Television and its Viewers: Cultivation Theory and Research

Cambridge Core - Organisational Sociology - Television and its Viewers - by James Shanahan. Cultivation Theory and Research. Television and its Viewers.
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Please create a new list with a new name; move some items to a new or existing list; or delete some items. Television and its Viewers: Cultivation Theory and Research. Cambridge University Press, Television and its viewers: Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, v97 n1 Television and Its Viewers: Cultivation Theory and Research [Book Review]. Home About Help Search. Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions. Remember me on this computer. Cancel Forgot your password? Year 1 3 7 3 Show more Canadian Journal of Communication, v26 n4 Checking Political Science Quarterly, v n2 Summer Their video world is peopled with police officers, judges, and government agents.

People with light viewing habits estimates a more realistic 1 percent. They subscribe to statements that warn people to expect the worst. Gerbner's original analysis shows that heavy viewers are much more likely to be afraid of walking alone at night. The reluctance of these individuals has also been seen on a more global scale because heavy viewers in the United States are much more likely to believe they, as a nation, should stay out of world affairs.

There are many people that do not have access to television, but the reach of television is so expansive that it has become the primary channel responsible for shaping what is mainstream in our culture. Gerbner found that ideas and opinions commonly held by heavy viewers as a result of mainstreaming have to do with politics and economics. According to Griffin, Gerbner's research led to the conclusion that heavy viewers tend to label themselves as middle class citizens who are politically moderate.

Gerbner also found people who labeled themselves as either liberal or conservative among those who mainly watched TV occasionally. However, he also found that "cultural indicators noted that their positions on social issues are decidedly conservative.

Resonance occurs when things viewed on television are congruent with the actual lived realities of viewers. Gerbner writes that this provides a double dose of messages that resonate and amplify cultivation. The example they give is of minority groups whose fictional television character is stereotypically more frequently victimized on television, creating an exaggerated perception of violence for individuals who watch more television [20] Griffin sums it up nicely, when he states, "Gerbner claimed that other heavy viewers grow more apprehensive through the process of resonance.

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Resonance seeks to explain why heavy TV viewers often have an amplified vigilance about the world. As either mainstreaming or resonance, cultivation produces first-order or second-order effects. First-order effects refers to the learning of facts, while second-order effects involve "hypotheses about more general issues and assumptions" that people make about their environments. The Mean World Index finds that long-term exposure to television in which violence is frequent cultivates the image of a mean and dangerous world.

Viewers who consumed television at a higher rate believed that greater protection by law enforcement is needed and reported that most people "cannot be trusted" and are "just looking out for themselves". Dramatic violence is the "overt expression or serious threat of physical force as part of the plot. Miami use murder to frame each episode of their shows, thus underscoring the presence of dramatic and gratuitous violence. Though death is being used as a plot point, it also functions to cultivate a particular image of looming violence.

Heavy viewers are individuals who watch at least four hours of television a day, [7] however Nielsen notes that heavy viewers are now defined as those that watch more than 11 hours of television a day. They also rely on television more to cultivate their perceptions of the real world. Several cognitive mechanisms that explain cultivation effects have been put forth by Shrum ; ; Another mechanism that might explain the cultivation phenomenon is a cognitive-narrative mechanism. Previous research suggests that the realism of television narratives in combination with individual-level "transportability", or the ability to adopt a less critical stance toward a narrative, might facilitate cultivation effects e.

The magic bullet theory also known as the hypodermic-syringe model , transmission-belt model , or hypodermic needle model is a linear model of communication. This theory talks about "the audiences directly influenced by the mass media" and "the media's power on the audiences". The "magic bullet" theory graphically assumes that the media's message is a bullet fired from the "media gun" into the viewer's "head" Television reality describes the effects television viewing has on heavy viewers.

Cultivation theory research seems to indicate that heavy television viewing can result in the creation of a television reality, which is a set of facts and beliefs based on television content rather than actual facts. While viewers might differ in their demographic characteristics, the amount of television viewing can make a difference in terms of their conceptions of social reality. According to Gerbner's research, the more time spent 'living' in the world of television, the more likely people are to report perceptions of social reality which can be traced to television's most persistent representations of life and society.

