Violence in mainstream TV advertising:

A comparison of the representation of physical

aggression in American and Israeli commercials

AMIR HETSRONI
E-mail: amirhe@ariel.ac.il; amirhetsroni@gmail.com

Abstract
A content analysis of 1,785 American ads and 1,467 Israeli ads maps the rep-
resentation of violence in mainstream TV advertising in the two countries,
finding violence present in 2.5 % of the American commercials and in 1.5 %
of the Israeli commercials. The most frequently depicted conduct in the two
countries is bare-handed assault. Sexual violence is not presented at all. A hu-
morous mode of presentation is more frequent than a serious tone. The results
are discussed from inter-cultural and intra-cultural perspectives, taking regu-
lation factors and public opinion implications into account.

Keywords: Television, Violence, Advertising, USA; Israel; Pluralistic Me-

dia Ignorance, Drench Hypothesis

Introduction
For decades researchers have been documenting the presence of violence in
television shows in different countries (Gunter, Harrison and Wykes, 2003);
however, less attention has been paid to the presentation of this material
during commercial breaks. This study maps the representation of physical
aggression in American and Israeli network television commercials in order
to assess the frequency in which mainstream media feature this objection-
able material and to examine whether the presentation of violence in adver-
tisements varies across the western cultures included in our sample. The an-
swers to these questions indicate the allowable level of aggression that popu-
lar culture can acceptably present to the general public.

Why should we study the presentation of violence in television

advertising?
As television portrayals help to shape viewers’ conceptions of reality, it
is important to measure the frequency in which violent content appears

Communications 35 (2010), 29⫺44 03412059/2010/035⫺0029

DOI 10.1515/COMM.2010.002 쑕 Walter de Gruyter

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30 Amir Hetsroni

on the home screen, (Comstock, Chaffee, Katzman, McCombs, and

Roberts, 1978; Comstock and Scharrer, 1999). Violence in TV programs
has a documented influence on viewers’ aggressive behavior and boosts
fearfulness, distrust, desensitization, frustration, and pessimism (Bush-
man and Anderson, 2001). While commercial broadcasting rarely uses a
didactic tone to instruct the audience what and what not to do, when it
comes to violent reactions, and although its effect is not always among
the largest, it does (indirectly) create an image of justified aggression
through processes of modeling and the formation of parasocial relation-
ships between viewers and models (Comstock and Scharrer, 1999). The
presence of violence in advertising may have a stronger cultivation effect:
Viewers, who are at least partly inoculated to the commercial message
itself (by their awareness of the advertisers’ intentions), have fewer de-
fenses in terms of internalizing social norms that go beyond the con-
sumption of specific products and services (Sheehan, 2004). The fact that
TV advertising, as opposed to the programming, constitutes a content
sphere to which viewers are exposed regardless of their specific viewing
preferences intensifies the need to understand how violence is presented
in this regard.

Violent content on American television

The notion that the level of violence on mainstream television program-
ming has been consistently high for decades predominates the academic
perspective (Gerbner, Morgan, and Signorielli, 1994; Potter, 2003). Al-
though a recent longitudinal review identifies changes in the rate of vio-
lent scenes at different points in time, it does not contradict the finding
that physical aggression has had a dominant role in mainstream televi-
sion (Hetsroni, 2007a). Violence is often presented in a sanitized manner,
with a very limited portrayal of death and gore, and is frequently accom-
panied by the prevalence of successful single-handed assaults of lone-
some heroes (Potter, 2003). The scripts rarely place the perpetrators’
actions in any meaningful context, nor do they discuss the long-term
effects of their aggressive behavior (Signorielli, 2005). Violence, as por-
trayed on entertainment television, underscores gender differences: Ag-
gressive conduct is an overwhelmingly male characteristic and signifies
a gender pecking order by portraying women as victims more often than
as perpetrators (Gerbner et al., 1994). However, the explicit depiction of
sexual violence targeted at women is rare (Hetsroni, 2007a).
Bearing these remarks on violent television programming in mind,
there is however no guarantee that the same applies to commercials. As
opposed to programs, advertisements face tougher challenges, as they
only have a limited amount of time to appeal to the masses and cannot

