Media Influences on Decision Making Research:

          Researchers have demonstrated that news coverage can influence perceptions of both civil (see, e.g., Robbenolt & Studebaker, 2003) and criminal cases (see e.g., Kovera, 2002; Moran & Cutler, 1997; Studebaker, Robbennolt, Pathak-Sharma, & Penrod, 2000; Vidmar, 2002; Wilson & Bornstein, 1988). This research has generally focused on pretrial publicity of specific cases, and sometimes on the news coverage of the trial itself. Research on pretrial publicity has also explored ways of addressing the biases caused by pretrial publicity. In this program of research, which I am working on in conjunction with Veronica Stinson and Marc Patry, we propose to examine a different source of media influence: popular television dramas. Weekly programs relating to the American legal system such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Law and Order have become enormously popular with Canadian audiences, and these programs have been on the air for a number of years. CSI is now in its sixth season, and Law and Order has aired for 16 consecutive years. Both CSI and Law and Order have spawned a number of spin-off shows. In addition to the original show, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS Broadcast Systems, Inc. also now produces CSI: Miami, which first aired in 2002, and CSI: New York which began in 2004. Law and Order, which is produced by Universal Studios, Inc., has three new variant shows: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (which began in 1999) Law and Order: Criminal Intent (est. 2001) and Law and Order: Trial by Jury began in 2005. For the 2004-2005 TV season, CSI and CSI: Miami were both in the Nielsen top ten shows in the United States, and CSI is consistently among the top five shows (usually #1 or #2) in Canada (http://www.nielsenmedia.ca). With such an enormous audience, it is important for researchers to examine the ways in which this form of media influences human thought and behavior.



          Research suggests that television has a huge impact on social-cognitive processes. For example, a decades-long debate among researchers on whether TV violence causes aggressive behavior seems to have been resolved in the affirmative (see, e.g., Bushman & Anderson 2001; 2002; Fiske, 2004; Paik & Comstock, 2004)While the most realistic data are generally correlational, converging evidence (including laboratory studies) strongly suggests that exposure to TV violence causes aggressive behavior. Recent research on violent video games suggests that interactive entertainment media can also have an impact on behavior (see, e.g., Anderson & Dill, 2000). There has been little or no research, however, on the extent to which popular television dramas influence individuals’ understanding and perceptions of the legal system (we were unable to locate any published studies in this area).



          In collaboration with students and other colleagues, we have completed three studies in this area, the data from which clearly demonstrate two basic findings: 1) the biasing effects of TV crime dramas, and 2) that an intervention can be an effective (Patry et al., 2006; Smith et al., 2006; Stinson et al., 2007). In one study (Smith et al., 2006) we found that television viewing habits predict opinions of the reliability of forensic techniques (Stinson et al., 2005). The data from 148 participants show that watching television crime dramas predicts judgments of the reliability of some types of forensic evidence (i.e., DNA evidence, handwriting analysis, and compositional evidence). Importantly, we found that to some extent, this effect was causal. From a theoretical perspective, we expect our research will offer a substantial contribution to the literature on Social Cognitive Theory, both in terms of the ways in which television media influences our thought processes and behaviors, and in terms of strategies for managing those influences. We hope this research will also make major strides in terms of applied legal psychology by substantially advancing knowledge about television crime dramas, an area that has yet to receive much (if any) attention from the research community. Most importantly, this research should be of interest to the legal community and has the potential for direct application in the Canadian legal system. In addition to using these findings generally in their practice of law, legal scholars and professionals will have empirical research on which to rely should the legal system move toward adopting intervention strategies to eliminate legal confusion and bias stemming from television media.