Since the s, communication scholars have examined television's contributions to viewers' perceptions of a wide variety of topics and issues. Little effort has been made to investigate the influence of television on perceptions of social reality among adolescents, particularly in the areas of sexism, sex roles, mean world, and television reality. The work of several researchers support the concept of television reality as a consequence of heavy viewing. According to Wyer and Budesheim's research, television messages or information, even when they are not necessarily considered truthful, can still be used in the process of constructing social judgments.

Furthermore, indicted invalid information may still be used in subsequent audience's judgments. Although Gerbner's research focused on violence on TV this theory can be applied to a variety of different situations. Many other theorists have done studies related to the cultivation theory which incorporated different messages than Gerbner's original intent.

This research has been conducted in order to defeat two criticisms of the theory; its breadth and lumping of genres. The results of this study suggest that television viewed during childhood may affect the social reality beliefs a person holds as an adult. The focus of the present study will be childhood exposure to television genres that tend to be violent.

Given that it has been argued and demonstrated that measuring exposure to violent content is a more appropriate method for cultivation analyses than measuring overall television exposure levels. International cultivation analysis attempts to answer the question of whether the medium or the system is the message.

Increased diversity and balance within television channels or programs leads viewers to report similar preferences. Furthermore, importing television programs internationally can elicit variable responses depending on the cultural context and the type of television program. For example, exposure of US television programs to Korean females portrayed a liberal perspective of gender roles and family.

However, for the Korean male television viewers, US programs brought out increased hostility and protection of Korean culture. Another study showed that Australian students who watched US television programs especially adventure and crime shows were more likely to view Australia as dangerous; [20] however, they didn't transfer this danger to America, even though they were watching US television programs. A study conducted by Minnebo and Eggermont in found that heavy television viewers, over the age of 30, in Belgium "were more likely to believe that most young people are substance users.

In order to accurately survey and represent findings from cultivation theory research, the duration of television exposure has become a topic for further research. It's stated that "cultivation effect only occurs after long-term, cumulative exposure to stable patterns of content on television. In a study conducted in , participants were asked to list the number of Grey's Anatomy episodes they had viewed in prior and current seasons.

The purpose of the study was to gain a perspective of how viewers see doctors based on impressions from television.

Cultivation Theory and Research

Findings from the study showed a positive association with Grey's Anatomy ' s portrayal with real-world doctors' acts of courage. The finding wasn't surprising, as many episodes within Grey's Anatomy often show doctors as courageous, either by employing a detailed view of an operation, or crediting doctors for their empathy in specific patient scenarios.

Gerbner and colleagues argue that cultivation effects span total television viewing, not genre- or program-specific viewing Gerbner et al. A study conducted by Hammermeister, Brock, Winterstein, and Page compares the psychosocial health of viewers that reported no television use, viewers who followed the American Academy of Pediatrics AAP suggested consumption of up to 2 hours of television per day, and viewers with high exposure to television.

They surveyed participants within the United States implemented via survey method. They found that there was more of an impact on the psychosocial health of women who participated in the study and, "revealed that all the psychosocial variables examined in this study contributed significantly to the one function equation with depression, hopelessness, self-esteem, and weight satisfaction being the strongest discriminators" Hammermeister, Brock, Winterstein, Page, Findings also exposed the similarity in psychosocial health data between participants who watched up to 2 hours of television per day and participants who opt out of television consumption all together.

InterTV is a concept forecasting the inevitable melding of television and online media.


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Described by Shanahan and Morgan as television's "convergence" with computers, they argue that computers will essentially act as an extension of television through the creation of related websites and online news articles covered within the traditional television journalism realm. Additionally, television programming will also suffer a shift to an online platform in result of streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. According to Shanahan and Morgan, this may not be the worst thing, as it allows advertisers a direct source in which they can gather information regarding viewers.

