Case Study 2- The Murder of James Bulger

This is another example which can back up the The Effects Model Theory. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were thought to of murdered Bulger under the influence of the film "Childs Play 3" in 1993. Its been suggested and linked that the two boys acted out what they had seen from this violent film onto the defenceless two year old.

However there has been no evidence that the two 10 year old boys had ever even seen the film and it has been known that they both came from neglected and abusive backgrounds which may have been the cause of their violent outbreak. Therefore it needs to be asked; was it actually the film or the years of abuse that created this murder?

Its also greatly believed that politicans only put blame onto this film in order to cover up their own failure on not picking up upon the poor systems that was going on in society e.g. social services not visiting abusive households frequently.

Overall it had to be said that the boys must have been mentally unstable in order to participate in such a crime as they were at an age where they could think rationally and know right from wrong. A film could not have made such an impact that it forced them into killing another innocent being.

However there has been experiments in the past to try and prove The Effects Model. In particular one done in the 1960's by Albert Bandurn called "The Bobo Experiment" which explains about aggression.

Aggression must explain three aspects:
1) How aggression patterns of behaviour are developed
2) What provokes people to behave aggressively
3) What determines whether they are going to continue to resort to an aggressive behaviour patterns on future occassions.

The Experiment- Children witness a woman aggressively attack a plastic clown called the Bobo Doll. After the video, the children were placed in a room with attractive toys but they couldn't touch. Therefore the children become angry and frustrated which they use to take out on the identical toys used in the Bobo video.

88% of the children imitated the aggressive behaviour!!!



There are 3 major flaws in this experiment i believe to dismiss this idea about text violence being linked with replicating it.
1) The children were being intentionally provoked beforehand therefore are going to need to take out their frustration somehow afterwards
2) There wasn't much else you could do with a Bobo doll other than push it whereby it will immediately right back up which will make the children want to push it again- Its all part of the game.
3) If the children were given a hammer and a gun and they know what their purposes are then of course they are going to use them in the exactly way. A Bobo Doll is a perfect toy for them to use these items on.

I also highly doubt that if Banburn put a real human being in the room with the child instead of the Bobo doll that the child would use the weapons on them to outlet their frustration. Because the doll was in fact a toy, the children knew they couldnt harm it and therefore no crime is being commited.

In conclusion i find this experiment to be unreliable. To the extent that violent texts could be influential enough to replicate isout the of question; there are plently of other reasons and causes of these to why crimes are commited.