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Cultivation Theory
George Gerbner

MASS COMMUNICATION: MEDIA EFFECTS

Chapter 29
 Uses and Gratifications
Agenda Setting Theory 
Chapter 29
 Uses and Gratifications
Agenda Setting Theory 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction.
    1. George Gerbner argued that heavy television viewing creates an exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world.
    2. Gerbner emphasized the symbolic content of television drama.
    3. Television has surpassed religion as the key storyteller in our culture.
    4. Violence is television’s principal message, and particularly for devoted viewers.  
    5. Gerbner was concerned that violence affects viewers’ beliefs about the world around them and the feelings connected to those beliefs, more than it affects viewers’ behavior.
    6. Cultivation theory is not limited to TV violence, but it can help people theorize about other TV affects and the affects of how people view social reality.
  2. Institutional process analysis: The first prong.
    1. Research that addresses scholars’ concern for the reasons why media produce the message they do is called institutional process analysis.
    2. Scholars in this research attempt to understand what policies or practices might be lurking behind the scenes of media organizations.
  3. Message system analysis: The second prong.
    1. Message system analysis uses content analysis to study what exactly are the messages that TV projects.
    2. Gerbner studied violence, but this method can be used to focus on any type of TV content.
    3. An index of violence
      1. Gerbner definition of dramatic violence rules out verbal abuse, idle threats, and pie-in-the-face slapstick.
      2. Gerbner found that the annual index of violence is both high and stable.
    4. Equal violence, unequal risk
      1. The cumulative portrayal of violence varies little from year to year.
      2. Minority groups are often the recipients of violence on TV, despite their underrepresentation.
  4. Cultivation analysis: The third prong.
    1. Cultivation analysis deals with how TV’s content might affect viewers.
    2. Television viewing cultivates ways of seeing the world, based on the images, values, portrayals, and ideologies shown on TV.
  5. Cultivation works like a magnetic or gravitational field.
    1. The cultivation process is similar to the pull of a gravitational field.
    2. Although the magnitude of TV’s influence is not the same for every viewer, everyone is affected by it.
    3. Professor L.J. Shrum believes that people make judgments about the world around them based on what comes to mind most quickly – the information that is most accessible.
  6. Mainstreaming: Blurring, blending, and bending of viewer attitudes.
    1. Mainstreaming is the process by which heavy viewers develop a commonality of outlook through constant exposure to the same images and labels.
    2. TV homogenizes its audience so that heavy viewing habits share the same orientations, perspectives, and meanings with each other causing people to share common perceptions of reality that resembles the TV world.
    3. The television answer is the mainstream.
    4. Gerbner illustrates the mainstream effect by showing how television types blur economic and political distinctions.
      1. They assume that they are middle class.
      2. They believe they are political moderates.
      3. In fact, heavy viewers tend to be conservative.
    5. Traditional differences diminish among people with heavy viewing habits.
  7. Resonance: The TV world looks like my world, so it must be true.
    1. The resonance process causes the power of TV’s messages to be stronger.
    2. Viewers perceive the world depicted on TV as a world very much like their own based on resonance assumptions.
  8. Research on cultivation analysis.
    1. Cultivation takes time.
    2. Cultivation analysis relies on surveys instead of experiments.
    3. Gerbner’s basic prediction was that heavy TV viewers would be more likely than light viewers to see the social world as resembling the world depicted on TV.
  9. The major findings of cultivation analysis.
    1. Positive correlation between TV viewing and fear of criminal victimization – as TV viewing increases, so does the tendency for fear of victimization.
    2. Perceived activity of police – people with heavy viewing habits believe that five percent of society is involved in law enforcement.
    3. General mistrust of people – heavy viewers are more suspicious of people’s motives.
  10. Critique: How strong is the evidence in favor of the theory?
    1. Critics are not convinced that cultivation research establishes the causal claim that heavy TV viewing leads a person to perceive the world as mean and scary.
    2. Testability is seen as low because there is a lack of longitudinal studies.
    3. Cultivation effects tend to be statistically small.
    4. The theory must adapt to the new media environment of cable and satellite.

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Archived chapters (PDF)
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New to Theory
Resources?
Find out more in this short
video overview (3:01).