They state that, "within a market filled with individual interests, desires and the channels to serve them, such a data-gathering enterprise would still allow advertisers to assemble mass audiences from the fragmented media systems". In a sense, this would allow viewers some way to control the content they are fed through the online platform.

While advertisers are infringing on viewer information, the correlated result requires them to shift any programming or storyline content to the satisfaction of the viewer. This poses a challenging example in terms of extending the impact of cultivation theory, instead empowering the viewer to cultivate their own television use experience. Kathleen Beullens, Keith Roe, and Jan Van den Bulck conducted research relating to alcohol consumption in music videos.

The research revealed that high exposure to music videos develops an unrealistic perception of alcohol consumption.

Cultivation theory

Musicians in these videos endorse alcohol in their songs and create a false reality about alcohol and its effects. Research conducted by Dmitri Williams draws the comparison of the effects of television to interactive video games. He argues that while the parameters and basic content of the game developed is through the employment of game developers, creators and designers, the role of the "other player" within the game is also essential in the progression of the story within the video game.

Essentially, an interactive game allows players to build relationships with others, and thus is more dynamic and unpredictable as compared to traditional television. Williams attempts to research the question of whether video games are as influential as television from a cultivation theory standpoint. Does it impact our social reality? In the field study, participants were asked to play a MMORPG game, one in which participants interacted with other players in real time.

Crime measures divided into four categories were used to evaluate the correlation between the research hypotheses and cultivation theory. The study proved a strong correlation between the impact of cultivation on participants and the players of the MMORPG game. See also Behm-Morawitz and Ta study below, under " Race and ethnicity ".

Sara Baker Netzley conducted research in a similar fashion to Gerbner in the way that homosexuals were depicted on television. This study found that there was an extremely high level of sexual activity in comparison to the amount of homosexual characters that appeared on television. This has led those who are heavy television consumers to believe that the gay community is extremely sexual. Much like the idea of a mean and scary world it gives people a parallel idea of an extremely sexualized gay community. In a study conducted by Jerel Calzo and Monique Ward, they first begin by analyzing recent research conducted on the portrayal of gay and lesbian characters on television.

While growth in the representation of gay and lesbian characters has continued to grow, they found that most television shows frame gay and lesbian characters in a manner that reinforces homosexual stereotypes. Their findings confirmed that media genres played an important role in the attitudes developed regarding homosexuality. They also were surprised by the finding that prior prime-time shows, which are no longer on air, reinforced a larger magnitude of acceptance within the LGBTQ realm.

They then suggested that because genre played a large impact in the perception that viewers gained while watching certain television shows, more research should be designated towards, "more genre-driven effects analyses". Beverly Roskos-Ewoldsen, John Davies and David Roskos-Ewoldsen posit that perceptions of women are integrated in a rather stereotypical fashion compared to portrayals of men on television.

They state that, "men are characters in TV shows at about a 2 to 1 ratio to women Gerbner et al. Viewers who consume more television usually also have more sexist views of women Gerbner et al. Alexander Sink and Dana Mastro studied women and gender depictions on American primetime television.

Although women are often perceived to have better representation on television in recent years, these researchers show that this is not necessarily the case. Men were also portrayed as more dominant than women, and although men were more often objectified, women were consistently portrayed as hyperfeminized and hypersexualized. Fewer older women appeared during primetime compared to men, and were often shown to be less competent than older male characters.

A study by Bradley J. Bond and Kristin L. Drogos examined the relationship between exposure to the television program Jersey Shore and sexual attitudes and behavior in college-aged adults. They found a positive relationship between time spent watching Jersey Shore and increased sexual permissiveness. This effect was found to be stronger in the younger participants than older participants, and held true even when the researchers controlled for other influences on participants' sexual attitudes such as religious beliefs and parents' attitudes.

This higher level of sexually permissive behavior and attitudes was not a result of higher overall exposure to television, but to higher exposure to Jersey Shore , a highly sexualized program, specifically. Sanders and Srividya Ramasubramanian studied perceptions which African American media consumers hold about fictional characters portrayed in film and television.


