Television violence: A development of a coding scheme

Abstract

Traditional analyses have treated TV violence as a homogenous entity disregarding the nature and context of the violent acts. A new coding scheme was designed to examine the amount of violence portrayed on TV; the degree to which it is obtrusive; and the messages it conveys. The final, 37 item coding scheme is sensitive to features of televised messages whether in fiction, or in non‐fiction. It included contextual themes concerning intensity (seriousness, realism, way of dramatization), and attractiveness (justification, glamorization, efficacy) of TV violence. The coding scheme was applied to an analysis of a program sample which consisted of all genres (N = 259) presented on Finnish network television during one week. The analysis showed that television violence does not exist as a homogenous entity, since portrayals of violence vary in amount, intensity, and attractiveness.