Are Your Attitudes Cultivated by the TV-world or the Real-world?

“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?