Washington, D.C. (March 29, 2012) 

Controversy has swept the media over the forthcoming film "Bully," a documentary about bullying among American youth. Many fear that adolescents who would  benefit from the film will miss out due to the R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, while others question the criteria that gave "Bully" an R rating in the first place (the film, meanwhile, will be released on Friday without a rating). How do these various rating possibilities impact the film's would-be young viewers? 

In the recent  Journal of Communication article "Effects of Media Ratings on Children and Adolescents: A Litmus Test of the Forbidden Fruit Effect," researchers Jordy Gosselt, Menno De Jong and Joris Van Hoof investigate this very question. In the study, the authors investigate whether media ratings alerting would-be young viewers about violence, language, or age-appropriateness actually make it appear more desirable, through what is known as the "forbidden fruit effect."  The study, which observed both elementary and high school students, found that age and content warning pictograms did not make media products more appealing to young participants. These findings starkly contrast with prior research, which has always found the forbidden fruit effect to play a role in media's appeal to youth.  Researchers point to the distracting, visually rich media covers as a possible reason for this divergence from past research, and call for future studies to address the conditions under which the forbidden fruit effect is likely to occur.

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About ICA
The International Communication Association is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching, andapplication of all aspects of human and mediated communication. With more than 4,300 members in 80 countries, ICA includes 26 divisions and interest groups and publishes theCommunication Yearbook and five major, peer-reviewed journals: Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Human Communication Research,Communication, Culture & Critique, and the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. For more information, visit www.icahdq.org. 


For further information, contact:
John Paul Gutierrez
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International Communication Association
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NWWashington, DC 20036
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© Press Release 2012