Cultivation theory is a social concept that observes the long-term effects of television. The idea constructed by cultivation theory says that the more time people spend watching television, the more likely they are to believe the things portrayed on television are apart of how the real world actually is. Cultivation theory is commonly used to study violence and crime within a television series, and then correlate it back to day-to-day living situations. In today’s society violence is portrayed in almost every television series. Crime dramas are some of the most watched series on cable television. Cultivation Analysis observes viewers perceptions after taking in a heavy dosage of television series such as The Wire, CSI, and The Following, to see if it creates a perception of the world that seems violent and aggressive. This communication theory exists as means to see what effect does the heavy use of television watching have on a person’s views. The use of Cultivation theory is not a study that exists to observe viewers behaviors, but to observe their attitudes within the way of the world.
The man who developed Cultivation Theory was George Gerbner. He was the dean of Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania from 1964 to 1989. Professor Gerbner, in 1990, launched a “Cultural Environmental Movement” whose broad aims are to support media education, work for democratic media reform, place cultural issues on the sociopolitical agenda, and develop ways of participation in local, national and international cultural policy-making. (mediaed.org) During his tenure at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960’s Gerbner coined the phrase “mean world syndrome” “mean world syndrome” became one of the conclusions to cultivation theory which was developed in 1977. (ou.edu)
“Mean World Syndrome is a phenomenon where the violence-related content of mass media convinces viewers that the world is more dangerous than it actually is, and prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat. Mean World Syndrome is one of the main conclusions of cultivation theory. The term “Mean World Syndrome” was coined by George Gerbner, a pioneer researcher on the effects of television on society, when he noted that people who watched a lot of TV tended to think of the world as an unforgiving and scary place.” (meanworldsyndrome.com) Ultimately the idea of “mean world syndrome” states that the media consumed relating to violence and crime has an effect on the viewer in the way that they believe the real world to seems to be like. “Mean World Syndrome” is the basis for much of Gerber’s premise on Cultivation Theory.
In the documentary “The Killing Screens” directed by Sut Jhally, Gerber speaks to the viewers about the potency of which violence increases every year. A strong point that Gerber notes is different that this generation “for the first time in human history, most of the stories are not told by the parent, not by the school, not by the church, not by the tribe or community, and in many places not even by their native country. But rather by a relatively small and shrinking group of conglomerates who have something to sell.” (The Killing Screens 1997) Gerber mentions statistics of the amount of deaths occurring within action films such as Robocop, Rambo, and Deathwish. All of which have had a dramatic incline in the amount of deaths from one film to the next. Statistically these films roughly a 100% increase in deaths per film. The data collected relating to peoples deaths in the action films mentioned did not count an act of violence that did not result in someone’s death during the film. Gerber relays his fears about the future of mass media and the general population when it comes to the increase of violence perceived from the mass of viewers. As time progresses it is evidently clear that the increase of violence within televisions shows has become dramatically more intense, especially in the death count that many televisions shows have portrayed even within the past year. In a study held a year ago by Funeralwise.com analyzed the deaths in eight episodes of 40 Television series. The conclusion of the study showed that Starz’s Spartacus: Vengeance had an average of 25 deaths per episode. Followed by HBO’s Game of Thrones that averaged out 13 deaths per episode. The third ranked television series was CW’s Nikita with an average of nine deaths per episode. Nikita data is one of the strangest due to the CW’s target demographic, which strongly appeals to women between the ages of 18-34. Recently network president Mark Pedowitz started a rebranding campaign of the CW to add darker shows that would seek to attract more male viewers this season. (TheWrap.com 2012) Since Pedowitz statement, television shows have been released revolving around darker grittier plots that attract viewers through conflicts and violence. With the vast library of television shows being aired on over a hundred different channels, violence has been able to make its way into almost every primetime slot of television. In the recent couple of years alone, there has been room for critically acclaimed yet violent shows such as NCIS, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, The Blacklist, and the recently finished Breaking Bad. Thus validating Gerber’s fears of more violent televisions shows being aired and being easily accessible to almost every demographic of the country. While television shows are clearly labeled what the proper age limit of a television show should be that does not necessarily stop the underage viewer from watching said television series. Nonetheless whether the television series is curated towards an adult audience or to children, acts of violence are likely occurring in order to capture the viewers’ attention as a means of drama or humor.
