ABSTRACT
This chapter examines ideas about what popular media “teach” audiences about violent behavior through social learning or modeling. By the end of this chapter students should be able to connect ideas of social learning, script theory, and dramatism and explain how concepts of priming, disinhibition, and desensitization contribute to the media effects story. They should be able to distinguish between the dramatic concept of katharsis and the aggression catharsis hypothesis. Sequential Art: “The Playground” provides discussion for social learning theory, as well as aspects of play theory. The character of Pennywise from a horror movie inspires a second grade playground game of tag. Key concepts: katharsis, the aggression catharsis hypothesis, social learning theory, desensitization, disinhibition, symbolic interaction, BLM, aggressive cues, dramatism, script theory, play theory.