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 Violence In Mainstream TV Advertising 31

afford a single dull second ⫺ something for which forty-five minute

episodes without unequivocal marketing intentions may be able to com-
pensate. Therefore, advertisements are likely to contain even less objec-
tionable content and present violence in a non-serious tone in order to
not distress viewers who might be offended by a sudden appearance of
unexplained aggression (Maguire, Sandage, and Weatherby, 2000).
As only two studies have measured the frequency in which violent
content in TV advertising occurs, our knowledge of its representation is
therefore limited. An analysis of network commercials from the 1996⫺
97 season detected the presence of violent content in 2.8 % of the ads;
about half of which took place in a socially appropriate context such as
sports (Maguire et al., 2000). The second study by Larson (2003) coded
network and non-network commercials broadcast in the 1997⫺98 season
that featured children. Larson detected a slightly higher frequency of
physical aggression; the rate (4.1 %) is still however quite low.
Maguire et al. (2000) suggest a number of explanations for the low
rate of violence in mainstream TV advertising: First, violence can pro-
voke fear to an extent that becomes counter-productive to the advertis-
er’s objective to showcase the product (Strong and Dubas, 1993). Sec-
ond, placing violent scenes (and particularly gory images that are per-
ceived as unpleasant by large audiences) in temporal and spatial proxim-
ity to the advertised product can create a negative association between
the two and can thereby damage the brand’s image. Third, the advertis-
ers, on their part, may not be pushing the broadcast networks to take
risks with ads loaded with physical aggression (Sheehan, 2004), because
in light of the well-publicized campaigns to boycott violent programming
(Craig, 2001), they may fear a similar fate for their products.
The fact that the actual presence of violent content in TV advertising
is minor has not discouraged the American public from agreeing with
statements such as “there is too much violence in television advertising”
or “the frequency of violence in television advertising is rapidly growing”
(Dolliver, 1999). This is a case of pluralistic media ignorance ⫺ a situation
in which public opinion misperceives the reality of popular media
content (Hetsroni, 2007a). It may be facilitated by often-heard calls from
politicians (see Lieberman, 1999), educators, and academic experts (see
Kunkel, 1999) to put restrictions on the freedom to include violent
images in mainstream broadcasting. It is also possible that the public
simply does not make the distinction between ads and programs (the
latter being more violent than the former).

A cross-cultural look at the presence of violent content in advertising

The content of advertisements varies considerably across cultures (Frith
and Mueller, 2003). The portrayal of violence in American TV advertis-

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32 Amir Hetsroni

ing is therefore not necessarily representative of the circumstances in

other cultures. American culture is relatively masculine, emphasizes dis-
tinctive gender roles, and, to some extent, perpetuates machismo. In con-
trast, feminine cultures like the Scandinavian nations or Israel are char-
acterized by gender egalitarianism and exhibit a lower tolerance of vio-
lence (Hofstede, 2001). Studies found out that, in comparison with other
western nations, mainstream American television programming portrays
violent material (Gunter et al., 2003).
Against this background, and particularly when considering the fact
that the presence of violent content (or lack thereof) in mainstream TV
advertising has not been systematically examined in any country except
the USA ⫺ and the prevalence of violence in commercials in the USA
might have changed since Maguire et al. (2000) and Larson (2003) col-
lected their data in the late 1990s ⫺ a cross-cultural comparison can
provide us with many new insights. Such a study would reveal if the
presence of violence in TV advertising continues to be limited and
whether it is exclusive to America or perhaps reflects the norm in other
countries as well. In the current study, Israel embodies a culture that ⫺
in comparison to the USA ⫺ is less masculine (Hofstede, 2001). Despite
Israel’s long-term involvement in military struggles, Israeli culture is less
macho than American culture (Almog, 2004). The only content analysis
of violence on Israeli television, which took place in the early 1970s,
found that the local programming was considerably less violent than
American shows from those years (Shinar, Parnes, and Caspi, 1972).

Research questions and rationale

In light of the limited number of studies on the presence of violence in
TV advertising, and in particular due to the total dearth of works that
examine the topic outside the USA, we pose research questions rather
than direct hypotheses. Specifically, we formulate two two-part re-
search questions:

RQ1a: How frequently and in what manner (humorous or serious) does

violent content appear on mainstream television advertising?
What are the most frequent portrayals of violent content?
RQ1b: Are there cultural differences in the advertising patterns noted
in RQ1a?