The Cultivation Theory not only observes realistic violence within television, but also animated and cartoon violence. Gerber expressed concerns about children watching things such as Saturday morning cartoons that contained much slapstick humor. This kind of violence at such an early age. The reason this is the case is due to the easiness the producer has for the production. Gerber believes that almost all media is meant to be sold to a global market as opposed to a national one. (The Killing Screens 1997) the transition of violence from one nation to another is simple. Violence is understood throughout the world without any further means. But to add humor and plot, that requires a great deal of more work. Humor and plot details are not unanimous throughout the world. Different cultures have different viewpoints, and humor sometimes relies on national topics of alliteration of words. Then when it comes to the translation of those topics into a different language and culture the ideas presented may be not understood or well received.
The strength of the Cultivation theory is how basic and fundamental the theory is. In doing so the theory is malleable and easily adapted to other social normality’s and concepts other than just violence. Studies are able to use and see how the media affects people’s thoughts and attitudes across the whole emotional spectrum. Does the amount of romantic television viewed increase the amount of positive feelings, as well as goodwill felt towards other people? What about the amount of comedy and sitcom television? Is the show then capable of promoting camaraderie and friendship, potentially giving a person greater appreciation for the friends that they have within their life? Lastly how does the television impact viewer on the idea of racial or sexist topics? How does the portrayal of different characters influence views of the general population and their notion of race and sex? In turn lies the double-edged sword. While Cultivation Theory can easily be attributed to study many different topics within the media, media is always shifting and changing. Where once television series revolved around supernatural and the unknown, in this day in age audiences are more captivated by criminology and police activity. So studies for the theory are constantly needed to taken and reevaluated as a means to see how television is affecting people.
All the data that is collected for Cultivation is not set within a controlled environment like a laboratory experiment with control variables. The data received for Cultivation Theory mainly revolves around the use of content analysis and surveys, whose results are not as reliable and definitive.
“The first stage in their analysis is the study of television content. Such analysis not only shows that the television world is far more violent than the everyday world, but also that television is dominated by males and over-represents professions and those involved in law enforcement. The second step examines what viewers absorb from heavy viewing. Audience research is then conducted. Respondents are presented with questions concerning social reality, and asked to check one of either two answers: the television answer or the real world answer. Lastly, answers are related to the amount of television watched and responses of large samples of heavy and light television viewers are then compared. If heavy viewers tend to choose the television answer, there’s evidence of a cultivation effect.” (oocities.org)
The process of which the results are recorded and defined matter on more than just who is defined as a heavy watcher of television, but also basic fundamental facts about who that person is. Notable pieces of information include, location of their neighborhood, amount of income made, gender, previous emotions or feeling about the context. Variables such as these are probable to create different end results than heavily viewing television can do.
According to the article Media Effects “Additional research on the cultivation hypothesis indicates that the topic may be more complicated than first thought. There is evidence that cultivation may be less dependent on the total amount of TV viewing than on the specific types of programs viewed (O’Keefe & Reid-Nash, 1987). Weaver and Wakshlag (1986) found that the cultivation effect was more pronounced among active TV viewers than among low-involvement viewers and that personal experience with crime was an important mediating variable that affected the impact of TV programs on cultivating an attitude of vulnerability toward crime. Additionally, Potter (1986) found that the perceived reality of the TV content had an impact on cultivation. Other research (Rubin, Perse, & Taylor, 1988) demonstrated that the wording of the attitude and the perceptual questions used to measure cultivation influenced the results.” (Roger D. Wimmer, & Joesph R. Dominick 2009)
Over the years new researchers began to take Cultivation Theory and use the concept to exam different kinds of categories of television. In South Korea two authors looked into the concept of TV dramas and if women’s marital intentions were being affected. The study examined the effects of South Korean soap operas on Vietnamese female audiences. Which ultimately had real world complications.
A study was taken that took into the image of immigration as shown in television, taking Cultivation Theory as a reference. Content analysis was performed on a representative sample of prime time fictional programming broadcast in 2010 on six television channels. The results showed that immigrant characters are underrepresented and their construction is based on negative stereotypes.