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They found that, while study participants tended to view all African American characters positively, social class, rather than race or ethnicity, mattered more in perceptions about the warmth and competence of a character. Their study suggests that the race and ethnicity of media consumers need to be taken into account in cultivation studies because media consumers with different backgrounds likely perceive media portrayals and their faithfulness to reality differently. A study by Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz and David Ta examined the cultivation effects of video games on White students' perceptions of Black and Asian individuals.

While no significant effects were found for perceptions of Asian individuals, researchers found that increased time spent playing video games, no matter what genre, held less positive views of Black people. They also found that real-life interaction with Black individuals did not change this effect. Behm-Morawitz and Ta suggest that the stable, negative racial and ethnic stereotypes portrayed in video game narratives of any genre impact real-world beliefs in spite of more varied real-life interaction with racial and ethnic minorities.

Television and its Viewers

Mutz and Lilach Nir conducted a study of how fictional television narratives can influence viewers' policy preferences and positive or negative attitudes regarding the justice system in the real world. They found that positive portrayals of the criminal justice system were associated with more positive views toward the system in real life, whereas negative television portrayals were associated with viewers feeling that the criminal justice system often works unfairly.

Furthermore, researchers found that these attitudes did influence viewers' policy preferences concerning the criminal justice system in real life. A study by Anita Atwell Seate and Dana Mastro studied news coverage of immigration and its relationship with immigration policy preferences and negative attitudes about immigrants. They found that exposure to negative messages about immigrants in the news influenced anxious feelings towards the outgroup i.

This exposure did not necessarily influence immigration policy preferences, but long-term exposure to messages of this kind can affect policy preferences.

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Katerina-Eva Matsa explores cultivation effects through her thesis on television's impact on political engagement in Greece. She describes the role of satirical television within the cultural realm in Greece and how this form of television engrains the perception that Greek political institutions are corrupt, thus negatively influencing the public's overall opinion of politics in Greece. Michael Morgan, James Shanahan, and Nancy Signorielli conceptualize applications of cultivation theory to the study of new media. They note that media technology has never been static, and that there will always be new forms of media.

However, in the present, older methods for cultivation analysis may have to move away from counting hours of television viewed, and take up a big data approach. These authors argue that, although many were skeptical that cultivation theory would be applicable with the increasing importance of new media, these media still use narrative, and since those narratives affect us, cultivation theory is still relevant for new media.

Croucher applies cultivation theory to his theory of social media and its effects on immigrant cultural adaptation. He theorizes that immigrants who use dominant social media while they are still in the process of adapting to their new culture will develop perceptions about their host society through the use of this media. He believes that this cultivation effect will also impact the way immigrants interact with host country natives in offline interactions.


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Cultivation theory attempts to predict that media viewing has an effect on the values and beliefs that people have and the things they believe are "reality". A study conducted by David Atkin from the University of Connecticut revealed insights about television viewing of sports and the values of its viewers. An hypothesis that was researched stated "Level of agreement with sports-related values i. Studies were conducted and research was presented and the conclusion was that the hypothesis was correct.

The study specifically found that "those for whom being physically fit, being athletic and being active are important also engage in more sports media" Atkin. In this instance, cultivation theory is present because heavier exposure is related to greater agreement with the values that are presented.

Another related study felt that attendance at live and mediated sporting events might cultivate audience values that are consistent with the value of sports. In an article titled "Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media and Politics", discussion was started about sports and cultivation theory. Cultivation theory can be applicable to many different aspects of society.

The research shared "the line of research has found that, as exposure to television increases, an individual's beliefs and opinions of the real-world become more similar to that of the television world. If someone engages in sports media, their beliefs of being physically fit and active will then become more and more similar to the beliefs of those they are watching and listening to in the sports media.

Cultivation theory and sports are just beginning to be studied. There are many more aspects that are being studied. One other aspect is the difference between those who participate in sporting events and those who watch them. Another part of cultivation theory can be explained by people being less active, because of what they watch on television and the rise in obesity levels. Because people don't see a lot of active people on television, their "reality" is that people no longer need to be active 30 or so minutes per day.