayals can influence public perceptions, which can affect social norms and behavior.

What is added by this report?

Examination of articles from traditional print media outlets found regional and temporal differences in types of sexual violence covered, media language used, and outcomes reported in news story coverage in 2017, compared with that from 2014 to 2016.

What are the implications for public health practice?

Through cross-sectoral collaboration and use of the Sexual Violence Media Guide language suggestions, media, public health practitioners, and communities can work together to effectively use best practices to report on sexual violence, emphasize sexual violence as preventable, and frame sexual violence as a public health issue.

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Sexual violence is prevalent and, for many victims, begins early in life ( 1 ). In the United States, one in five women and one in 38 men report completed or attempted rape victimization during their lifetime, with 43.2% of female and 51.3% of male victims reporting that their first rape victimization occurred before age 18 years ( 1 ). Media have been shown to act as a socializing agent for a range of health and social behaviors ( 2 ). Media portrayals might influence, reinforce, or modify how the public responds to incidents of sexual violence and their support for prevention efforts and media might construct a lens through which the public can understand who is affected by sexual violence, what forms it takes, why it happens, and who is responsible for addressing it ( 3 ). Media portrayals of sexual violence were assessed using a systematic random sample of newspaper articles from 48 of the top 50 distributed traditional print media outlets that were examined for sexual violence content and potential differences by geographic region and year of publication. Differences by year and region in type of sexual violence covered, media language used, and outcomes reported were identified, highlighting an opportunity for public health officials, practitioners, and journalists to frame sexual violence as a preventable public health issue and to incorporate best practices from CDC and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s Sexual Violence Media Guide ( 4 ).

Whereas numerous studies describe media portrayals of sexual violence and other forms of violence ( 5 – 7 ), none examined regional or temporal differences in coverage. This study used 27 sexual violence-related terms* to identify a systematic random sample of 2,600 articles from 48 of the top 50 traditional print media outlets distributed in the United States ( 8 ) available via electronic newspaper databases. † Outlets were stratified by regional or nationwide reach, and equal systematic samples of 130 articles were selected from each stratum for each publication year, 2014–2017. Articles were coded for strata represented and year published, type of sexual violence mentioned (sexual assault, rape, child sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, prostitution, sexual harassment, or child pornography), what Sexual Violence Media Guide language was used (sex scandal/scandal, sex/intercourse, accuser, or accused) ( 4 ), and outcomes. Outcomes included perpetrator consequences (criminal justice system, civil justice system, social, or business consequences) and prevention messaging (primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention). The codebook development relied on the Sexual Violence Media Guide, which provides relevant information for effective communication about sexual violence ( 4 ). The guide is grounded in media language recommendations from the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault ( 4 ), CDC’s Stop SV: A Technical Package to Prevent Sexual Violence ( 9 ), and past similar research ( 5 , 6 ). Media language considerations include suggested language (e.g., “alleged perpetrator” or “perpetrator” if convicted) and language to avoid (e.g., “accused”). Two coders were trained, and intercoder reliability was assessed on 20% of the sample, resulting in an average Kappa = 0.81, and the remaining sample was randomly split between the coders and coded. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc Tukey comparisons were made by article characteristic (region or year) for the type of sexual violence mentioned, media language used/language to avoid, and outcomes. Codes were not mutually exclusive.

The types of sexual violence mentioned in newspaper articles ( Table 1 ) differed significantly by region ( Table 2 ). The percentage of articles within each region covering child sexual abuse was lower nationwide (28.5%) than in the Midwest (38.3%) and Northeast (42.9%) regions. National outlets published a significantly higher percentage of articles on sexual harassment (27.7%) than did media in all other regions (11.5% to 19.2%). National outlets used the term “sex scandal” or “scandal” more frequently than did media in all four regions (11.0% versus 3.5%–6.0%). The percentage of articles using the term “sex” or “intercourse” was higher in national outlets (17.1%) than in media in the Midwest (10.8%), Northeast (8.5%), and West (9.6%) regions. Inclusion of consequences for perpetrators was similar in all regions; however, calls for primary prevention of sexual violence were more frequent in national media articles (12.5%) than in those published in the Northeast (6.0%), South (6.0%), and West (7.3%).

Coverage for the types of sexual violence was similar by year, except for significant differences in reporting during 2017 for rape, sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, and sexual harassment ( Table 3 ). In 2017, reporting on rape and sex trafficking was significantly lower (34.9%, and 5.7%, respectively) than during 2014–2016 (46.8%–48.5% and 9.8%–10.9%, respectively; Table 3). Sexual harassment articles were more frequent in 2017 (35.7%) than in previous years (a low of 9.7% in 2014). Newspaper coverage in 2017 differed considerably from that in other years in media language used, with significantly more coverage than all other years for use of the term “sex scandal” or “scandal” (10.9%), “accuser” (15.4%), and “accused” (37.4%). In 2017, coverage of consequences for perpetrators (38.9%) was significantly higher than coverage in 2014 (31.5%). No significant differences by year regarding calls for primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention were found.

Major differences in the type of sexual violence mentioned, media language used, and outcomes were identified by region, year, or both. Overall, a higher percentage of articles in national outlets than in regional outlets used sex scandal, sex/intercourse and included calls for prevention. In general, the type of sexual violence mentioned and the language used in 2017 differed from that during other years (e.g., decreased mention of rape and sex trafficking and increased mention of sexual harassment). These changes might reflect wider coverage of sexual harassment and exploitation allegations involving prominent figures in the film industry, media, state and national congresses, and technology companies, including the “#metoo” movement, which experienced a resurgence in the fall of 2017 that could have influenced article content during the last quarter of 2017. §

The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, research was limited by access to electronic databases that carried traditional print media newspapers; therefore, only 48 of the top 50 distributed newspapers in the United States were accessible. Second, although outlets were identified by reach and stratified by region, how much each publication outlet encompasses rural readership is unclear, and generalizations to these populations should be made with caution. However, many print outlets are also widely available online, likely increasing their reach beyond their physical distributions. Finally, this study did not examine how audiences interact with print and electronic news media through social media. For example, social media allows users to comment on and challenge how traditional news frames sexual violence ( 10 ). Such social media interactions present an opportunity for further research and consideration in understanding the complex impact of media on public perceptions of sexual violence.

Media reporting included both suggested language (e.g., “sexual assault”) and language to avoid (e.g., “sex scandal” or “scandal”), as referenced in the Sexual Violence Media Guide ( 4 ). Traditional media might have more of an impact on increasing awareness and prevention of sexual violence if their portrayals do not place blame on the victim and if they use suggested terms to describe violent acts throughout their articles. Focused dissemination of the Sexual Violence Media Guide ( 4 ) might benefit all media outlets.

Outcomes including perpetrator consequences or prevention messaging generally were reported infrequently. Although outcomes might not be known at the time of reporting, traditional media might be missing an opportunity to integrate prevention messages within current or breaking news. The media can play an important role by partnering with public health organizations to ensure that their portrayals of sexual violence are factual, nonbiased, do not inadvertently blame victims, and include prevention messages in stories about sexual violence. One of the prevention strategies identified in the STOP SV technical package, which includes the best available evidence to prevent sexual violence, is promoting social norms that protect against violence ( 9 ). As an institution that can influence social norms, the media might contribute to efforts to prevent sexual violence through accurate descriptions of prevalence and impact of sexual violence, establishment of sexual violence as a public health issue, and, when possible, inclusion of messages and resources for prevention. In this way, awareness of the problem and prevention messaging might reach broader audiences.

Understanding how media outlets have historically framed sexual violence might help public health officials and practitioners work productively with journalists to identify potential unintended effects of specific language use. The Sexual Violence Media Guide ( 4 ) can be used to inform and evaluate the impact of public health and media collaborations. The media, public health practitioners, and communities can work together to incorporate language from the Sexual Violence Media Guide ( 4 ) to change public perceptions about circumstances surrounding sexual violence and encourage public health approaches to prevention.

Corresponding author: Laura M. Mercer Kollar, [email protected] , 770-488-1737.

1 Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, Washington, D.C.; 2 Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC; 3 Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; 4 National Sexual Violence Resource Center, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; 5 Department of Health Behavior and Policy, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.

