The Effects Model - Moral Panics

Scene from Child's Play 3

In 1961 Albert Bandura carried out an experiment called 'the Bobo Doll Experiment' which implies that people, especially children, are easily influenced by watching violent images. This model combined with cases of real life murders such as the murder of James Bulger caused a lot of controversy and moral panic among the public. The public was lead to believe that the two children that had killed James Bulger after watching the film 'Child's play 3' which shows many violent images and tourture techniques. This led to a public outcry to get the film banned along with many other violent films. Many people also accuse violent video games of causing people to become violent and carry out violent acts, for example games such as 'Grand Theft Auto' and 'Call of Duty.