Considering the results of earlier studies (Larson, 2003; Maguire et al.,

2000), the share of ads that contain any violent content may be minimal
and most of the violence might be humorous in tone. Furthermore, the

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 Violence In Mainstream TV Advertising 33

share of the most mass-destructive practices may be particularly low.

Compared to American advertising, Israeli advertising is likely to be less
violent due to Israel’s less masculine cultural profile (Hofstede, 2001).

RQ2a: To what extent does the portrayal of violent content in main-

stream television advertising correspond to common gender role
stereotypes ⫺ specifically, females’ condemnation of violent be-
havior and the proclivity to more frequently portray them as
victims rather than perpetrators of violence?
RQ2b: Are there cultural differences in the advertising patterns noted
in RQ2a?

We may detect considerable adherence to common gender role stereo-

types because these stereotypes often appear in scripts that guide peo-
ple’s behavior (Mosher and Tomkins, 1988). In order to please the
masses, advertising should try to adhere to these scripts. Indeed, recent
analyses point out that although gender role stereotypes have lost some
of their cultural clout, they are still quite common in advertising (Frith
and Mueller, 2003). Due to the more feminine character of Israeli culture
(Almog, 2004), Israeli TV advertising might be somewhat less saturated
with gender role stereotypes than US advertising.

Method
We coded American and Israeli TV advertisements that were broadcast
in the major broadcast networks during the prime-time hours. These
networks attract the largest number of viewers from different social
strata and serve as arena for mass-orientated advertising.

Sample
A sample consisting of 1,785 American ads and 1,467 Israeli ads was
composed of four constructed weeks of commercials that were aired in
the years 2004 and 2005 during the prime-time hours (8 pm⫺11 pm) in
the four major American broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX)
and in the two most highly watched Israeli terrestrial stations (Channel
2, Channel 10). The first constructed week represents the winter months
(January-February), the second represents the spring (April⫺May), the
third represents the summertime (July-August), and the fourth represents
the fall (October-November). Different periods of the year are used as
strata in order to take seasonal variations in advertising into account.
Within the four two-month-periods, days were randomly picked until
complete (seven days) constructed weeks emerged. Within the con-

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34 Amir Hetsroni

structed weeks, all ads that were aired during the designated hours were
sampled. Duplicate ads, as well as public service announcements and
promo clips for the stations’ own programs were omitted in order to
document commercial messages that make up the core of marketing com-
munication (Ganahl, Prinsen, and Baker-Netzley 2003). A similar inclu-
sion and omission policy was used in previous studies of violent mes-
sages in TV advertising (see Maguire et al., 2000). Therefore, our find-
ings are comparable to past research1. The slightly larger number of
American ads in the final sample is due to the fact that the commercial
breaks in American broadcasts (18 minutes per hour) are longer than
the respective breaks in Israeli broadcasts (15 minutes per hour).

Coding book
Each ad was coded for the presence of violence. The definition of vio-
lence as an overt depiction of a credible threat or a physical force, or
the actual use of such force that physically harms (or is intended to
harm) an animate being, group of beings, animals or property is based
on a number of content analyses (Potter and Vaughan, 1997; Smith,
Nathanson, and Wilson, 2002). This definition does not discriminate on
the basis of outcome or context. Our categories are based on a coding
scheme developed by Greenberg, Edison, Korzenny, Fenandez-Collado
and Atkin (1980) to study the portrayal of aggression in television pro-
grams. This scheme was later found to be a reliable tool for the coding
of violence in TV commercials (Maguire et al., 2000). Violent conduct
categories were:

A. Minor violence:
1. Physical threat. An example of an advertisement for a soft drink: A
young man is walking down the street, when a dove urinates on his
head. He threatens to shoot the dove unless it stops urinating. In
response, the dove advises the man to cool off by drinking the adver-
tised drink.
2. Vandalism (violence targeting property). An example of an advertise-
ment for a soft drink: A number of people are sitting in an office
waiting for a job interview, when one of them suddenly starts destroy-
ing the furniture and the equipment in the room. This behavior scares
the other applicants, who hurry to leave the premises. The vandal
gets the job and celebrates with a drink2.
3. Bare-handed assault. An example of an advertisement for an action-
adventure video game: A man and a woman are walking down the
street carrying a box, when they meet a bunch of ruffians who de-

