Greg Blackburn’s research while affiliated with University of Massachusetts Amherst and other places

Video games have been soundly critiqued for their depiction of gender, and emerging research has shown that playing can be associated with holding stereotypical or narrow views of gender roles and norms. Yet, rarely has past research focused particularly on correlations between video game playing and perceptions of masculinity, in particular, despite critiques of gaming content and culture as a space where a type of hypermasculinity thrives. The current study explores the relationships between the overall amount of time spent with video games and time spent with games that contain violence with beliefs that emerging adults hold about masculine gender role norms. In a sample of 244 young adult video game players from across the United States, amount of perceived violence in favorite games is shown to predict scores on the Masculine Role Norms Index-Revised and some of its subscales, even under multiple controls. Gender identity of respondent does not moderate the relationships, thereby suggesting that both men and women players with violent favorite games are likely to endorse a view of masculinity that includes aggression, dominance, toughness, and the suppression of emotions. Implications for policymakers, students and other young adults, and for society at large are discussed.

The potential of television to both reflect and shape cultural understandings of gender roles has long been the subject of social scientific inquiry. The present study employed survey methodology with 420 emerging adult respondents (aged 18 to 25) in a national U.S. sample to explore associations between amount of time spent viewing television and views about “ideal” masculine gender roles. The viewing of particular television genres was explored in addition to (and controlling for) overall amount of time spent with the medium, using cultivation theory as the theoretical foundation. Results showed significant statistical associations between viewing sitcoms, police and detective programs, sports, and reality television and scores on the Masculine Roles Norms Inventory-Revised scale. Biological sex of respondent (which very closely approximated gender identity in the sample) moderated a number of these relationships, with positive associations between viewing some genres and endorsement of traditional masculine gender roles stronger for biological male compared to biological female respondents.

In this study, associations between overall amount of television viewing as well as viewing of reality programs featuring adults in romantic, friendship-oriented, or familial settings and the approval of physical and verbal aggression are examined. Consistent with genre-specific cultivation theory, findings among 248 U.S. adult survey respondents show the ability of exposure to docusoap reality television as well as its perceived reality to predict normative beliefs about aggression, even under multiple controls. Additional analyses explore differences between men and women in the sample and explore approval of female-perpetrated compared with male-perpetrated aggression.

In this study, sanitized coverage of the United States’ use of military drone strikes in foreign countries is pitted against more graphic news images in an experimental setting to determine effects on attitudes toward the use of US. military drones. Additionally, multiple news exposures are tested to determine whether individuals can become emotionally inured to war coverage, even when images are more graphic. Key results find those who viewed graphic news visuals did not show evidence of desensitization after repeated viewing, and expressed higher levels of concern regarding drone use, but not reduced support for U.S. drone policy.