“The more people spend
‘living’ in the television world, the more they are likely to believe the
social ‘reality’ portrayed by the television world.”
-George Gerbner
Cultivation Theory (sometimes referred to as
the cultivation hypothesis or cultivation analysis) was an approach developed
by Professor George Gerbner, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at
the University of Pennsylvania. He began the "Cultural Indicators" research
project in the mid-1960s, to study whether and how watching television may
influence viewers’ ideas of what the everyday world is like. Cultivation research
is in the effects tradition, maintaining that television has
long-term effects, which are small, gradual, indirect but cumulative and
significant.
Social scientists emphasize the effects of television viewing on the attitudes rather than the
behavior of viewers. Heavy watching of television is seen as cultivating
attitudes, which are more consistent with the world of television programs than
with the everyday world. Watching television may tend to induce a general
mindset about violence in the world, quite apart from any effects it might have
in inducing violent behavior. Cultivation theorists distinguish between “first
order” effects (general beliefs about the everyday world, such as about the
prevalence of violence) and “second order” effects (specific attitudes, such as
to law and order or to personal safety).
Gerbner
argues that the mass media cultivate attitudes and values, which are already
present in a culture: the media maintain and propagate these values amongst
members of a culture, thus binding it together. He has argued that television
tends to cultivate middle-of-the-road political perspectives. And Gross
considered that television is a cultural arm of the established industrial
order and as such serves primarily to maintain, stabilize and reinforce rather
than to alter, threaten or weaken conventional beliefs and behaviors (Boyd-
Barrett & Braham, 1987). Such a function is conservative, but heavy viewers
tend to regard themselves as “moderate.”
Cultivation
research looks at the mass media as a socializing agent and investigates
whether television viewers come to believe the television version of reality
the more they watch it. Gerbner and his colleagues contend that television
drama has a small but significant influence on the attitudes, beliefs and judgments
of viewers concerning the social world. The focus is on "heavy viewers." People
who watch a lot of television are likely to be more influenced by the ways in
which the world is framed by television than are individuals who watch less,
especially regarding topics of which the viewer has little first-hand
experience. Light viewers may have more sources of information than heavy
viewers. Judith van Evra argues that by virtue of inexperience, young viewers
may depend on television for information more than other viewers do (van Evra,
1990), although Hawkins and Pingree argue that some children may not experience
a cultivation effect at all where they do not understand motives or
consequences. It may be that lone viewers are more open to a cultivation effect
than those who view with others (van Evra, 1990).
Television
as seen by Gerbner, dominates our "symbolic environment." As McQuail and
Windahl note, cultivation theory presents television as "not a window on or
reflection of the world, but a world in itself" (1993). Gerbner argued that the
over-representation of violence on television constitutes a symbolic message
about law and order rather than a simple cause of more aggressive behavior by
viewers. For instance, the action-adventure genre acts to reinforce a faith in
law and order, the status quo and social justice.
Since
1967, Gerbner and his colleagues have been analyzing sample weeks of primetime
and daytime television programming. Cultivation analysis usually involves the
correlation of data from content analysis (identifying prevailing images on
television) with survey data from audience research (to assess any influence of
such images on the attitudes of viewers). Content analysis by cultivation
theorists seeks to characterize "the TV world." Such analysis shows not only
that the TV world is far more violent than the everyday world, but also, for
instance, that television is dominated by males and over-represents the professions
and those involved in law enforcement.
Audience
research by cultivation theorists involves asking large-scale public opinion
poll organizations to include in their national surveys questions regarding
such issues as the amount of violence in everyday life. Answers are interpreted
as reflecting either the world of television or that of everyday life.
Respondents are asked such questions as, “What percentage of all males who have
jobs work in law enforcement or crime detection? Is it 1 percent or 10 percent”?
On American TV, about 12 percent of all male characters hold such jobs, and
about 1 percent of males are employed in the USA in these jobs, so 10 percent
would be the “TV answer” and 1 percent would be the “real-world answer”
(Dominick, 1990).
Answers
are then related to the amount of television watched, other media habits and
demographic data such as sex, age, income and education. The cultivation
hypothesis involves predicting or expecting heavy television viewers to give
more TV answers than light viewers. The responses of a large number of heavy
viewers are compared with those of light viewers. A tendency of heavy viewers
to choose TV answers is interpreted as evidence of a cultivation effect.
Cultivation
theorists are best known for their study of television and viewers, and in
particular for a focus on the topic of violence. However, some studies have
also considered other mass media from this perspective, and have dealt with
topics such as gender roles, age groups, ethnic groups and political attitudes.
A study of American college students found that heavy soap opera viewers were
more likely than light viewers to over-estimate the number of real-life married
people who had affairs or who had been divorced and the number of women who had
abortions (Dominick, 1990).
The
difference in the pattern of responses between light and heavy viewers (when
other variables are controlled) is referred to as the cultivation differential,
reflecting the extent to which an attitude seems to be shaped by watching
television. Older people tend to be portrayed negatively on television and
heavy viewers (especially younger ones) tend to hold more negative views about
older people than lighter viewers. Most heavy viewers are unaware of any
influence of television viewing on their attitudes and values.
Cultivation
theorists argue that heavy viewing leads viewers (even among high
educational/high income groups) to have more homogeneous or convergent opinions
than light viewers (who tend to have more heterogeneous or divergent opinions).
The cultivation effect of television viewing is one of “leveling” or
“homogenizing” opinion. Gerbner and his associates argue that heavy viewers of
violence on television come to believe that the incidence of violence in the
everyday world is higher than do light viewers of similar backgrounds. They
refer to this as a mainstreaming effect.
In light of the 2012 U.S.
presidential campaign, would you agree or disagree that television tends to
cultivate middle-of-the-road political perspectives? If so, how? If not, what
perspectives do you think television cultivates?
In light of the 2012 U.S.
presidential campaign, what examples of mainstreaming effect might result from television
campaign advertisements?
Thoughts?