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 Violence In Mainstream TV Advertising 35

mand they hand over the box (where the video game is concealed).
The woman gives the box to the man and starts fighting the ruffians
bare-handedly using moves from the video game.
B. Major violence:
4. Assault with a cold weapon. An example of an advertisement for
kitchen appliances: A criminal attacks a surprised victim with a knife.
The picture freezes as a voice-over says: “We can slice everything to
pieces, but we prefer to work on food.” The next scene shows the
knife at work in a kitchen setting.
5. Shooting (using a gun or a pistol). An example of an advertisement
for a soft drink: A young boy approaches a vending machine and
buys himself a drink. A gunshot is heard ⫺ the shooter is the boy’s
father, who asks him to put the drink back in the vending machine.
In the next scene, the boy is gone and his father is drinking the soda,
when his mother (they boy’s grandmother) shoots and orders him to
put the drink back in the vending machine.
6. Physical humiliation and torture. An example of an advertisement for
cable TV: American soldiers are kept in a Vietnamese prison camp.
A Vietcong guard walks between the lines of the captive soldiers,
whose hands are tied, holding a torch that scorches the soldiers’ body.
Suddenly, the guard starts singing and dancing. The captive soldiers
join in with a wartime musical. A voice over says: “All kinds of
films ⫺ in your home.”
7. Kidnapping. An example of an advertisement for cable TV: A setting
that looks like “Lawrence of Arabia” meets “One thousand Arabian
nights” is the arena for a rescue operation wherein a kidnapped heir-
ess is rescued by her lover from a team of desert bandits, who kid-
napped her for ransom. A film crew shoots the scene.
8. Rape and non-consensual sexual violence. An example of an advertise-
ment for an Internet portal: Shouts of a woman who pleads, “don’t
touch me” are heard from a tank, whose barrel is hoisted at ninety-
degree angle. A voice over says, “Because you can’t see everything,
we are here to tell you what is going on.”3
9. Act of war. An example of an advertisement for a cellular company:
Two armies fight with armory and heavy artillery until the command-
ers of the rival battalions make peace over the phone.
The tone of any violent act was identified as serious-realistic or humorous.
An example of a serious presentation of violence is the aforementioned
act of war advertisement for a cellular company. An example of a hu-
morous presentation of violence is the cable TV advertisement that fea-
tures a humiliation scene in a Vietnamese prison camp.

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36 Amir Hetsroni

For each violent act, the roles of males and females were coded as
follows: male perpetrator and male victim; male perpetrator and female
victim; female perpetrator and male victim; female perpetrator and fe-
male victim.

Reliability
The coding was performed by a team of 25 students who were not privy
to the specific goals of the study. Ten of the coders were Israeli and
coded only Israeli ads. The rest of the coders were American and coded
only American ads4. Each coder worked alone and analyzed about 260
Ads. The coders were trained in a group for six hours and on an individ-
ual basis for additional two hours. The employment of a large number
of coders, which was necessary because of the size of the sample, did not
result in loss of reliability. In fact, as Fleiss (1971) points out, the greater
the number of coders (if properly trained and working independently),
the greater the reliability, for the results can be more safely generalized
to a “pool of coders” (as a population) and the potential for measure-
ment error by any singular coder is smaller.
Each category in each ad was analyzed twice by different coders. Co-
hen’s Kappa statistic was computed to measure agreement between cod-
ers and coding reliability. Its value for any pair of coders ranged from
.78 to .87 across the categories (κ ⫽ .81 for physical threat; κ ⫽ .87 for
vandalism; κ ⫽ .85 for bare-handed assault; κ ⫽ .84 for an assault with
a cold weapon; κ ⫽ .80 for physical humiliation and torture; κ ⫽ .80 for
kidnapping; κ ⫽ .86 for act of war; κ ⫽ .78 for the mode of presenta-
tion). These figures are well above the minimal values that the literature
suggests for the coding of advertisements (Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and
Campanella-Bracken, 2002). Cases of disagreement between coders were
presented at a tandem discussion and, if they remained undecided after
the discussion, were resolved by the author5.

Results
RQ1
To address RQ1, which asked about the probability of finding violent
content in TV advertisements and its mode of presentation, we measured
the frequency of violent portrayals and coded their tone.
Table 1 presents the frequency of a variety of behaviors in America
and Israel. Cross-cultural differences were estimated by the χ 2 statistic.
The size of the effect was measured by an asymmetric λ coefficient (with
the country occupying the role of the independent variable). The values

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 Violence In Mainstream TV Advertising 37

Table 1. Frequency of violent conduct in American and Israeli Television advertising.