All authors have completed and submitted the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

* Boolean search for each publication: ((“sexual violence”) OR (“sexual assault”) OR (“sexual abuse”) OR (“child sexual abuse”) OR rape OR incest OR (“intimate partner violence”) OR (“sexual exploitation”) OR (“human trafficking”) OR (“sex trafficking”) OR prostitution OR (“sexual harassment”) OR exposure OR (“unwanted penetration”) OR (“unwanted sexual contact”) OR (“forced oral contact”) OR (“forced genital contact”) OR grope OR voyeurism OR (“alleged victim”) OR (“alleged perpetrator”) OR perpetrator OR (“sex scandal”) OR intercourse OR (“perform oral sex”) OR fondle OR accuser).

† Newspaper databases: News Bank Inc. ( https://www.newsbank.com/ ); Gale OneFile ( https://www.gale.com/databases/gale-onefile ); US Newsstream ( https://about.proquest.com/products-services/nationalsnews_shtml.html ).

§ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1940161220968081 ; https://metoomvmt.org .

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* States and newspapers are listed in alphabetical order within their region; newspapers are not listed in association with the states.

* Comparisons are made between regions by type of sexual violence, media language used, and outcome/prevention messaging (p<0.05). † Nationwide significantly different from South. § Nationwide significantly different from West. ¶ Midwest significantly different from West. ** South significantly different from West. †† Nationwide significantly different from Midwest. §§ Nationwide significantly different from Northeast. ¶¶ Northeast significantly different from West. *** Midwest significantly different from Northeast. ††† Northeast significantly different from South. §§§ Significantly different from all other regions. ¶¶¶ Midwest significantly different from South.

* Comparisons are made between years by type of sexual violence, media language used, and outcome/prevention messaging (p<0.05). † Significantly different from all other years. § 2014 significantly different from 2016. ¶ 2014 significantly different from 2017. ** 2015 significantly different from 2017.

Suggested citation for this article: Egen O, Mercer Kollar LM, Dills J, et al. Sexual Violence in the Media: An Exploration of Traditional Print Media Reporting in the United States, 2014–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:1757–1761. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6947a1 .

MMWR and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report are service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of the date of publication.

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Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior Essay

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It is said that television and media brought about new problems that are evident in the modern day and age. Mostly, these influences are harmful in relation to violence and people’s general behavior, which is characterized as careless, destructive and unpredictable.

In reality, there is a great difference and separation between the violence that is seen on TV and that in real life, as people will not become aggressive if their character is not based on aggression.

For a long time, there has been a debate that violence in the media causes more aggressive behavior in the person. There have been numerous studies, but the evidence is somewhat controversial. The majority of people believe that the causation of violent behavior by media is exaggerated. The social theorists suppose that people learn by modeling and imitating behavior.

There have been experiments where such imitation would be tested with children as participants. It has yielded imprecise results (Wells, 1997). Further studies and experimentation have not established any particular correlation because of the control variables being too fluid.

An important concept in movies and media is that they constantly remind the viewer that it is only the authorized people, like police officers and other authorities, are allowed to use violence as a last resource. In many instances, there is added humor, even though it does not diminish the violent and dangerous nature of the situation where a person is killed or their life is threatened.

In general, it is possible to assume that a person might get desensitized towards violence, blood, aggression and criminal behavior. It has been proven that the more a person is confronted with a certain stimuli, the more they will get used to it. This can be seen in many examples from real life (Casey, 2008).

Today, there are movies that show very gruesome and graphic scenes, and it is a fact that many people watch movies like “Saw” and it might make them more used to horror and blood. But people realize that it is a movie and a false, staged situation. A real life occurrence would be very different.

For example, if a movie does not have graphic images or scenes, it might create an idea of violence where people are controlled against their will or held hostage. From one perspective, it is said that the person will learn to like the violence and use it in real life. But a person’s character or individuality cannot learn to like a particular stimulus. If a person does not like to smoke, they will not get used to it by constantly smoking.

Or if someone likes a certain color or smell, a person cannot be made to like or unlike something. In the end, it is possible to see that there must be a link between violence and an already existing personal predisposition to it. The only people who will get affected by graphic violent media are those who require ideas in how to manifest own violent behavior.

From this perspective, it would be better if violence was excluded from media and movies. It can be left simple, as if when a person gets shot or hit, there are no close-ups to show the wound or any blood. It would be useful to promote that the only moral of the movies in relation to violence is that it is unlawful and unwanted by anyone. Most evidence supports the fact that there must be a predisposition towards violence.

It very much depends on an individual. A person who is kind and moral will not resolve to violence because it will conflict with their core moral beliefs, and no matter how often they see violence on the news or in movies, each time they will feel appalled and will not simulate such behavior (Freedman, 2002).

It is clear that a person, who resolved to violence, either grew up in aggressive circumstances where they thought that it was allowed or possible or they have some genetic malfunction. Majority of people are taught that violence is wrong and will not be tolerated by the law and society.

Modern civilized countries take every effort to make this as clear as possible and everyone, even the criminals, know that taking someone’s life or being aggressive towards someone is the highest crime and will be punished. Unfortunately, the evolving technology is becoming a greater part of human life. The 3D or hologram affects, not to mention virtual reality, can stimulate senses in ways that were not possible before.

There is very little evidence as to how the body and genetic information reacts and what it stores. There is a slight chance that a person who watches violence all their life and becomes desensitized to human pain and suffering, will record that information in genes and pass it on to the next generation (Holtzman, 2000).

In any case, there is always a limit as to violence on TV and its nature. The modern society wants to see more blood, which is evident from many movies, and the types of people that watch those movies are of specific character. But the general public seems unharmed by media, as it is too character specific.

Works Cited

Casey, Bernadette. Television studies: the key concepts . New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Freedman, Jonathan. Media violence and its effect on aggression: Assessing the scientific evidence. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Print.

Holtzman, Linda. Media messages . Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. Print.

Wells, Alan. Mass media & society . London, England: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2019, July 8). Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violence-on-tv/

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IvyPanda . 2019. "Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior." July 8, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violence-on-tv/.

1. IvyPanda . "Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior." July 8, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violence-on-tv/.

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Philippine E-Journals

Home ⇛ arete ⇛ vol. 1 no. 1 (2013), sex and violence in media.

Suzane Misagal | Tamara Ysabel Pasagui | Arcylie Acabado

Discipline: Journalism , Media studies and Communication

Media exposure can be a manipulative activity for viewers. Evidence now points out that many of the widely held beliefs in this area have been the cause of severe problems, both for youth and society. In view of this, the researchers studied the contribution of Sex and Violence-related media content to the juvenile delinquents. Six selected juvenile delinquents of the Regional Rehabilitation Center for Youth XI (RCCY XI) who are under the custody of the agency due to their commission of crimes against honor, property and/or person are the respondents. Group discussions and face-to-face interview with each of the informants were done. And after the study was conducted, media content indirectly shape the respondents hostility which prompts when there is presence of extreme anger, physical aggressiveness and easy access to crime materials. Moreover, their commission of the crime is due to other factors such as family orientation and peer influences and not primarily their exposure to the aforementioned media content.

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Home / 2024 / May / Researchers explain social media’s role in rapidly shifting social norms on gender and sexuality

Researchers explain social media’s role in rapidly shifting social norms on gender and sexuality

May 29, 2024

By Allison Arteaga Soergel

A new paper summarizing decades of research demonstrates how social media has supported an explosion of diversity in gender and sexuality in America during the 21st Century, and also how these technologies have equally enabled a cultural backlash. 

The paper’s authors, UC Santa Cruz Psychology Department faculty members Phil Hammack and Adriana Manago, identified five main narratives about gender and sexuality that they believe emerged through social media as people have strived to be “authentic” on these platforms. The findings, along with resulting recommendations for psychology researchers and practitioners, were published in American Psychologist , the flagship research journal of the American Psychological Association.

Since its inception, social media has essentially reversed the flow of information in American society, challenging traditional sources of authority and empowering individuals to create and share information for themselves, the paper says. The formats and customs of social media especially encourage self-expression and “authenticity,” or sharing your inner experience. Online connectivity also removes geographic barriers to finding other like-minded individuals. 

Together, these conditions set the stage perfectly for new cultural norms to emerge, the paper’s authors argue. Manago, an associate professor of psychology who studies how communication technology shapes human development, explained that the team’s theory runs directly counter to “social contagion theory.”

“We’ve seen so much change so quickly in things like pronouns and sexual orientation that people have been hungry for an explanation, and as a result, social contagion theory is this very harmful idea that has become popular, despite not being backed by good evidence,” she said. 

“Social contagion theory argues that adolescents are going online and seeing that expressing yourself as having an LGBTQ+ identity is cool and popular, so they are conforming to a popular notion outside of themselves,” Manago continued. “Our paper argues the opposite. The diversity that we’re seeing now was always there, but the dominant cultural paradigms previously masked it. Now, new communications tools are bringing it to light by promoting and enabling authenticity.”

