Bethany's honors thesis

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I am so very proud of my daughter. She is graduating with honors and she did it all on her own!

She rocks... :-)

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The 19th annual Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 24, 2008.

A Day at the Movies:
Cinematic Violence and Its Effects on
Masculine Self-Perception and
Patriarchal Ideology among
College-Aged Men

Norris 104, 10:00 AM

Bethany Coston, '08 159
Majors: Sociology, Communication Studies
Hometown: Muskegon, MI

Sponsor(s): Scott Melzer
Support: FURSCA

Abstract:

Men's violence in the United States is widespread. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1993-2004 men perpetrated 97% of all intimate crimes—homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend, including same sex relationships. Men aged 15-29 perpetrated the majority of this violence. Scholars have shown that men's violence is not due to popular or essentialist explanations about instincts or testosterone. Instead, this violence is a result of cultural definitions of and expectations for masculinity, power, and control. My research focuses on the culture of patriarchy, how it contributes to violence against women, and how it contributes to violent media. I propose a synthesis of previous theories on men's intimate violence against women, with new hypotheses of the effects of cinematic violence on masculine perception and patriarchal ideology. To study these issues, I surveyed 121 men at Albion College, and half of these men saw a short film reel displaying five of the top grossing films of 2005 and 2006: Spiderman 2, Batman Begins, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Punisher, and The Departed. Comparative analyses were done between these groups to assess the extent of movie violence's influence on certain ideological opinions and violent behaviors. While much of the multivariate data was rendered useless due to sampling error, correlational analysis revealed interesting relationships that provide potential insight into the types of violence men perpetrate (incidental, friends vs. partners), reasons for violence (emotional, media, etc.), and what seems to be a distinguishable difference between certain kinds of physical violence (roughhousing vs. fighting). Future research should lend itself to in-depth analysis of these issues.

http://www.albion.edu/library/Isaac/symposium_detail.asp?GroupID=159