USA Israel χ 2 (1) λ
(N ⫽ 1,785) (N ⫽ 1,467)
Any violent conduct 2.48 % 1.44 % 6.7** .001
Minor violence
Physical threat 0.28 % 0.20 % NS
Vandalism 0.00 % 0.00 % NS
Bare-handed Assault 1.18 % 0.41 % 5.0* .001
Major violence
Assault with a cold
weapon 0.45 % 0.14 % NS
Shooting 0.28 % 0.34 % NS
Physical humiliation
and torture 0.06 % 0.14 % NS
Kidnapping 0.06 % 0.14 % NS
Rape and non-consen-
sual sexual violence 0.00 % 0.00 % NS
Act of war 0.17 % 0.07 % NS
* p < .05; ** p < .01

of the λ coefficient denote the proportional reduction in prediction error,

which is roughly equivalent to the share of variance accounted for by
the independent variable.
The most salient finding in both countries is the scarcity of violent
content. Violence of any type appears in just 2.48 % of the American ads
and in only 1.44 % of the Israeli ads. While the inclination of Israeli
advertising to be less violent than American advertising is statistically
significant for all the contents together, and specifically for bare-handed
assault (the most frequent content), one cannot avoid the conclusion that
violence, in general, is rare in mainstream TV advertising in America and
Israel. In both countries, violence in advertising tends to be presented in
a humorous manner (61 % of the ads coded with violence in the USA
and 58 % of the ads coded with violence in Israel were humorous),
whereas a serious-realistic tone characterizes only about 40 % of the vio-
lent ads.
In both countries, violence is over-represented in food commercials
(41.5 %). In Israel, there is also a similar over-representation of violence
in advertisements for communication services, while in America the rest
of the violent commercials are evenly distributed across different product
categories and no category has a share that exceeds 5 %. As far as the
distinction between major and minor violence is concerned, minor vio-
lence makes up 60 % of the violent content in America and 45 % of the
violent content in Israel. The cultural difference in the distribution of
major vs. minor violence is not significant {χ 2 (1) ⫽ 0.5 p > .50}.

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38 Amir Hetsroni

To sum up, the frequency in which violent content appears in TV

advertising is minute and its mode of presentation tends to be humorous
in both countries. Israeli advertisements contain a somewhat smaller
share of violent content.

RQ2
RQ2 probed the extent to which the violent content featured in Ameri-
can and Israeli TV advertising adheres to sex role stereotypes. We exam-
ined two gender stereotypes pertaining to violent behavior ⫺ females’
nonparticipation in this conduct and their tendency to be more fre-
quently portrayed as victims rather than perpetrators. Table 2 shows the
gender distribution of perpetrators and victims for each country.
Table 2. Gender distribution of violence perpetrators and victims in American and Isra-
eli Television advertising.
USA (N ⫽ 44) Israel (N ⫽ 21)
Male perpetrator and male victim 82 % 70 %
Male perpetrator and female victim 0% 25 %
Female perpetrator and male victim 18 % 5%
Female perpetrator and female victim 0% 0%

In both countries violence appears to be a man’s job: Both the perpetra-

tor and the victim are men in 70 % of the violent incidents depicted in
Israeli advertisements and in 82 % of the incidents shown on American
commercials. In Israel, the share of female victims (25 %) is larger than
the share of female perpetrators (5 %); in the USA there are no women
victims at all and 18 % of the perpetrators are women. Cultural differ-
ences in the gender distribution of perpetrators and victims fall slightly
short of significance {χ 2 (2) ⫽ 5.6 p ⫽ .06} mainly due to the high share
of males who are both perpetrators and victims in the two countries.
Altogether, while the portrayal of violence tends to omit women from
the picture, there is no cross-cultural tendency to portray them as victims
more often than as perpetrators.

