Prevalence of Violence Against Women in Televised Dramas of Pakistan and its pro-social effects

Abstract

Abstract Views: 0

Dr Bakht Rawan[1]

Muhammad Amjad[2]

ABSTRACT:

Mass media, irrespective of its type and content, is also heavily loaded with violence against women (VAW) and ubiquity of this phenomenon has prompted researchers to investigate the effects of such mediated violence on society. Nevertheless, the focus of such investigations is restricted largely to negative effects. The present study deviates from the previous investigations by focusing on the prosocial effects of media violence against. For this purpose, the researchers analysed the prevalence of violence against women in prime-time television dramas of Pakistan and investigated its prosocial effects.. The study hypothesized that VAW would prevail equally in prime-time television dramas of the leading entertainment channels of Pakistan. It assumed that female audience of these dramas would have more prosocial effects of exposure to dramatized VAW than their male counterparts. The study also hypothesized that higher exposure to VAW in Pakistani television dramas would have more prosocial effects on the audience. The researchers used content analysis as well as survey methods. The construct “violence” was categorized into physical violence, verbal violence, symbolic violence, sexual violence, economic violence, and psychological violence, and each type of violence was operationalized. Similarly, prosocial effects were categorized into empathy, altruism, volunteerism, advice, and avoidance/prevention. Each effect (prosocial) was operationalized by using different questionnaire items. It was found that all sampled entertainment television channels (ARY Digital, Hum TV and Har Pal Geo) contained violence against women in all most all episodes of the selected dramas but at varying degrees. Verbal and psychological violences were more prevalent as compared to sexual, economic, physical, and symbolic violences. It was also found that there was no significance difference among male and female audience in terms of prosocial effects. However, the extent of viewing television dramas had significant positive relationships with empathy, altruism, volunteerism, and avoidance.

[1] Associate Professor, Department of Mass Communication, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Email: [email protected]

[2] Researcher and journalist