Televised violence does not increase viewership according to Nielsen data

Evidence

The myth that the prevalence of televised violence is determined by the base desires of viewers is widely accepted, despite empirical evidence to the contrary. Diener and DeFour (1978) correlated levels of program violence and viewership as measured by the Nielsen index of the number of households tuned in to given programs. The correlation that they found, r = 0.05, revealed no relation whatever between the amount of program violence and how many households watched it. Programs aired at the same time by competing networks can affect the viewership of a given program. In an experimental test of whether counterprogramming might affect the correlation, Diener and DeFour found that a program containing its original violence was no more attractive to viewers than the same program with most of the violence deleted. These findings provide no empirical support for the myth that violence sells. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 931

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader claims in the vault about how harmful-content industries justify themselves via ‘consumer demand’—the mirror image of how ordinary people rationalize supporting harmful policy by blaming the victim or audience.
• QUESTION: Why does the myth that violence sells persist so widely despite r=0.05? The psychology of justifying harmful content likely parallels moral disengagement mechanisms at the institutional level.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 931