RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

constantly created in the organism and tends to manifest itself in aggressive, destructive activity directed against the environment and at other people. When this aggression is extemalized, satisfaction is experienced, for tension arising from the unsatisfied instinct is released. It is assumed that it is possible to release aggressive energy not only by carrying out an act of aggression but by те very witnessing of aggressive scenes. Enjoying events witnessed, the spectator experiences similar emotions to the participants and is thus hberated from emotional tension. From this rt stems that aggression оп television has the cathartic function of releasing aggression in the viewer, i.e. that television has the role of »purifying« aggression in society. This thesis was particularly supported by Feshbach who considered that televised violence serves to reduce aggressive behaviour through fantasy. Injury in fantasy, a specific substitute for the active infliction of injury, signifies release of the aggressive instinct. He and Siegei conducted experiments which aimed to rest the hypothesis of the cathartic role of aggression witnessed in films and obtained results which more or less supported the abovementioned hypothesis. This piece of research, however, is the °nly °ne which offers some proof, and the results of later research do not bear it out. Besides, a series of methodological objections have been raised to this research, THE FRUSTRATION CONCEPT OF AGGRESSION Unlike the previous one, this theory does not accept that instincts аге inner stimuli to aggression but instead states that there is a process based on heredity which makes aggression possible. According to this, aggressiveness does not accumulate by itself but occurs as the result of prevention of needs and motives, i.e., as the result 1 of frustration. In other words, this hypothesis supports the concept that the prevention of an activity directed towards a certain goal, usually coming from the human environment, produces

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