Article Review on “Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie”

Movies have become mainstream entertainment that consumers enjoy and frequently follow. Movies, such as the Avengers and Fight Club offer variety to consumers with varying tastes. For some, movies are distractions from stress while others utilize the medium as a way to teach lessons. Despite the motivation behind the consumption of movies, experts acknowledge that this form of entertainment can potentially affect the behavior of individuals. To better understand this, psychologists, sociologists, and other experts conducted studies investigating the effects of films on certain types of people. One of whom is Tina Kubrak from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Tina Kubrak conducted a study and published the research article “Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie” in May 2020. The article focused on investigating young people and their attitudes towards the elderly after movie watching. “Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie” is an informative research article that provides an insight into the effects of movies on young individuals, however, its limitations demand future studies with larger sample sizes and to account for attitude-affecting factors.

1. Article Summary

The article  “Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie” is a research article that describes the study that the author Tina Kubrak conducted. The research aimed to gather new data on the effects of movie watching on young individuals and their perception towards the elderly. The researcher utilized a psychosemantic technique to identify the specific attitudes that they measured during the study. The research had a sample size of 70 participants. 40 were students from The State Academic University for Humanities and 30 were postgraduate students from the Russian Academy of Sciences. 

Initially, the researcher planned to combine the results of the two groups and assess the result. However, since there were no significant differences in the combined sample, the researcher decided to compare the results of the two sample sizes to assess the attitudes that different groups may develop after watching a movie. The researcher proceeded with this comparative approach for further analyses and disregarded the initial plan to combine the two groups’ results.

The study concluded that there are significant differences in viewer attitudes towards the elderly after watching a movie. The students’ group, who had negative attitudes before movie watching, developed a worse perception of the elderly after movie watching. Alternatively, the postgraduate students’ group; who had better attitudes before movie watching; developed an improved perception of the elderly after movie watching. Despite these results, the researchers noted that the viewers’ attitudes after movie watching disappeared over time.

2. Informative Introduction

The author utilized the introduction to justify the research goal, discuss significant arguments, cite literature, and establish the background of the study. In justifying the research goal, the author stated that movies can become tools to promote ideologies and influence the beliefs, opinions, and attitudes of viewers. The introduction aimed to establish that movies can affect an individual’s approach to societal issues which can influence decisions that can either benefit or harm society. Since young individuals are the primary audience of popular movies, indicating these effects allows the readers to understand the potential positive and negative effects of movie watching.

The author also discussed opposing arguments about the topic along with existing literature. The author highlighted the “strong effect theories” and “minimal effect theories” which are categorical names for theories that either state that movies have strong or weak influence. With this, the author utilized existing literature to define and state examples for each argument and provide the readers with a better understanding of the two positions. The citing of literature and providing examples are effective ways of introducing a topic which make the article more comprehensible and allow readers to develop an overview of the topic.

3. Use of Disclaimers and Citing of Important Notes

Another good point about the article is the author’s use of disclaimers and important notes. In the research methodology section, the author stated that a local ethics committee approved the study and that the research is following the “Declaration of Helsinki”. There were also notes, such as “the participants did not see the movie before the study” and a description of how the research approach changed. While some of this information is irrelevant to the topic, the author decided to include them to address possible concerns and questions regarding the research. This is a great addition to the article since it shows the author’s transparency and acknowledgment of pre-research procedures.

4. Cons of the Introduction

Despite the comprehensive characteristics of the introduction discussed earlier, it still possesses weaknesses that the author could have avoided to make a better article. The introduction was unnecessarily long and contained disruptive website links. It is important to note that these weaknesses are minor and do not affect the credibility of the content but only the reading experience. With regards to the section’s unnecessary length, the introduction was 2000 words with the rest of the article having a total of around 3000 words. The section did not only include an introduction to the topic but included paragraphs about research design, implementations, limitations, and others. While the author can argue that this is to provide an extensive background of the topic and study, the introduction was almost as long as the rest of the article. This can lead readers to lose interest before they get to the article’s body or skip some parts of the introduction. Instead, the author should have found a way to reduce the section’s length to about 10%-15% of the body or divided it into different sections.

There is also the issue of the authors’ inclusion of excessive website links in the first paragraph of the introduction. While it is acceptable to include links in a research article, especially if the author aims to publish it online, they should assess the effects of including links to specific parts. In the article, readers will notice the multiple lines of blue texts in the top part of the section which can be unappealing to the eyes and disrupt the reading process. This can make the research article sound informal as well as difficult to understand because of URLs between phrases. The author could have instead adapted a better format, such as utilizing bullets, to include URLs without disrupting the reading process.

5. Small Sample Size

In the article’s methodology section, the author indicated the method of approach to the study. The author divided the section into different subsections which made this part of the paper organized and more comprehensible. Despite this, the section also indicated one of the limitations of the study that the author did not acknowledge. The study had 70 participants which were all young students in Russia. Firstly, the 70 sample size is extremely low to represent the youth demographic in the world or even in Russia. Secondly, the participants are mostly youth from Russia who grew up in a particular culture. The cultural upbringing factor along with the extremely small sample size cannot provide reliable results that can apply to the general youth. Young individuals from other cultures may have different perceptions toward the elderly as well as on movies which can affect how movie watching influences their attitude.

6. Confusing Thesis

The research article’s most notable problem is its confusing thesis and/or title . In the introduction, the author stated that the goal was to gather data on the positive effects of movies and identity changes in the attitude of young individuals towards topical social issues. However, in the methodology and results and discussion sections, the author reported on results regarding the changes in young people’s attitudes toward the elderly. Furthermore, the unnecessary length of the introduction made it difficult for readers to identify the exact thesis. 

In most academic writing, the author must indicate the thesis in the introduction and complement the title. In the article, however, the author stated the hypothesis (since it is a research study) in a way that does not complement the title “Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie”. From reading the title, the reader will expect an article about how movie watching affects young people’s attitudes in a general approach. However, the article’s thesis focused on young people’s attitudes towards the elderly. This can be confusing for readers since they will expect something different based on the title. The author should have revised the article’s title as “ Impact of Films: Change in Young People’s Attitudes Toward the Elderly after Watching a Movie”. This way, the readers will identify the article’s thesis simply from the title.

Conclusion

The article “Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie” successfully informs its readers about how movies can affect the attitudes of young people toward the elderly as well as its effect on a general perspective. However, the article suffers from significant limitations, such as the small sample size, that makes the results inapplicable to the general youth. Furthermore, issues in formatting make some of the sections difficult to comprehend and unappealing to the eyes. “Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie” succeeds in its goal to contribute to the topic’s discussion and research, however, its weaknesses limit these contributions; minimizing its position to a foundation for future research.

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Reference

Kubrak, T. (2020). Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie, Behavioral Sciences, vol 10(5). Available at https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fbs10050086. Accessed March 10, 2022.