New cultural narratives of gender and sexuality  

Among the new cultural narratives that researchers say have emerged from online authenticity is the concept of gender as self-constructed, meaning that there can be a difference between sex assigned at birth and a person’s gender identity or expression. For example, research shows that Tumblr blogs have helped transgender people navigate the gender affirmation process, and TikTok has become a central resource for youth who are questioning their own gender or sexuality to explore identities and connect with others.

Hammack, a psychology professor and expert on generational differences in gender and sexuality, emphasizes that people are using social media as a tool to better understand complexities around gender identity that they already feel within themselves. 

“We have to remember that, with social media, an algorithm responds to the person,” he said. “So if you’re starting to question your gender, you’re going to look for related content, and then the algorithm affirms that, but you are still the active agent who is on social media liking things. That agency sometimes gets downplayed when we talk about the influence of social media.”

Another narrative that has gained traction on social media is the idea that sexuality is plural, playful, flexible, and fluid. One aspect of this is the possibility for attraction to multiple genders. For example, research that used the Craigslist personals section to recruit participants has bolstered new understandings of bisexuality among men and has also shown that some people who identify as straight still seek same-sex contact. Meanwhile, Tumblr helped to popularize the pansexual identity. And new social networking websites for people with fetishes have increased acceptance of a wider variety of sexual practices.  

Some modern online narratives also present sexuality and monogamy as cultural compulsions, rather than biological ones. For example, asexuality has become an accepted identity for those who feel little or no sexual attraction, with help from a website that challenged traditional pathologizing views. And new dating apps have been developed specifically to support forms of consensual nonmonogamy that are gaining public visibility. 

Intersectionality has become a key part of many online narratives too, such as the #SayHerName campaign on Twitter, which sought to draw attention to state-sanctioned violence against Black cisgender and transgender women alike. New terminologies and forms of identity have also developed on Tumblr that increasingly recognize how gender and sexuality intersect with each other, and these concepts have spilled over onto platforms like Twitter, now called X, and TikTok.

But not all online narratives that seek to convey authenticity in gender and sexuality promote diversity. A transphobic, homophobic, and misogynistic backlash has also spread through social media technology, sometimes resulting in real-world violence. One example is how Reddit and TikTok have spread “incel” or “involuntary celibate” ideology that views both women’s equality and sexual and gender diversity as threats to masculinity.  

“These reactionary forces that are being destabilized from their dominant position in society are also using authenticity narratives about being a ‘real man’ to spread their views, and they’re claiming that all of these other narratives are false,” Manago explained. “So authenticity is a central concept in all of the narratives on gender and sexuality that we see emerge through these platforms, regardless of whether they’re progressive or regressive.”

Recommendations for psychologists

Based on their findings, the paper’s authors offer several recommendations. Psychology researchers and practitioners should start by grounding their work in people’s lived experiences, the paper says. That could include counselors making sure they stay up to date on new popular terminology around gender and sexuality and researchers asking more open-ended questions and offering write-in options for collecting information about gender and sexuality.  

The team also recommends approaching emerging forms of identity with affirmation, rather than suspicion and focusing on the phenomena of sexual and gender diversity more so than individual identity labels, which inevitably always leave someone out. The paper advises that social change on these issues is fluid and nonlinear, and the current context is not necessarily one of “achievement” for rights and recognition, as evidenced by regressive authenticity narratives that have spread alongside progressive ones. 

Hammack and Manago ultimately encourage psychologists to continue challenging normative thinking, both around sexuality and gender and around social media’s role in identity formation. They say social media is neither a source of youth corruption nor a cure-all for advancing acceptance and equity. Instead, meaningful cultural change that starts on social media should result in new resources and support in our geographic communities. 

“If community spaces and educational spaces don’t keep pace with these changes, that can become dangerous, because young people will continue to turn to social media, and they may lose confidence in other sources of authority, like teachers and parents, who they see as being socially behind the times,” Hammack said. “As adults, the responsible thing is for us to acknowledge that we live in a time of great change on gender and sexuality and to find ways to integrate new perspectives into education, our communities, and our families, so that young people don’t experience isolation and don’t lose confidence in us.” 

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Essay on Media and Violence

Introduction

Research studies indicate that media causes violence and plays a role in desensitization, aggressive behavior, fear of harm, and nightmares. Examples of media platforms include movies, video games, television, and music. Violence in media has also been associated with health concerns. The youth have been the most common victims of media exposure and thus stand higher chances of exposure to violence (Anderson, 2016). In the contemporary world, violence in media platforms has been growing, reaching heightened levels, which is dangerous for society. When you turn on the television, there is violence, social media platforms; there is violence when you go to the movies; there is violence. Studies indicate that an average person in the United States watches videos for nearly five hours in a day. In addition, three-quarters of television content contain some form of violence, and the games being played today have elements of violence. This paper intends to evaluate the concept of media messages and their influence on violent and deviant behaviors. Television networks and video games will be considered.

The Netflix effect involves the behavior of staying home all day, ordering food, and relaxing the couch to watch Netflix programs (McDonald & Smith-Rowsey, 2016). Netflix and binge-watching have become popular among the younger generation and thus are exposed to different kinds of content being aired. Studies indicate that continuous exposure to violent materials has a negative effect on the aggressive behavior of individuals. Netflix is a global platform in the entertainment industry (Lobato, 2019). Although, the company does not have the rights to air in major countries such as China, India, and Japan, it has wide audience. One of the reasons for sanctions is the issues of content being aired by the platform, which may influence the behaviors of the young generation. The primary goal of Netflix is entertainment; it’s only the viewers who have developed specific effects that affect their violent behaviors through imitation of the content.

Television Networks

Television networks focus on feeding viewers with the latest updates on different happenings across the globe. In other instances, they focus on bringing up advertisements and entertainment programs. There is little room for violent messages and content in the networks unless they are airing movie programs, which also are intended for entertainment. However, there has been evidence in the violence effect witnessed in television networks. Studies called the “Marilyn Monroe effect” established that following the airing of many suicidal cases, there has been a growth in suicides among the population (Anderson, Bushman, Donnerstein, Hummer, & Warburton, 2015). Actual suicide cases increased by 2.5%, which is linked to news coverage regarding suicide. Additionally, some coverages are filled with violence descriptions, and their aftermath with may necessitate violent behaviors in the society. For instance, if televisions are covering mass demonstrations where several people have been killed, the news may trigger other protests in other parts of the country.

Communications scholars, however, dispute these effects and link the violent behaviors to the individuals’ perception. They argue that the proportion of witnessing violent content in television networks is minimal. Some acts of violence are associated with what the individual perceives and other psychological factors that are classified into social and non-social instigators (Anderson et al., 2015). Social instigators consist of social rejection, provocation, and unjust treatment. Nonsocial instigators are physical objects present, which include weapons or guns. Also, there are environmental factors that include loud noises, overcrowding, and heat. Therefore, there is more explanation of the causes of aggressive behaviors that are not initiated by television networks but rather a combination of biological and environmental factors.

Video games

Researchers have paid more attention to television networks and less on video games. Children spend more time playing video games. According to research, more than 52% of children play video games and spend about 49 minutes per day playing. Some of the games contain violent behaviors. Playing violent games among youth can cause aggressive behaviors. The acts of kicking, hitting, and pinching in the games have influenced physical aggression. However, communication scholars argue that there is no association between aggression and video games (Krahé & Busching, 2015). Researchers have used tools such as “Competition Reaction Time Test,” and “Hot Sauce Paradigm” to assess the aggression level. The “Hot Sauce Paradigm” participants were required to make hot sauce tor tasting. They were required to taste tester must finish the cup of the hot sauce in which the tester detests spicy products. It was concluded that the more the hot sauce testers added in the cup, the more aggressive they were deemed to be.

The “Competition Reaction Time Test” required individuals to compete with another in the next room. It was required to press a button fast as soon as the flashlight appeared. Whoever won was to discipline the opponent with loud noises. They could turn up the volume as high as they wanted. However, in reality, there was no person in the room; the game was to let individuals win half of the test. Researchers intended to test how far individuals would hold the dial. In theory, individuals who punish their opponents in cruel ways are perceived to be more aggressive. Another way to test violent behaviors for gamer was done by letting participants finish some words. For instance, “M_ _ _ ER,” if an individual completes the word as “Murder” rather than “Mother,” the character was considered to possess violent behavior (Allen & Anderson, 2017). In this regard, video games have been termed as entertainment ideologies, and the determination of the players is to win, no matter how brutal the game might be.