Cultivation Theory
George Gerbner

MASS COMMUNICATION: MEDIA EFFECTS

Chapter 29
 Uses and Gratifications
Agenda Setting Theory 
Chapter 29
 Uses and Gratifications
Agenda Setting Theory 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction.
    1. George Gerbner argued that heavy television viewing creates an exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world.
    2. Gerbner emphasized the symbolic content of television drama.
    3. Television has surpassed religion as the key storyteller in our culture.
    4. Violence is television’s principal message, and particularly for devoted viewers.  
    5. Gerbner was concerned that violence affects viewers’ beliefs about the world around them and the feelings connected to those beliefs, more than it affects viewers’ behavior.
    6. Cultivation theory is not limited to TV violence, but it can help people theorize about other TV affects and the affects of how people view social reality.
  2. Institutional process analysis: The first prong.
    1. Research that addresses scholars’ concern for the reasons why media produce the message they do is called institutional process analysis.
    2. Scholars in this research attempt to understand what policies or practices might be lurking behind the scenes of media organizations.
  3. Message system analysis: The second prong.
    1. Message system analysis uses content analysis to study what exactly are the messages that TV projects.
    2. Gerbner studied violence, but this method can be used to focus on any type of TV content.
    3. An index of violence
      1. Gerbner definition of dramatic violence rules out verbal abuse, idle threats, and pie-in-the-face slapstick.
      2. Gerbner found that the annual index of violence is both high and stable.
    4. Equal violence, unequal risk
      1. The cumulative portrayal of violence varies little from year to year.
      2. Minority groups are often the recipients of violence on TV, despite their underrepresentation.
  4. Cultivation analysis: The third prong.
    1. Cultivation analysis deals with how TV’s content might affect viewers.
    2. Television viewing cultivates ways of seeing the world, based on the images, values, portrayals, and ideologies shown on TV.
  5. Cultivation works like a magnetic or gravitational field.
    1. The cultivation process is similar to the pull of a gravitational field.
    2. Although the magnitude of TV’s influence is not the same for every viewer, everyone is affected by it.
    3. Professor L.J. Shrum believes that people make judgments about the world around them based on what comes to mind most quickly – the information that is most accessible.
  6. Mainstreaming: Blurring, blending, and bending of viewer attitudes.
    1. Mainstreaming is the process by which heavy viewers develop a commonality of outlook through constant exposure to the same images and labels.
    2. TV homogenizes its audience so that heavy viewing habits share the same orientations, perspectives, and meanings with each other causing people to share common perceptions of reality that resembles the TV world.
    3. The television answer is the mainstream.
    4. Gerbner illustrates the mainstream effect by showing how television types blur economic and political distinctions.
      1. They assume that they are middle class.
      2. They believe they are political moderates.
      3. In fact, heavy viewers tend to be conservative.
    5. Traditional differences diminish among people with heavy viewing habits.
  7. Resonance: The TV world looks like my world, so it must be true.
    1. The resonance process causes the power of TV’s messages to be stronger.
    2. Viewers perceive the world depicted on TV as a world very much like their own based on resonance assumptions.
  8. Research on cultivation analysis.
    1. Cultivation takes time.
    2. Cultivation analysis relies on surveys instead of experiments.
    3. Gerbner’s basic prediction was that heavy TV viewers would be more likely than light viewers to see the social world as resembling the world depicted on TV.
  9. The major findings of cultivation analysis.
    1. Positive correlation between TV viewing and fear of criminal victimization – as TV viewing increases, so does the tendency for fear of victimization.
    2. Perceived activity of police – people with heavy viewing habits believe that five percent of society is involved in law enforcement.
    3. General mistrust of people – heavy viewers are more suspicious of people’s motives.
  10. Critique: How strong is the evidence in favor of the theory?
    1. Critics are not convinced that cultivation research establishes the causal claim that heavy TV viewing leads a person to perceive the world as mean and scary.
    2. Testability is seen as low because there is a lack of longitudinal studies.
    3. Cultivation effects tend to be statistically small.
    4. The theory must adapt to the new media environment of cable and satellite.

 
 
 
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