Discussion
Major findings regarding the prevalence of violent content
in TV advertising
The most consistent finding for both countries is the low frequency of
violent content. This material is indeed a rare occurrence in television
advertising, portrayed most frequently in a humorous manner in ap-

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 Violence In Mainstream TV Advertising 39

proximately one out of every 40 ads in the USA and in only one out of
every 65 ads in Israel. This rate is lower than the frequency of violence
in commercials aired a decade earlier (Maguire et al., 2000; Larson,
2003). A decrease in the rate of violence shown in broadcasts carried by
mainstream TV networks was also found in a recent analysis of the
programming (Hetsroni, 2007a) and may result from a lingering public
campaign to clean up the screen (see Signorielli, 2005, pp. 1⫺15).
The share of violent commercials in America is higher than the respec-
tive share in Israel, as was to be expected due to the highly masculine
character of American society (Hofstede, 2001) and the fact that Ameri-
can television is renowned as one of the most violent in the world (Gun-
ter et al., 2003) and certainly more violent than Israeli television (Shinar
et al., 1972). However, in terms of violence, the commercial program-
ming in both countries is best described as TV-G (suitable for all ages),
since less than one percent of the ads feature major violence and because
the most common mode of presentation is humorous. The minuscule
rate and the humorous presentation imply that negative violence-related
socialization effects should probably not be ascribed to watching com-
mercials.

Cross-Cultural differences in the portrayal of violent content

in TV advertising
The slightly smaller share of violent content in Israeli advertising reflects
the fact that ⫺ in comparison to America ⫺ Israeli culture is more femi-
nine and less macho (Hofstede, 2001). Of course, this does not suggest
that American advertising has a surplus of violence (unless a figure of
two and a half percent indicates “overabundance”).
One way to look at the relative similarity in the lack of presentation
of violent content in the two countries is to see it as a sign of a general
cultural resemblance. This resemblance, which finds expression in vari-
ous forms of popular culture ⫺ from TV game shows (Hetsroni, 2001),
to children’s toys (Bloch and Lemish, 2003), and even to corporations
trademarks (Avraham and First, 2003) ⫺ might have evolved from the
undisguised economic and political dependency of Israel on the USA.

Gender related findings

The fact that men are solely responsible for three quarters of the violent
acts portrayed in advertising may be regarded as a confirmation of the
belief that violence is not for girls. Such presentation has a lot in com-
mon with what television programming has portrayed for decades
(Gerbner et al., 1994; Gunter et al., 2003); however, before we come to

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40 Amir Hetsroni

the conclusion that television advertising (and TV entertainment in gene-

ral) distort reality by representing women as helpless creatures who are
afraid to stand up for their rights, let us not forget that ⫺ according to
official police statistics ⫺ the share of females who commit violent
crimes is similar to the share of female perpetrators in TV advertising
(Zimring and Hawkins, 1997). The absence of sexual violence in TV
advertising in both countries may stem from the advertisers’ fear of deal-
ing with the most objectionable of contents, which finds expression in
TV advertisers’ general abstention from featuring sexual practices (Hets-
roni, 2007b), but it may also reflect the rarity of sexual violent crime in
reality ⫺ compared to non-sexual violent crime (Zimring and Hawkins,
1997).

Violent content in TV advertising, regulation factors, and public opinion

Considering the findings, it is of interest to ask whether the relative
scarcity of violent content in any of the countries is the result of a strict
regulation policy. In the USA, where advertising is protected by the First
Amendment, there is very little content censorship. Most of the advertis-
ing cases that are dealt with by the FTC (the federal agency that investi-
gates consumers’ complaints) and the FCC (the federal agency in charge
of broadcasting regulation) pertain to deceptive advertisements (Keenan,
1994).
In Israel, on the other hand, television advertising is strongly regulated
by a governmental agency called The Second Authority for Radio and
Television (Hetsroni, 2010). Nonetheless, despite the relatively rigid regu-
lation of TV advertising in Israel and the lenient stance in the US, com-
mercials in both countries feature little violent content, most likely be-
cause self-censorship (in both countries) is more effective than govern-
mental interference. Generally, advertisers and broadcasters are aware
of the strong opposition of mass audiences to the graphic portrayals of
violence (see Fisher, Cook, and Shirkey, 1994 for findings from Ameri-
can surveys and Bar-Lev, 2003 for figures from Israel).
However, despite the minor presence of violent content in TV advertis-
ing, the majority of Israelis and Americans feel ⫺ according to polls ⫺
that there is too much violence in television advertising (Bar-Lev, 2003;
Dolliver, 1999). Politicians express a growing concern, as demonstrated
in the words of Senator and former vice-presidential candidate, Joe Lie-
berman:

“We are not calling for a return to the 1950s, but simply a respite
from the graphic gunplay and foreplay that increasingly dominate the

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 Violence In Mainstream TV Advertising 41

tube ⫺ whether it is a news item, a sitcom or an advertisement ⫺ and

send the worst messages to the public”
(Lieberman in Three U.S. senators speak out, 1999, p. 34).

