Introduction to CHAMP Movie Variables

The CHAMP Data (Coding of Health and Media Project) is a quantitative content analysis project that has coded a half sample of the top selling 30 U.S. films from 1950-2006 according to Variety magazine. The sampling is based on every other film from every year from 1950-2006. Because it is a half sample, there are 15, not 30, movies for each year of the sample. If a movie was unavailable, the next ranked movie was substituted in its place. YouthMediaRisk also includes a list of all top-30 films from 1950-2006 from Variety magazine.

Movie Variable Descriptions:

Current publicly available variables can be downloaded from the data browser or graphed on the data graphing page.

• Title: U.S. film titles.
• Year: Each year from 1950-2006.
• Year11: 11 groups of roughly 5 years each for graphing purposes.
• Year7: 7 groups of roughly 8 years each for graphing purposes.
• Year5: 5 groups of roughly 11 years each for graphing purposes.
• Length: The length of the movie in minutes as was recorded on the movie case or box.
• Rank: A measure of U.S. movie box office sales (1=highest) based primarily on rentals to theaters as was described in Variety magazine.
• Rating: Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating listed on the movie case or box. Please keep in mind that many early movies were not rated. The R rating was introduced in 1968. The first full year of the PG-13 rating was 1985. The rating of X is now known as NC-17.
  • 1=Not rated
  • 2=G
  • 3=PG
  • 4=PG-13
  • 5=R
  • 6=NC-17
• Tobacco Any: The appearance of anything tobacco-related, including smoking ads, logos, or paraphernalia, as well as implied or direct tobacco consumption in the movie.
• Tobacco Score: Tobacco content scored on a 5 point scale to measure how modeled the behavior is portrayed within each segment. For more details see the Tobacco Code Book.
• Tobacco Explicitness: The product of the presence of tobacco and how modeled the behavior is depicted (Tobacco Any * Tobacco Score).
• Alcohol Any: The appearance of anything alcohol-related in the scene, ranging from signs, billboards, and logos to the direct depiction of a character consuming alcohol in the movie.
• Sex Any: Any type of sexual contact, including kissing, nudity, sexual behavior, or sexual intercourse, implicitly or explicitly shown in the movie. Sexual content is defined as any behavior that suggests a precursor to or engagement in sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.
• Sex Score: Sexual content scored on a 4 point scale to measure how modeled the behavior is portrayed within each segment. For more details see the Sexual Content Code Book.
• Sex Explicitness: The product of the presence of sexual content and how modeled the behavior is depicted (Sex Any * Sex Score).
• Drug Any: Any direct depictions of drugs, drug use, drug paraphernalia, or drug transactions occurring in the movie. Also code for drug references: “Let’s get high,” “That guy looks lifted,” etc. A full definition of illegal substances can be found in the Drugs Code Book.
• Violence Any: Any intentional infliction of physical pain or harm on a character by another or the implication of intention to harm (adapted from Yokota & Thompson, 2000). This version of the variable does not include “gun portrayal” – that is, guns are depicted in the scene in a potential use setting (e.g., a handgun shown in someone’s pocket, a rifle hanging over someone’s shoulder). A full definition of aggression can be found in the Violence Code Book.
• Violence Score: Sexual content scored on a 5 point scale to measure how modeled the behavior is portrayed within each segment. For more details see the Violence Code Book.
• Violence Explicitness: The product of the presence of violent content and how modeled the behavior is depicted (Violence Any * Violence Score).
• Suicide Mean: The percentage of five-minute segments per film that include suicide content.
• Risk Any: The sum of the values for “any tobacco,” “any alcohol,” “any sex,” “any drug,” and “any violence” per movie.
• Note: In order to standardize each Score and Explicitness variable, since some behaviors were measured on scales with different ranges, the mean was subtracted from the film’s aggregated value.