Effects of Film on Driving Behaviour

Mass Media & Society

• Jeremy Philip Monteiro   
• Imbert Narumanan Sebastian
• Lim Jit Shern

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Introduction

We conducted a study on college students here in Tunku Abdul Rahman University-College Penang to see if a movie could affect their driving behavior. We selected the movie, The Fast & The Furious. The choice of movie is selected because the movie itself is involves high-speed chases and racing with vehicles that are modified to push itself to the limits. The movie itself is an action and also a thriller; it was released in 2001 and directed by Rob Cohen and distributed by Universal Pictures. The main cast of the movie are Vin Diesel and Paul Walker; Walker plays as an undercover cop who must stop a team of hijackers who are led by Diesel. Brian gets involve with the hijackers and falls in love with Diesel’s sister and must choose to be an accomplice in Diesel’s plan or blow it all over by arresting him and his crew. Throughout the movie there will be conflict, some family oriented scenes but its main focus are on the adrenaline-rushing fast cars.

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This research was done on college students, specifically in TARUC Penang. There were about 30 students who were asked to be interviewed using a prepared set of questions. The interview was conducted informally as it would make the interviewee more comfortable as well as to stimulate open ended answers rather than close ended. The idea is to see if these college students who have watched the movie affected in anyway in terms of driving. The title of our research is “Do movies affect students’ driving? A review on The Fast & The Furious.

Literature Review

The theory that is used in this research is the Media Effects theory. Media Effect theory explains as how the media can affect the society and how the society can affect the media. The concept of this theory relies on both the media as well as the society. However there are several implications that are negative made of this theory which is saying that people try to follow exactly as to what they see. For instance, “copycat murder” that took place in 2004 when a boy was murdered by his best friend and the game ‘Manhunt’ was instantly banned due the style of murder was assume to be similar to the game.

The theory defines moral panic in relation to representations of sex, violence and deviant behavior and its supposed effects on youth. Moral panic is the feeling that the situation is out of control in some way, and therefore represents a threat to the moral order.

The media effects theory was firstly proposed by the Frankfurt School of social researchers in the 1920’s from people’s reaction to Nazi propaganda. The hypodermic model explains that the media is like a drug that society may be addicted to, stating that the audience are helpless to defend themselves against the media and just behave passively.

This theory is quite similar to the Social Learning theory by Bandura where a studied made on 2 groups of children who are exposed to the violent content on television and the other group is exposed to the positive content. Later, both groups were given a doll and the group who were exposed to the violent content reacted violently towards the doll. This helps determine that children may behave according to what they see or exposed to.

Research

The purpose of this research is to find out if a movie such as The Fast & The Furious may or may not be an affect or influence the driving in any way. In order to ensure that the information we use in this research is accurate and reliable, we decided to use a primary research method to obtain our results. Which is to interview our respondents face to face and gather their feedback. The idea of an interview is to obtain a qualitative research which is in hope to receive in-depth answers to the questions.

The target audience were selected at random in college and most of them were from the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities. Based on the nature of the movie, we could assume that the producers of the franchise were targeting teenagers and young adults. Therefore we have decided to interview our fellow college-mates for this research. Moreover, most the students in TARUC have just gotten their driving license and are experiencing unsupervised driving for the first time. Our team has chosen 30 individuals within the campus grounds and approached them in the canteen, the library and the foyer.

Below are the ten questions that were prepared for the interview:

• Have you watched The Fast and the Furious?
• Where did you watch the movie?
• What do you think of the movie?
• How many times have you watched the movie?
• Do you think the movie influences your driving style? In what way?
• After watching the movie, do you see yourself attempting to replicate the stunts you have seen?
• Which scene in the movie would you say made an impact on your driving?
• Do you think it is dangerous or safe to be mimicking the driving from the movie?
• After watching the movie would you say that your driving abilities have improved?
• Do you feel that the movie can play a role in how you drive?

These ten questions are made specifically to understand how the student thinks or feel after watching the movie, especially to see if the movie has made a change on their driving abilities and if they are aware of it. We took note of what the 30 individuals had answered and evaluated them.

Findings

Based on the questions above, we have found that all 30 respondents have answered that they have watched the movie before.

Since it being an old movie that was released in 2001, majority of students answered that they have watch the movie on television. However there were a minority that had answered cinema.

Majority of students had answered that they think that the movie is a good and entertaining movie which falls as a positive review. However a minority of them had also answered that the movie comes off as an unrealistic and bad movie which implies as a negative review.

To the question above, majority of students answered once and minority of them had answered twice.

Based on the question above, all 30 students who have watched the movie claims that they are unaffected by the movie.

To question 6, only 2 students answered “yes” where else majority of them answered that they will do not see themselves wanting to replicate the stunts they see in the movie.

As to question 7, majority of students claimed the there is no scene applicable. However, a minority of 6% answered the racing scene made an impact on their driving.

Based on the question, all 30 students have answered that it is dangerous to be mimicking the driving from the movie.

According the chart above, minority of students claimed that their driving abilities have improved after watching the movie. However, majority of them said that the movie did not improve their driving abilities.

Based on the final question, majority of students feel that the movie does not play a role in how they drive today and a minority of 23% said that it does.

Conclusion

We’ve learned that the conducting research isn’t an easy task and takes time to produce result. We also learn that most students find it hard to produce quality answers as they rather provide brief answers.