The inevitable question is why significant attention is given to such a

minor phenomenon. We offer two explanations to this seemingly dispro-
portionate concern: The first is that even a minuscule percentage of vio-
lent ads may seem to be “too much” in the eyes of the people who
oppose any presentation of violence (Fisher et al., 1994). The second
explanation suggests that TV viewers may experience pluralistic media
ignorance (a failure to correctly estimate the true picture of television
content), because ⫺ as proposed by Greenberg’s drench hypothesis
(Greenberg, 1988) ⫺ a small number of particularly salient programs
(or advertisements), which receive extensive press coverage, can have a
profound impact that overshadows the bulk of less salient and less hyped
shows and advertisements. Highly discussed scandalous campaigns that
feature excessive amounts of violence can create the false impression that
many of the advertisements are full of depictions of aggression. The
discrepancy between the public’s estimation of the prevalence of objec-
tionable content in advertising and the actual prevalence of this content
should be closely studied in the future.

Study limitations and final words

Like in any content analysis, the findings (that, in our case, point to the
relative absence of violence in mainstream TV advertising) are not only
reflective of broadcasters’ and advertisers’ determination to not take
risks with objectionable content, but are also shaped ⫺ to some extent
⫺ by the researchers’ operational definitions. Before drawing our final
conclusions, we must recall what was measured in terms of the coding
scheme and study population.
The coding scheme only considered physical violence, since it consists
of well-defined behaviors that were measured in previous analyses of
violent content on television (Greenberg et al., 1980; Potter and Vaughan,
1997), and correspond to the mainstream definition of “televised vio-
lence” (Potter, 2003). On the other hand, the application of a relatively
strict scheme might have omitted manifestations of non-violent anti-so-
cial behavior (e. g. verbal aggression, hostile looks), which cannot be
regarded “violent conduct” in the literal sense, but which may neverthe-
less be regarded by some as expressions of “belligerence”.
The study population included commercials from network program-
ming because these stations attract the largest number of viewers. How-
ever, the growing penetration of cable and other multi-channel services,

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42 Amir Hetsroni

currently reaching nearly 85 % of the households in America and Israel

(Second Authority for Television and Radio, 2005; Webster, Phalen and
Lichty, 2006) has significantly decreased the share of network viewers.
This share decreased from nearly 70 % in 1984 to 30 % twenty years later
(Webster et al., 2006). While the networks still attract more viewers than
other stations, their most loyal audience is older, conservative people
who show concern about the potential harmful effects of televised vio-
lence and support the censorship of such content (Fisher et al., 1994).
These are certainly not the kind of people that would be entertained by
advertisements loaded with violent images. The non-controversial ap-
proach of network advertising in an effort not to offend the more conser-
vative viewers is part of a more general LOP (Least Objectionable Pro-
gramming) strategy, according to which the most popular stations will
try harder to maintain their loyal audiences than to conquer new mar-
kets (Webster et al., 2006). From a public policy perspective, it seems
that major broadcasters and prominent advertisers keep the home screen
relatively free of violence, at least during commercial breaks, better than
any regulative authority could do. However, in an era typified by grad-
ual abandonment of diversified stations and large networks in favor of
segmented channels, further studies that will analyze cable TV advertise-
ments that cater to younger people (e. g. MTV) are needed before we can
confirm whether of the present findings apply to the gamut of television
advertising or characterize only its mainstream programming.

Notes
1. Among the public service announcements not analyzed there was not even one
instance of violent conduct.
2. This advertisement was used as a sample to train the coders. In the sample itself,
no act of vandalism was coded.
3. This advertisement was used as a sample to train the coders. In the sample itself,
no act of vandalism was coded.
4. To make sure that the coders’ decisions are not only intra-culturally reliable but
also cross-culturally robust [see Peter and Lauf (2002) for a discussion of reliability
problems that may arise in cross-cultural content analysis], we separately examined
25 advertisements from each country that were coded by one American coder and
one Israeli coder. Not a single disagreement concerning violence was found in
this subsample.
5. Four cases, where the coders remained divided in their opinion after discussion,
were resolved by the author.

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