In this paper, fixed assumptions were used to correlate violent behaviors and media objects. But that was not the case with regards to the findings. A fixed model may not be appropriate in the examination of time-sensitive causes of dependent variables. Although the model is applicable for assessing specific entities in a given industry, the results may not be precise.

Conclusion .

Based on the findings of the paper, there is no relationship between violent behaviors and media. Netflix effect does not influence the behavior of individuals. The perceptions of the viewers and players is what matters, and how they understand the message being conveyed. Individuals usually play video games and watch televisions for entertainment purposes. The same case applies to the use of social media platforms and sports competitions. Even though there is violent content, individuals focus on the primary objective of their needs.

Analysis of sources

The sources have been thoroughly researched, and they provide essential information regarding the relationship between violent behaviors and media messages. Studies conducted by various authors like Krahé & Busching did not establish any relationship between the two variables. Allen & Anderson (2017) argue that the models for testing the two variables are unreliable and invalid. The fixed assumptions effect model was utilized, and its limitations have been discussed above. Therefore, the authors of these references have not been able to conclude whether there is a connection between violence and media messages.

Allen, J. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). General aggression model.  The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects , 1-15.

Anderson, C. A. (2016). Media violence effects on children, adolescents and young adults.  Health Progress ,  97 (4), 59-62.

Anderson, C. A., Bushman, B. J., Donnerstein, E., Hummer, T. A., & Warburton, W. (2015). SPSSI research summary on media violence.  Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy ,  15 (1), 4-19.

Krahé, B., & Busching, R. (2015). Breaking the vicious cycle of media violence use and aggression: A test of intervention effects over 30 months.  Psychology of Violence ,  5 (2), 217.

Lobato, R. (2019).  Netflix nations: the geography of digital distribution . NYU Press.

McDonald, K., & Smith-Rowsey, D. (Eds.). (2016).  The Netflix effect: Technology and entertainment in the 21st century . Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

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Gender and Media Representations: A Review of the Literature on Gender Stereotypes, Objectification and Sexualization

Media representations play an important role in producing sociocultural pressures. Despite social and legal progress in civil rights, restrictive gender-based representations appear to be still very pervasive in some contexts. The article explores scientific research on the relationship between media representations and gender stereotypes, objectification and sexualization, focusing on their presence in the cultural context. Results show how stereotyping, objectifying and sexualizing representations appear to be still very common across a number of contexts. Exposure to stereotyping representations appears to strengthen beliefs in gender stereotypes and endorsement of gender role norms, as well as fostering sexism, harassment and violence in men and stifling career-related ambitions in women. Exposure to objectifying and sexualizing representations appears to be associated with the internalization of cultural ideals of appearance, endorsement of sexist attitudes and tolerance of abuse and body shame. In turn, factors associated with exposure to these representations have been linked to detrimental effects on physical and psychological well-being, such as eating disorder symptomatology, increased body surveillance and poorer body image quality of life. However, specificities in the pathways from exposure to detrimental effects on well-being are involved for certain populations that warrant further research.

1. Introduction

As a social category, gender is one of the earliest and most prominent ways people may learn to identify themselves and their peers, the use of gender-based labels becoming apparent in infants as early as 17 months into their life [ 1 ]. Similarly, the development of gender-based heuristics, inferences and rudimentary stereotypes becomes apparent as early as age three [ 2 , 3 ]. Approximately at this age, the development of a person’s gender identity begins [ 4 ]—that is, the process through which a person tends to identify as a man, as a woman or as a vast spectrum of other possibilities (i.e., gender non-conforming, agender, genderfluid, etc.). These processes continue steadily throughout individuals’ lives as they receive and elaborate information about women and men and what it means to belong to either category, drawing from direct and indirect observations, social contact, personal elaborations and cultural representations [ 5 , 6 ]. As a result, social and mental representations of gender are extremely widespread, especially as a strictly binary construct, and can be argued to be ubiquitous in individual and social contexts.

Among the many sources of influence on gender representations, media occupies an important space and its relevance can be assessed across many different phenomena [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. The ubiquity of media, the chronicity of individuals’ exposure to it and its role in shaping beliefs, attitudes and expectations have made it the subject of scientific attention. In fact, several theories have attempted to explore the mechanisms and psychological processes in which media plays a role, including identity development [ 12 , 13 , 14 ], scripts and schemas [ 15 ], cultivation processes [ 16 , 17 , 18 ] and socialization processes [ 5 , 6 ].

The public interest in the topic of gender has seen a surge in the last 10 years, in part due to social and political movements pushing for gender equality across a number of aspects, including how gender is portrayed in media representations. In the academic field as well, publications mentioning gender in their title, abstract or keywords have more than doubled from 2012 to 2022 [ 19 ], while publications mentioning gender in media representations have registered an even more dramatic increase, tripling in number [ 20 ]. Additionally, the media landscape has had a significant shift in the last decade, with the surge in popularity and subsequent addition of social media websites and apps to most people’s mediatic engagement [ 21 ].

The importance of media use in gender-related aspects, such as beliefs, attitudes, or roles, has been extensively documented. As reported in a recent review of the literature [ 22 ], several meta-analyses [ 17 , 23 , 24 ] showed support for the effects of media use on gender beliefs, finding small but consistent effect sizes. These effects appear to have remained present over the decades [ 25 ].

Particular attention has been given to stereotypical, objectifying and sexualizing representations, as portrayals that paint a restrictive picture of the complexity of human psychology, also producing sociocultural pressures to conform to gender roles and body types.

Gender stereotypes can be defined as an extremely simplified concept of attitudes and behaviors considered normal and appropriate for men and women in a specific culture [ 26 ]. They usually span several different areas of people’s characteristics, such as physical appearance, personality traits, behaviors, social roles and occupations. Stereotypical beliefs about gender may be divided into descriptive (how one perceives a person of a certain gender to be; [ 27 ]), prescriptive (how one perceives a person of a certain gender should be and behave; [ 28 , 29 ]) or proscriptive (how one perceives a person of a certain gender should not be and behave; [ 28 , 29 ]). Their content varies on the individual’s culture of reference [ 30 ], but recurring themes have been observed in western culture, such as stereotypes revolving around communion, agency and competence [ 31 ]. Women have stereotypically been associated with traits revolving around communion (e.g., supportiveness, compassion, expression, warmth), while men have been more stereotypically associated with agency (e.g., ambition, assertiveness, competitiveness, action) or competence (e.g., skill, intelligence). Both men and women may experience social and economic penalties (backlash) if they appear to violate these stereotypes [ 29 , 32 , 33 ].

Objectification can be defined as the viewing or treatment of people as objects. Discussing ways in which people may be objectified, Nussbaum first explored seven dimensions: instrumentality (a tool to be employed for one’s purposes); denial of autonomy (lacking self-determination, or autonomy); inertness (lacking in agency or activity); fungibility (interchangeable with others of the same type); violability (with boundaries lacking integrity and permissible to break into); ownership (possible to own or trade); denial of subjectivity (the person’s feelings or experiences are seen as something that does not need to be considered) [ 34 ].

In its initial definition by Fredrickson and Roberts [ 35 ], objectification theory had been offered as a framework to understand how the pervasive sexual objectification of women’s bodies in the sociocultural context influenced their experiences and posed risks to their mental health—a phenomenon that was believed to have uniquely female connotations. In their model, the authors theorized that a cultural climate of sexual objectification would lead to the internalization of objectification (viewing oneself as a sexual and subordinate object), which would in turn lead to psychological consequences (e.g., body shame, anxiety) and mental health risks (e.g., eating disorders, depression). Due to the pervasiveness of the cultural climate, objectification may be difficult to detect or avoid, and objectification experiences may be perceived as normative.

Sexual objectification, in which a person is reduced to a sexual instrument, can be construed to be a subtype of objectification and, in turn, is often defined as one of the types of sexualization [ 36 ]. As previously discussed by Ward [ 37 ], it should be made clear that the mere presence of sexual content, which may be represented in a positive and healthy way, should not be conflated with sexualized or objectifying representations.