Sexual violence has become a more relevant image on television over the past decade. While commonly regarded as the crime women fear the most in real life, there has not been great attention to seeing sexual violence on television and the fear of being a victim of sexual assault. Kathleen Custers and Jan Van den Bulck used Cultivation Analysis as a means to see the effects that sexual assault on televisions put on women who are watching the programs. “Through a study that involved 546 Flemish women supported a model which fear of sexual assault was predicted by perceived risk, perceived control, and perceived seriousness” (Custers, K., & Van den Bulck, J. 2013) as the case was carried out, it was seen that women with high socioeconomic status and who was ever in a direct experience with crime has a stronger relationship of seeing sexual assault on television and creating a greater fear within themselves. In conclusion through creating a formula to calculate a result to the theory at hand it was perceived that fear of sexual assault was lower when the woman had already had a first hand experience with crime. The study also showed a great correlation between effects of news watching on fear with the viewing of crime dramas.
There are plenty of social phenomena that people experience on a day-to-day basis that influence a person’s attitudes, and how they react in the world. Cultivation theory since its development has revolved around the viewing of television. There has been speculation on the correlation of video games and violence. Similar to the concepts that Cultivation Theory tries to understand about television. Does playing a video game filled with violence create the notion that the outside world is filled with violence? Over the past decade there have been constant claims made against the video game industry about how dangerous and important video games are to the attitudes of gamers in the regular world. Society has found games to lead to aggression, anger issues and acts of violent tendencies without any real conclusive studies. This was subject brought to the face of the world after the Columbine High School Massacre in Colorado, on April 20th 1999. After the tragedy occurred it was brought to the attention of the government and press that the shooters were labeled as outcasts of the their school. The shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were known to be avid players of video games. Since then the government has been trying to take proper motions to banning or reducing the amount of video games violence allowed. No study however has been able to state that video game violence causes aggression. Through a study using Cultivation Theory this could potentially put the accusers claims to rest, or support the theory of video games promoting aggressive attitudes.
Another potential outlet of study that would be able to benefit the public would use Cultivation Theory as a means observe the impact that genres of music affect people and their perspectives. In this day in age media is flowing into the general public at rapid rates in different forms. Music makes people feel emotions. It reminds them of a previous experience that was lived through, or creates a fantasy of how life should be lived. What happens if a person who has spent most of their time listening to songs about teenage anxiety and questioning decisions? Does that person ultimately create a mindset that is revolving around the songs that they listened to? Does a person who listened to rap music find objectifying woman as normality in society? Through using Cultivation Theory’s basic concept, it should create a seamless transition from looking at only the power of television to other such questions and topics, such as music and video games. In this method new concepts could be developed that help us understand the importance of media and our attitudes not only towards violence, but passion, sex, love, and other basic but fundamental feelings.
Social theories do not need to revolve around negatives attitudes about human cultures and fears. A large portion of the media consumption and peoples thoughts on it usually revolve around a fear that the person will result into being subjected by negative images and then implementing negative attitudes in the process. Cultivation Theory is capable of brings concepts to the forefront in studies about the usefulness and connectedness that media can influence as opposed to just the wrongdoings.
Cultivation Theory originally existed to study the idea that watching a heavy amount of television would create a negative attitude about the world lived in today. While television shows has not slowed down the amount of violence aired today, there is still enough family friendly content that could be argued putting the world in a friendlier light.
Cultivation Theory is one of the most useful communication theories to understand how television affects its viewership. While not without its flaws, the amount of control on a specific study is difficult due to the fact that all information gathered revolves around surveys and questionnaires. Relying on surveyors to such a degree takes away much of the control that someone who is in charge of a study would like to observe first hand. Nonetheless great research and studies have been made to better understand the effect of heavy televisions viewers and the way the world is perceived by them. In many cases it is understood that there are more variables that are needed to be taken under account for than that of just television viewing. Variables such as economic status, location of residency, and connection with people in the outside world all have an effect on how television viewership changes a person’s vision of reality and the problems that surround it. Due to the plasticity of Cultivation Theory, studies surrounding other forms of media are able to use the theory as a means to try and understand social perceptions and attitudes that are attributed with certain outlets. Cultivation study has slowly begun tackling new positions within the television world. Topics such as attitudes towards marriage, race, and political viewpoints have been taken under consideration due to studies having been made. The communication theory of Cultivation Analysis is recognized as a fundamental concept in Mass Communications.
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