What advertisers do not see is the research that has been done which questions whether people remember the commercials or not. .
Commercials are very important to advertisers, because if violent programs have a negative effect on people, companies will have a hard time finding advertisers to fill their time slots. Why do violent programs have a bad effect on people's memory of the commercials shown? Does violence heighten the viewer to the point they cannot concentrate on the commercial they are watching? Does violence have an effect on the way people feel that can lower the confirmation of the ad? Could it be something else, maybe that people become so involved in the programs that they are not able to progress the commercial. In this paper I will try to give attention to the different effects of violence in television programming.
Researchers have said that when people see stimulating things they need more time to adjust physically to the images then it takes to adjust mentally. High violence programs cause a high level of excitement that takes a longer time to decrease. When commercials are shown during the program, they may cause a different kind of excitement in the viewer. The combination of physical and mental confusion may block the information and learning procedure. Studies have given attention to the theories regarding violent, emotional, and unpleasant stories. A group of researchers found that college students" recall of a commercial was even lower after watching an unpleasant and violent news program then students who had watched a regular news program. The news story that was unpleasant was about a suicide. The man was giving a press conference and pulled out a gun, put it in his moth, and shot himself. The blood from the man's head was only shown for a few seconds, but it made enough of an impression on the students that the though process was interrupted enough for them not to recall the story for two and a half minutes longer than the students who watched the regular story.