The American Psychological Association’s 2007 report defines sexualization as a series of conditions that stand apart from healthy sexuality, such as when a person’s value is perceived to come mainly from sexual appeal or behavior, when physical attractiveness is equated to sexual attractiveness, when a person is sexually objectified or when sexuality is inappropriately imposed on a person [ 36 ]. Sexualization may involve several different contexts, such as personal, interpersonal, and cultural. Self-sexualization involves treating oneself as a sexual object [ 35 ]. Interpersonal contributions involve being treated as sexual objects by others, such as family or peers [ 38 , 39 ]. Finally, contributions by cultural norms, expectations and values play a part as well, including those spread by media representations [ 36 ]. After this initial definition, sexualization as a term has also been used by some authors (e.g., Zurbriggen & Roberts [ 40 ]) to refer to sexual objectification specifically, while others (e.g., Bigler and colleagues [ 41 ]) stand by the APA report’s broader meaning. In this section, we will explore scientific literature adopting the latter.

These portrayals have been hypothesized to lead to negative effects on people’s well-being on a mental and physical level, as well as bearing partial responsibility for several social issues, such as sexism, gender discrimination and harassment. However, the pathways that lead from an individual’s relationship with media to these detrimental effects can be complex. Furthermore, they seem to involve specificities for men and women, as well as for different sexual orientations. A wealth of publications has been produced on these themes and, to the authors’ knowledge, no recent review has attempted to synthesize their findings.

The present article aims to summarize the state of the art of research on stereotyping, sexualization and objectification in gender and media representations. A focus will be placed on the definitions of these concepts, the media where they occur, and verifying whether any changes over time are detectable or any specificities are present. The possible effects of these representations on people’s well-being will be explored as well.

A search of the literature was conducted on scientific search engines (APA PsycArticles, CINAHL Complete, Education Source, Family Studies Abstracts, Gender Studies Database, MEDLINE, Mental Measurements Yearbook, Sociology Source Ultimate, Violence & Abuse Abstracts, PUBMED, Scopus, Web of Science) to locate the most relevant contributions on the topic of media and gender representation, with a particular focus on stereotypes, objectification and sexualization, their presence in the media and their effects on well-being. Keywords were used to search for literature on the intersection of the main topics: media representation (e.g., media OR representation* OR portrayal*), gender (e.g., gender OR sex OR wom* OR m*n) and stereotypes, objectification and sexualization (e.g., stereotyp*, objectif*, sexualiz*). In some cases, additional keywords were used for the screening of studies on specific media (e.g., television, news, social media). When appropriate, further restrictions were used to screen for studies on effects or consequences (e.g., effect* OR impact* OR consequence* OR influence* OR outcome*). Inclusion criteria were the following: (a) academic articles (b) pertaining to the field of media representations (c) pertaining to gender stereotypes, objectification or sexualization. A dataset of 195 selected relevant papers was created. Thematic analysis was conducted following the guidelines developed by Braun and Clarke [ 42 ], in order to outline patterns of meaning across the reviewed studies. The process was organized into six phases: (1) familiarization with the data; (2) coding; (3) searching for themes; (4) reviewing themes; (5) defining and naming themes; and (6) writing up. After removing duplicates and excluding papers that did not meet the inclusion criteria, a total of 87 articles were included in the results of this review. The findings were discussed among researchers (LR, FS, MNP and TT) until unanimous consensus was reached.

2.1. Stereotypical Portrayals

Gender stereotypes appear to be flexible and responsive to changes in the social environment: consensual beliefs about men’s and women’s attributes have evolved throughout the decades, reflecting changes in women’s participation in the labor force and higher education [ 31 , 43 ]. Perceptions of gender equality in competence and intelligence have sharply risen, and stereotypical perceptions of women show significant changes: perceptions of women’s competence and intelligence have surpassed those relative to men, while the communion aspect appears to have shifted toward being even more polarized on being typical of women. Other aspects, such as perceptions of agency being more typical of men, have remained stable [ 31 ].

Despite these changes, gender representation in the media appears to be frequently skewed toward men’s representation and prominently features gender stereotypes. On a global scale, news coverage appears to mostly feature men, especially when considering representation as expert voices, where women are still underrepresented (24%) despite a rise in coverage in the last 5 years [ 44 ]. Underrepresentation has also been reported in many regional and national contexts, but exact proportions vary significantly in the local context. Male representation has been reported to be greater in several studies, with male characters significantly outnumbering female characters [ 45 ], doing so in male-led and mixed-led shows but not in female-led shows [ 46 ] in children’s television programming—a key source of influence on gender representations. Similar results have been found regarding sports news, whose coverage overwhelmingly focuses on men athletes [ 47 , 48 ] and where women are seldom represented.

Several analyses of television programs have also shown how representations of men and women are very often consistent with gender stereotypes. Girls were often portrayed as focusing more on their appearance [ 45 ], as well as being judged for their appearance [ 49 ]. The same focus on aesthetics was found in sports news coverage, which was starkly different across genders, and tended to focus on women athletes’ appearance, featuring overly simplified descriptions (vs. technical language on coverage of men athletes) [ 48 ]. In addition, coverage of women athletes was more likely in sports perceived to be more feminine or gender-appropriate [ 47 , 48 , 50 ]. Similarly, women in videogames appear to be both underrepresented and less likely to be featured as playable characters, as well as being frequently stereotyped, appearing in the role of someone in need of rescuing, as love interests, or cute and innocent characters [ 51 ]. In advertising as well, gender stereotypes have often been used as a staple technique for creating relatability, but their use may lead to negative cross-gender effects in product marketing [ 52 ] while also possibly furthering social issues. Hust and colleagues found that in alcohol advertisements, belief in gender stereotypes was the most consistent predictor of intentions to sexually coerce, showing significant interaction effects with exposure to highly objectifying portrayals [ 53 ]. Representation in advertising prominently features gender stereotypes, such as depicting men in professional roles more often, while depicting women in non-working, recreational roles, especially in countries that show high gender inequality [ 54 ]. A recent analysis of print ads [ 55 ] confirmed that some stereotypes are still prominent and, in some cases, have shown a resurgence, such as portraying a woman as the queen of the home; the study also found representations of women in positions of empowerment are, however, showing a relative increase in frequency. Public support, combined with market logic, appears to be successfully pushing more progressive portrayals in this field [ 56 ].

Both skewed representation and the presence of stereotypes have been found to lead to several negative effects. Gender-unequal representation has been found to stifle political [ 57 ] and career [ 58 ] ambition, as well as foster organizational discrimination [ 59 ]. Heavy media use may further the belief in gender stereotypes and has been found to be linked to a stronger endorsement of traditional gender roles and norms [ 60 ], which in turn may be linked to a vast number of detrimental health effects. In women, adherence and internalization of traditional gender roles have been linked to greater symptoms of depression and anxiety, a higher likelihood of developing eating disorders, and lower self-esteem and self-efficacy [ 36 , 61 , 62 , 63 ]. In men as well, adherence to traditional masculine norms has been linked to negative mental health outcomes such as depression, psychological distress and substance abuse [ 64 ], while also increasing the perpetration of risky behaviors [ 65 , 66 ] and intimate partner violence [ 65 , 67 ].

2.2. Objectifying Portrayals

Non-sexual objectifying representations appear to have been studied relatively little. They have been found to be common in advertising, where women are often depicted as purely aesthetic models, motionless and decorative [ 68 ]. They may also include using a woman’s body as a supporting object for the advertised product, as a decorative object, as an ornament to draw attention to the ad, or as a prize to be won and associated with the consumption of the advertised product [ 55 ].

The vast majority of the literature has focused on the sexual objectification of women. This type of representation has been reported to be very common in a number of contexts and across different media [ 69 ], and several studies (see Calogero and colleagues’ or Roberts and colleagues’ review [ 69 , 70 ]) have found support for the original model’s pathway [ 35 ]. Following experimental models expanded on the original (e.g., Frederick and colleagues or Roberts and colleagues [ 69 , 71 ]), highlighting the role of factors such as the internalization of lean or muscular ideals of appearance, finding evidence for negative effects on well-being and mental health through the increase in self-objectification and the internalization of cultural ideals of appearance [ 71 , 72 ].

Sexual objectification also appears to be consistently linked to sexism. For both women and men, the perpetration of sexual objectification was significantly associated with hostile and benevolent sexism, as well as the enjoyment of sexualization [ 73 ]. Enjoyment of sexualization, in turn, has been found to be positively associated with hostile sexism in both men and women, positively associated with benevolent sexism in women and negatively in men [ 74 ].