From the findings above, we are able to deduce that the influence brought upon by a movie has not affected the driving style of college students in our campus. This is solely based on their answers of course; however we are unable to physically prove at the moment if it has taken an effect Most students found the movie to be fun and entertaining but however manage to realized that the movie is unrealistic and are aware of the dangers involve if they were to follow what they see in the movie.

Despite having good overall reviews of the highly action packed scenes from the movie itself, students find that stunts coordinated in the movie is rather dangerous and definitely will not be attempted in their daily driving routine.

In short, based on the majority of answers we gathered, after a watching the movie, The Fast & The Furious, students at Tunku Abdul Rahman University-College are not affected by it.

Bibliography/References

1. Neal H.M (Producer), & Rob Cohen (Director) (2001).The Fast and the Furious[Motion picture]. United States: Universal Pictures (Distributor).

2. Martyn Shuttleworth(Jul 5, 2008). Survey Research Design. Retrieved Nov 22, 2014 from Explorable.com:https://explorable.com/survey-research-design

3. Robson, C. (2002)Real world research: A resource for social scientists and practitioner-researchers, Oxford, Blackwell.

4. Biagi, S. (2012). Media impact: an introduction to mass media (10^th ed.). CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.

5. Vivian, J. (2012). The media of mass communication (11^th ed.). Singapore: Pearson.

6. Burton, G. (2005). Media and society: Critical perspective. New York: Open University Press.

7. Krish, S. J. (2006). Children, adolescents, and media violence: A critical look at the research. CA: Sage Publication.

Appendix

Survey 1

Have you watched the movie The Fast and the Furious before?

Yes

Where did you watched the movie?

I watched it on TV, one of the Astro movie channels.

What do you think about the movie?

Very fast paced and entertaining action movie, But like all actions movies, it is filled with unrealistic action sequences, involving cars mostly, and violence.

How many times have you watched the movie?

Twice.

Do you think the movie influences your driving style? In what ways?

No, the move did not influence my driving style.

After watching the movie, do see yourself attempting to replicate the stunts you’ve seen?

No.

What scene in the movie would you say made an impact the most on your driving?

No scene in particular as I think the entire movie did not have any impact on my driving skills.

Do you think it is dangerous or safe to be mimicking driving acts from the movie?

It is dangerous of course, People have to know that Fast and Furious is a movie and the driving sequences are made to look unrealistic and dangerous to meet the criteria of an action movie. These sequences are mostly carried out by experienced stunt drivers.

After watching the movie, would you say that your driving abilities have been improved?

No, not at all. Watching the movie did not affect my driving skills at all.

Do you agree that movies can play a role in how a person drives?

Yes. Those who watch the movie and are into to automobiles might try to imitate the driving sequences done in the film, which depict illegal racing, speeding and reckless driving to be fun. Also, some people might get the idea that it is safe to do all those things and not get in trouble or get hurt as the characters in the movie remain unscathed and always get away with what they’re doing. Unfortunately, this does not apply in real life.

Survey 2

Have you watched the movie The Fast and the Furious before?

Yes.

Where did you watched the movie?

When it played on TV.

What do you think about the movie?

Good, quite entertaining. I thought it was very cool with the fast cars.

How many times have you watched the movie?

Once.

Do you think the movie influences your driving style? In what ways?

No.

After watching the movie, do see yourself attempting to replicate the stunts you’ve seen?

Nope, not at all.

What scene in the movie would you say made an impact the most on your driving?

No particular scene.

Do you think it is dangerous or safe to be mimicking driving acts from the movie?

Dangerous, of course.

After watching the movie, would you say that your driving abilities have been improved?

Nope, I was too young at the time when I first watched it.

Do you agree that movies can play a role in how a person drives?

Maybe. Sometime Maybe. Sometimes people will go too far and imitate their role models on screen without knowing the risks of actually doing so.

Survey 3

Have you watched the movie The Fast and the Furious before?

Yes.

Where did you watched the movie?

On the television.

What do you think about the movie?

Quite a cool movie.

How many times have you watched the movie?

Once but I watched it halfway through.

Do you think the movie influences your driving style? In what ways?

Nope.

After watching the movie, do see yourself attempting to replicate the stunts you’ve seen?

Not really, I wouldn’t dare.

What scene in the movie would you say made an impact the most on your driving?

No particular scene.

Do you think it is dangerous or safe to be mimicking driving acts from the movie?

Quite dangerous,

After watching the movie, would you say that your driving abilities have been improved?

No.

Do you agree that movies can play a role in how a person drives?

No.

Survey 4

Have you watched the movie The Fast and the Furious before?

Yes, unfortunately I have.

Where did you watched the movie?

It is quite an old movie, I think it was on TV.

What do you think about the movie?

It’s good but very unrealistic.

How many times have you watched the movie?

Once.

Do you think the movie influences your driving style? In what ways?

Absolutely not.

After watching the movie, do see yourself attempting to replicate the stunts you’ve seen?

No.

What scene in the movie would you say made an impact the most on your driving?

None in particular as I can barely even remember the movie.

Do you think it is dangerous or safe to be mimicking driving acts from the movie?

Very dangerous.

After watching the movie, would you say that your driving abilities have been improved?

Not at all.

Do you agree that movies can play a role in how a person drives?

Yes, there will always be some crazy sod out there who think they can pull of movie driving-stunts on an actual road an attempt to speed on the highway. It’s ridiculous.