Exposure to objectifying media in men has been found to increase the tendency to engage in sexual coercion and harassment, as well as increasing conformity to gender role norms [ 75 ]. Consistently with the finding that perpetration of objectification may be associated with a greater men’s proclivity for rape and sexual aggression [ 76 ], a study conducted by Hust and colleagues found that exposure to objectifying portrayals of women in alcohol advertising was also a moderator in the relationship between belief in gender stereotypes and intentions to sexually coerce. Specifically, participants who had a stronger belief in gender stereotypes reported stronger intentions to sexually coerce when exposed to slightly objectifying images of women. Highly objectifying images did not yield the same increase—a result interpreted by the authors to mean that highly objectified women were perceived as sexually available and as such less likely to need coercion, while slightly objectified women could be perceived as more likely to need coercion [ 53 ].

Research on objectification has primarily focused on women, in part due to numerous studies suggesting that women are more subject to sexual objectification [ 73 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ], as well as suffering the consequences of sexual objectification more often [ 81 ]. However, sexually objectifying portrayals seem to have a role in producing negative effects on men as well, although with partially different pathways. In men, findings about media appearance pressures on body image appear to be mixed. Previous meta-analyses found either a small average effect [ 82 ] or no significant effect [ 72 ]. A recent study found them to be significantly associated with higher body surveillance, poorer body image quality of life and lower satisfaction with appearance [ 71 ]. Another study, however, found differing relationships regarding sexual objectification: an association was found between experiences of sexual objectification and internalization of cultural standards of appearance, body shame and drive for muscularity, but was not found between experiences of sexual objectification and self-objectification or body surveillance [ 83 ]: in the same study, gender role conflict [ 84 ] was positively associated to the internalization of sociocultural standards of appearance, self-objectification, body shame and drive for muscularity, suggesting the possibility that different pathways may be involved in producing negative effects on men. Men with body-image concerns experiencing gender role conflict may also be less likely to engage in help-seeking behaviors [ 85 , 86 ]. This is possibly due to restrictive emotionality associated with the male gender role leading to more negative attitudes toward help-seeking, as found in a recent study by Nagai, [ 87 ], although this study finds no association with help-seeking behavior, conflicting with previous ones, and more research is needed.

Finally, specificities related to sexual orientation regarding media and objectification appear to be present. A set of recent studies by Frederick and colleagues found that gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people share with heterosexual people many of the pathways that lead from sociocultural pressures to internalization of thin/muscular ideals, higher body surveillance and a lower body image quality of life [ 71 , 88 ], leading the authors to conclude that these factors’ influence applies regardless of sexual orientation. However, their relationship with media and objectification may vary. Gay and bisexual men may face objectification in social media and dating apps rather than in mainstream media and may experience more objectification than heterosexual men [ 89 ]. In Frederick and colleagues’ studies, gay men reported greater media pressures, body surveillance, thin-ideal internalization, and self-objectification compared to heterosexual men; moreover, bisexual men appeared to be more susceptible to ideal internalization, displaying stronger paths from media appearance pressures to muscular-ideal internalization compared to heterosexual men; lesbian women, instead, demonstrated weaker relationships between media pressures and body image outcomes [ 71 , 88 ]. Consistently with previous studies suggesting a heightened susceptibility to social pressures [ 90 ], bisexual women appeared to be more susceptible to media pressures relative to other groups [ 88 ]. Another recent study of lesbian and bisexual women supported previous evidence for the pathway from the internalization of cultural appearance standards to body surveillance, body shame and eating disorder symptoms; however, it found no significant connection between experiences of objectification and eating disorder symptoms [ 91 ].

2.3. Sexualized Portrayals

Several studies have found sexualizing media representations to be commonplace across a number of different media contents and across different target demographics (i.e., children, adolescents or adults) and genres. Reports of common sexualized representations of women are found in contexts such as television programs [ 92 ], movies [ 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 ], music videos [ 97 , 98 ], advertising [ 54 , 55 ], videogames [ 51 , 99 , 100 ], or magazines [ 101 ].

Exposure to sexualized media has been theorized to be an exogenous risk factor in the internalization of sexualized beliefs about women [ 41 ], as well as one of the pathways to the internalization of cultural appearance ideals [ 102 ]. Daily exposition to sexualized media content has been consistently linked to a number of negative effects. Specifically, it has been found to lead to higher levels of body dissatisfaction and distorted attitudes about eating through the internalization of cultural body ideals (e.g., lean or muscular) in both men and women [ 71 ]. It has also been associated with a higher chance of supporting sexist beliefs in boys [ 103 ], and of tolerance toward sexual violence in men [ 104 ]. Furthermore, exposure to sexualized images has been linked to a higher tolerance of sexual harassment and rape myth acceptance [ 76 ]. Exposure to reality TV programs consistently predicted self-sexualization for both women and men, while music videos did so for men only [ 103 ]. Internalized sexualization, in turn, has been linked to a stronger endorsement of sexist attitudes and acceptance of rape myths [ 105 ], while also being linked to higher levels of body surveillance and body shame in girls [ 106 ]. Internalization of media standards of appearance has been linked to body surveillance in both men and women, as well as body surveillance of the partner in men [ 107 ].

As a medium, videogames have been studied relatively little and have produced less definite results. This medium can offer the unique dynamic of embodiment in a virtual avatar, which has been hypothesized to be able to lead to a shift in self-perception (the “Proteus effect”, as formulated by Yee & Bailenson, [ 108 ]). While some studies have partially confirmed this effect, showing that exposure to sexualized videogame representations can increase self-objectification [ 109 , 110 , 111 ], others [ 112 ] have not found the same relationship. Furthermore, while a study has found an association between sexualized representations in videogames, tolerance of sexual abuse of women and rape myth acceptance [ 113 ], and in another, it was linked to a decreased real-life belief in women’s competence [ 114 ], a recent meta-analysis [ 115 ] found no effect of the presence of sexualized content on well-being, sexism or misogyny.

Research on social media has also shown some specificities. Social media offers the unique dynamic of being able to post and disseminate one’s own content and almost always includes built-in mechanisms for user-generated feedback (e.g., likes), as well as often being populated by one’s peers, friends and family rather than strangers. Sites focusing on image- or video-based content (e.g., Instagram, TikTok) may be more prone to eliciting social comparison and fostering the internalization of cultural appearance ideals, resulting in more associations to negative body image when compared to others that have the same capabilities but offer text-based content as well (e.g., Facebook) [ 116 ]. Social media appears to foster social comparison, which may increase appearance-based concerns [ 117 ]. Consistently with previous research, exposure to sexualized beauty ideals on social media appeared to be associated with lower body satisfaction; exposure to more diverse standards of appearance, instead, was associated with increased body satisfaction and positive mood, regardless of image sexualization [ 116 , 118 ].

3. Discussion

3.1. critical discussion of evidence.

The reviewed evidence (summarized in Table 1 ) points to the wide-ranging harmful effects of stereotyping, objectifying and sexualizing media portrayals, which are reported to be still both common and pervasive. The links to possible harms have also been well documented, with a few exceptions.

Summary of findings.

These representations, especially but not exclusively pertaining to women, have been under social scrutiny following women’s rights movements and activism [ 119 ] and can be perceived to be politically incorrect and undesirable, bringing an aspect of social desirability into the frame. Positive attitudes toward gender equality also appear to be at an all-time high across the western world [ 120 , 121 ], a change that has doubtlessly contributed to socio-cultural pressure to reduce harmful representations. Some media contexts (e.g., advertising and television) seem to have begun reflecting this change regarding stereotypes, attempting to either avoid harmful representations or push more progressive portrayals. However, these significant changes in stereotypes (e.g., regarding competence) have not necessarily been reflected in women’s lives, such as their participation in the labor force, leadership or decision-making [ 31 , 122 , 123 ]. Objectifying or sexualizing representations do not seem to be drastically reduced in prevalence. Certainly, many influences other than media representations are in play in this regard, but their effect on well-being has been found to be pervasive and consistent. Despite widespread positive attitudes toward gender equality, the persistence of stereotypical, objectifying and sexualizing representations may hint at the continued existence of an entrenched sexist culture which can translate into biases, discrimination and harm.

Despite some conflicting findings, the literature also hints at the existence of differences in how media pressures appear to affect men and women, as well as gay, lesbian and bisexual people. These may point to the possibility of some factors (e.g., objectification) playing a different role across different people in the examined pathways, an aspect that warrants caution when considering possible interventions and clinical implications. In some cases, the same relationship between exposure to media and well-being may exist, but it may follow different pathways from distal risk factors to proximal risk factors, as in the case of gender role conflict for men or body shame for lesbian and bisexual women. However, more research is needed to explore these recent findings.

Different media also appear to feature specificities for which more research is needed, such as videogames and social media. The more interactive experiences offered by these media may play an important role in determining their effects, and the type of social media needs to be taken into consideration as well (image- or video-based vs. text-based). Moreover, the experiences of exposure may not necessarily be homogenous, due to the presence of algorithms that determine what content is being shown in the case of social media, and due to the possibility of player interaction and avatar embodiment in the case of videogames.

Past findings [ 37 , 69 ] about links with other social issues such as sexism, harassment and violence appear to still be relevant [ 67 , 73 , 103 , 105 ]. The increases in both tolerance and prevalence of sexist and abusive attitudes resulting from exposure to problematic media representations impact the cultural climate in which these phenomena take place. Consequently, victims of discrimination and abuse living in a cultural climate more tolerant of sexist and abusive attitudes may experience lower social support, have a decreased chance of help-seeking and adopt restrictive definitions for what counts as discrimination and abuse, indirectly furthering gender inequalities.

Exploring ways of reducing risks to health, several authors [ 22 , 41 , 75 ] have discussed media literacy interventions—that is, interventions focused on teaching critical engagement with media—as a possible way of reducing the negative effects of problematic media portrayals. As reported in McLean and colleagues’ systematic review [ 124 ], these interventions have been previously shown to be effective at increasing media literacy, while also improving body-related outcomes such as body satisfaction in boys [ 125 ], internalization of the thinness ideal in girls [ 125 ], body size acceptance in girls [ 126 ] and drive for thinness in girls and boys [ 127 ]. More recently, they were also shown to be effective at reducing stereotypical gender role attitudes [ 128 ], as well as fostering unfavorable attitudes toward stereotypical portrayals and lack of realism [ 129 ]. Development and promotion of these interventions should be considered when attempting to reduce negative media-related influences on body image. It should be noted, however, that McLean and colleagues’ review found no effect of media literacy interventions on eating disorder symptomatology [ 124 ], which warrants more careful interventions.

Furthermore, both internal (e.g., new entrants’ attitudes in interpersonal or organizational contexts) and external (e.g., pressure from public opinion) sociocultural pressures appear to have a strong influence in reducing harmful representations [ 55 , 56 ]. Critically examining these representations when they appear, as well as voicing concerns toward examples of possibly harmful representations, may promote more healthy representations in media. As documented by some studies, the promotion of diverse body representations in media may also be effective in reducing negative effects [ 70 , 118 ].

3.2. Limitations

The current review synthesizes the latest evidence on stereotyping, objectifying and sexualizing media representations. However, limitations in its methodology are present and should be taken into consideration. It is not a systematic review and may not be construed to be a complete investigation of all the available evidence. Only articles written in the English language have been considered, which may have excluded potentially interesting findings written in other languages. Furthermore, it is not a meta-analysis, and as such cannot be used to draw statistical conclusions about the surveyed phenomena.

3.3. Future Directions

While this perception is limited by the non-systematic approach of the review, to what we know, very few studies appear to be available on the relationship between media representation and non-sexual objectification, which may provide interesting directions to explore in relation to autonomy, violability or subjectivity, as was attempted in the context of work and organizations [ 130 ].

More cross-cultural studies (e.g., Tartaglia & Rollero [ 54 ]) would also prove useful in exploring differences between cultural contexts, as well as the weight of different sociocultural factors in the relationship between media representation and gender.

More studies focusing on relatively new media (e.g., social media, videogames) would possibly help clear up some of the identified discrepancies and explore new directions for the field that take advantage of their interactivity. This is particularly true for niche but growing media such as virtual reality, in which the perception of embodiment in an avatar with different physical features than one’s own could prove to be important in sexualization and objectification. Only preliminary evidence [ 131 ] has been produced on the topic.

Studies to further explore the relationship between media representations, gender and sexual orientation would also be beneficial. As already highlighted by Frederick and colleagues [ 132 ], gay, lesbian and bisexual people may deal with a significantly different set of appearance norms and expectations [ 133 ], and face minority-related stresses [ 134 ] that can increase susceptibility to poorer body image and disordered eating [ 135 , 136 ]. Additionally, none of the reviewed studies had a particular focus on trans people, who may have different experiences relating to media and body image, as suggested by the differences in pathways found in a recent study [ 137 ]. Sexual orientation and gender identity should be kept into consideration when investigating these relationships, as their specificities may shed light on the different ways societal expectations influence the well-being of sexual minorities.

The examined literature on the topic also appears to feature specificities that need to be taken into account. As previously reported by Ward [ 37 ], the vast majority of the studies continue to be conducted in the United States, often on undergraduates, which limits the generalizability of the results to the global population. Given the abundance and complexity of the constructs, more studies examining the pathways from media exposure to well-being using methodologies such as path analysis and structural equation modeling may help clarify some of the discrepancies found in the literature about the same relationships.

Finally, as previously reported by many authors [ 37 , 69 , 138 ], sexualization, self-sexualization, objectification and self-objectification are sometimes either treated as synonymous or used with different definitions and criteria, which may add a layer of misdirection to studies on the subject. Given the divergences in the use of terminology, clearly stating one’s working definition of sexualization or objectification would possibly benefit academic clarity on the subject.

4. Conclusions

Consistent empirical evidence highlights the importance of media representations as a key part of sociocultural influences that may have consequences on well-being. Despite some notable progress, harmful representations with well-researched links to detrimental effects are still common across a number of different media. Exposure to stereotyping, objectifying and sexualized representations appears to consistently be linked to negative consequences on physical and mental health, as well as fostering sexism, violence and gender inequity. On a clinical level, interventions dealing with body image and body satisfaction should keep their influence into account. The promotion of institutional and organizational interventions, as well as policies aimed at reducing their influence, could also prove to be a protective factor against physical and mental health risks.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, F.S. and L.R.; methodology, T.T. and M.N.P.; writing—original draft preparation, F.S.; writing—review and editing, T.T. and M.N.P.; supervision, L.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

Where is Miranda Wilking, the dancer accused of being in a TikTok cult?

• Miranda Derrick (née Wilking) is one of the subjects of "Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult."
• Derrick released a statement on the documentary, saying that she was not a "victim.'"
• Today, she's still active on social media and even posts with her family. 

The new Netflix docuseries "Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult" investigates allegations that a management company with multiple dancers on its roster was a cult.

The series focuses on 7M, a talent management company founded by Robert Shinn , a pastor for Shekinah Church . 7M signed dancers in Los Angeles, but in the series, some former members allege cult-like practices . Friends and family members of those belonging to 7M at the time told Business Insider that they had observed dramatic changes in their loved ones since they joined.

TikTok and social media star Miranda Derrick (née Wilking) is at the center of the story. She and her younger sister, Melanie Wilking, are both dancers who previously branded themselves together as The Wilking Sisters. However, Miranda became involved with 7M via her boyfriend, James Derrick — and her family says in the series, distanced herself from her.

Here's where Miranda Derrick is today.

Miranda moved to Los Angeles and became involved with 7M

Melanie and Miranda grew up dancing around Detroit. Their parents, Dean and Kelly, recount in the docuseries that the family was supportive of the sisters' passion. After she graduated from high school, Melanie says, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a professional dancer. Eventually, Melanie joined her there, and they built the Wilking Sisters brand to the tune of millions of followers.

In April 2019, Melanie says in the documentary, James "BDash" Derrick reached out to collaborate with them. Miranda and James became close, and eventually, she began socializing with his group of friends — including videographer Isaiah Shinn, Robert Shinn's son. Eventually, former 7M member Aubrey Fisher says, Robert decided to form his own management company to manage the dancers.

Melanie says that in the fall of 2020, she was invited to have dinner at Robert's home.

"At that time, Miranda was in. Like, she was committed," Melanie says. "She did tell me that they read the Bible at dinner and they kind of go around and share different experiences and whatnot."

Melanie distanced herself from the church and company. But as Melanie and her parents say in the series, Miranda grew more distant from her family as she became more involved in the church. When her grandfather died in early 2021, Miranda didn't attend his funeral. When Miranda and James got engaged later that year, her family found out through social media.

In February 2022, Miranda's sister Melanie and their parents, Kelly and Dean, took to Instagram to plead for Miranda's reconnection.

Where is Miranda now?

In May 2022, after her family's Instagram Live, Miranda issued a statement to The Cut .

"I am not held against my will and I've never been a hostage," Miranda said in a statement. "I go to church and I have faith in God. If one day I wish to pursue my faith elsewhere, I will and feel completely free to do that."

A lawyer for 7M also issued a statement to Rolling Stone following the publication's investigation into the company.

Related stories

"Miranda Derrick is a successful businesswoman and a loving wife and daughter who cares very much about her family. It is pathetic and contemptible to try to turn her private family matters into a tawdry public scandal for clicks and clout," the statement read. Kelly, Miranda's mother, says in the series that Miranda reached out to her to meet. They came back into contact, but Miranda stipulated that she didn't want to speak with her parents about 7M or Robert Shinn.

"We made the promise not to talk about it, and we haven't talked about it with her since," Kelly says in the series. But, I don't know. Right now? So far, what we've done, we've got her back in our life."

On social media, Miranda still regularly posts dance videos, many with her husband James, as well as other lifestyle content. She posts with her family as well: Miranda wished her mother, Kelly, a happy Mother's Day on Instagram in May, posted a dance video with Kelly and Melanie in April, and attended Melanie's wedding .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Miranda Derrick (@itsmirandaderrick)

However, Melanie says in the series that her relationship with her sister isn't the same as it once was, calling their interactions "superficial."

"I want to have a genuine, you know… like we're moving forward genuinely, and not just for social media," Melanie says.

Miranda has 1.5 million followers on Instagram, 2 million followers on TikTok, and 106,000 subscribers on YouTube. Many of her dance videos credit Isaiah Shinn, Robert's son, as a videographer, and her YouTube channel still lists a 7M address as her contact.

According to Miranda's social media, she and James are still together and have a dog. The two also recently appeared in "Road House," a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a former UFC fighter who takes a job as a bouncer.

Miranda eventually responded to the documentary on Instagram

Miranda released a statement on her Instagram story on Tuesday, six days after the Netflix documentary premiered. In it, she said that she had seen the film, but that she and her family didn't "see eye to eye."

"I gave my life to Jesus Christ in 2020 and asked my family for some space in the very beginning to collect my thoughts and process my new walk I wanted to take with God," Miranda wrote.

In the statement, she said she wanted to continue working with Melanie on their joint social media account, but Melanie logged her out. As a result, she said, she had to pursue her personal social media career.

Miranda said that her family did not respect her request for space, and said that they were "overbearing and chaotic." She also addressed missing her grandfather's funeral in 2021.

"I was at a place with my family where I felt like I was being harassed. My parents and sister are not religious. They immediately called me going to church twice a week a 'cult,'" Miranda wrote.

"I felt that if I went back for the funeral they would try to keep me there and not let me come back to LA," she continued. "So, I told my family that I would not be going to Michigan and that I wanted to move in and begin my life with James. To keep it simple, I did not want to be around them at that time because I felt threatened by them."

Miranda said in the statement that she and her family had been meeting to "make amends," but that the documentary was a "further challenge" to their relationship and she would have preferred for the conflict to be private.

"I can't convince anyone to believe anything," she said. "I am just a woman trying to live my life. I am not a victim, I am not in any harm, I am not being abused. I've never asked my family or anyone else to 'help' me in any way. Respectfully, what I choose to do with my life is up to me."

Read the full statement below:

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

Watch: A transgender advocate shares stories of how transgender sex workers are targets of violence

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Crime and Public Safety

Crime and public safety | safe streets, social media, schools: monse faces easier budget hearing as baltimore violence declines.

The group violence reduction strategy paying dividends will continue its expansion across Baltimore police districts.

And Baltimore’s flagship anti-violence program , Safe Streets, is pushing to fill vacancies and boost its mediation efforts.

The agency tasked with coordinating city strategies to reduce violence is looking to expand and solidify programming in the upcoming year, amid a different backdrop in Baltimore.

The city has seen continued declines in shootings so far this year, after ending last year with fewer than 300 homicides for the first time in the better part of a decade. As a result, agency leaders faced a happier group of City Council members at its budget hearing Monday, which featured fewer clashes than years prior.

“The fact that we just had our lowest homicide rate for any month of May since 1970 is something that we as a city should celebrate. And I don’t think enough people know that or would ascribe that to GVRS … or to any of the strategies. But I think it’s really important,” said Councilman Zeke Cohen, who recently won the Democratic primary for City Council president. “Something that you all are doing in the anti-violence fight is clearly working.”

The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, or MONSE, is seeking more money from the general fund — $8.5 million in the upcoming fiscal year, compared to $7.8 million in the current fiscal year ending June 30 — but a lower overall budget of $17.2 million. The drop in outside funding is reflective of a new citywide approach to budgeting for grants, city officials said.

That 9% increase in allocation would include the creation of two new positions to help manage the expansion of the Group Violence Reduction Strategy.

Still, there could be challenges ahead for the agency, as it and the rest of city government face spending deadlines for federal dollars doled out during the coronavirus pandemic.

Here’s what to know:

Safe Streets makes hires, reopens site

The Safe Streets site in Belair-Edison, which had suspended operations after a law enforcement search , has reopened in a modified capacity, officials said Monday.

The state’s illegal ammunition charge against a site staff member was dropped earlier this year , though officials have said the investigation that brought police to the site last October is likely ongoing .

As of last week, the site has a new director, according to MONSE. The site is now open on a “modified basis,” as the city agency makes sure the site director has everything they need, MONSE Director Stefanie Mavronis said.

The new director is part of a hiring push made in recent months to fill vacancies. Crystal Miller, the agency’s gun violence prevention associate director, said there are now 21 vacancies out of 77 total positions.

A September start for school-based intervention?

If all goes according to plan, four city high schools could be testing grounds for new violence intervention efforts come the start of next school year.

Digital Harbor, Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical, Carver Vocational-Technical and Edmondson-Westside high schools have been tapped as pilots for the $1.5 million project, partly funded by a grant from the National League of Cities. The pilot program, which has been delayed , is expected to include student “ambassadors” and anti-violence work for conflicts brewing in and out of school.

Mavronis said Monday that her agency is working on a memorandum of understanding with the city school system and has yet to hire members of a community-based organization to staff the pilots, which sparked some concern from council members.

“September is like tomorrow,” Councilwoman Odette Ramos said.

Mavronis agreed, responding that it is a priority and “important” to “make sure we can get this across the finish line.”

Council members seek strategies for drug corners

Council members at Monday’s hearing appeared largely on board with the administration’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy, which is expanding to additional police districts.

The strategy, known as focused deterrence, zeros in on the people driving violence and adopts a “carrot and stick” approach: We can connect you with services to help change your trajectory , or you could face criminal charges for your current activity.

One council member, Mark Conway, wondered whether that approach might be adopted for Baltimore’s open-air drug markets.

“What I’m noticing and concerned about is how we deal with drug dealing in the city without mass incarceration again,” Conway said. “It’s something that needs to be addressed, and I think we’re struggling with it a little bit.”

Faith Leach, the city’s chief administrative officer, signaled openness to working more closely with MONSE and other city agencies on a strategy, alongside existing work. Leach stressed that it would be important not to add to the Group Violence Reduction Strategy’s work, but agreed “there’s more that we could be doing.”

“Even outside of GVRS, we do the neighborhood stabilization work, where we provide jobs and other alternatives to the ‘lifestyle,’ if you will,” Leach said. “I do think that there’s a more formal way … where we could actually pilot and test some of our strategies to see if they’re working.”

For the Group Violence Reduction Strategy, meanwhile, Mavronis told council members they are planning for the end of the COVID-era federal money , which has supported it and came from the American Rescue Plan Act. She said officials weren’t waiting for the “cliff.”

Social media

One councilman, Cohen, raised the issue of social media — noting that it can have consequences for young people’s body image or self-esteem, and help to exacerbate conflicts that can spill into gun violence .

How is the city trying to disrupt the negative aspects of social media?

Mavronis said the issue comes up in many community violence intervention conversations, calling it a “real need.”

LifeBridge Health, part of the city’s community violence intervention ecosystem, is exploring a digital community violence intervention organizer position to take that work to the “digital realm,” Mavronis said. Others have raised the idea of working with social media companies to remove inflammatory posts.

Cohen encouraged the city to be proactive in solutions. In the same way, the city redefined “credible messengers” during the pandemic, when officials sought individuals to encourage community members to consider vaccination, he said, the city should consider the messengers on social media.

“I think some of it will need to be young people themselves being those credible messengers,” Cohen said. “As we know, kids listen to their peers more than they listen to adults. I’m glad you’re starting to think about this, because I think it’s something we as a city, we as a country, we’ve got to get ahead of.”

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Yemen's Houthis target three vessels in Red Sea and Arabian Sea

Yemen's Houthis conducted military operations targeting three vessels in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, the group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Wednesday.