Speech Chapter 29 Cultivation Theory Outline Introduction George Gerbner Argued That Heavy Television Viewing

CHAPTER 29

CULTIVATION THEORY

Outline

I. Introduction.

A. George Gerbner argued that heavy television viewing creates an exaggerated belief

in a mean and scary world.

B. Gerbner emphasized the symbolic content of television drama.

C. Television has surpassed religion as the key storyteller in our culture.

D. Violence is television’s principal message, and particularly for devoted viewers.

II. Institutional process analysis: The first prong.

A. Institutional process research addresses scholars’ interest in determining the

III. Message system analysis: The second prong.

A. Message system analysis uses the method of content analysis to study and classify

the specific messages that TV projects.

B. Gerbner studied violence, but this method can be used to focus on any type of TV

content.

C. An index of violence

1. He defined dramatic violence as “the overt expression of physical force (with or

2. Gerbner’s definition of dramatic violence rules out verbal abuse, idle threats,

and pie-in-the-face slapstick.

3. Gerbner found that the annual index of violence is both extremely high and

stable.

D. Equal violence, unequal risk

2. Heroes are just as involved as villains, yet there is great inequality as to the age,

race, and gender of those on the receiving end of physical force.

4. Not surprisingly, these are the very people who exhibit the most fear of violence

when they turn the TV off.

IV. Cultivation analysis: The third prong.

A. Message system analysis deals with the content of TV; cultivation analysis deals with

how TV’s content might affect viewers—particularly the viewers who spend lots of

time glued to the tube.

V. Cultivation works like a magnetic or gravitational field.

A. The cultivation process is similar to the pull of a gravitational field.

B. Although the magnitude of TV’s influence is not the same for every viewer, everyone

is affected by it.

VI. Mainstreaming: Blurring, blending, and bending of viewer attitudes.

A. Mainstreaming is the process by which heavy viewers develop a commonality of

outlook through constant exposure to the same images and labels.

B. Instead of narrowcasting their programs, TV producers broadcast in that they seek to

“attract the largest possible audience by celebrating the moderation of the

mainstream.”

C. 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 resemble the TV world.

D. The television answer is the mainstream.

E. Gerbner illustrates the mainstreaming effect by showing how television types blur

economic and political distinctions.

1. They assume that they are middle class.

3. In fact, heavy viewers tend to be conservative.

F. Traditional differences diminish among people with heavy viewing habits.

VII. Resonance: The TV world looks like my world, so it must be true.

A. Gerbner thought the cultivating power of TV’s messages would be especially strong

over viewers who perceived that the world depicted on TV was a world very much like

their own.

B. This resonance process causes the power of TV’s messages to be stronger for such

viewers.

VIII. Research on cultivation analysis.

A. Cultivation takes time.

B. Change due to cultivation takes place over months and years; most experiments

measure change that takes place over 30 or 60 minutes.

IX. The major findings of cultivation analysis.

A. Believing that violence is the backbone of TV drama and knowing that people differ

in how much TV they watch, Gerbner sought to discover the cultivation differential.

That’s his term for “the difference in the percent giving the ‘television answer’ within

comparable groups of light and heavy viewers.”

X. Critique: How strong is the evidence in favor of the theory?

A. For several decades, communication journals have been filled with the sometimes

bitter charges and countercharges of critics and supporters.

B. Perhaps the most daunting issue to haunt cultivation research is how to clearly

establish the causal claim that heavy TV viewing leads a person to perceive the

world as mean and scary.

Key Names and Terms

George Gerbner

Late Dean Emeritus of The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of

Pennsylvania, founder of the Cultural Environment Movement, and champion of

cultivation theory.

Scholarship that involves careful, systematic study of TV content, usually employing

content analysis as a research method.

Dramatic violence

The overt expression or threat of physical force as part of the plot.

Cultivation analysis

Accessibility principle

When people make judgments about the world around them, they rely on the smallest

bits of information that come to mind most quickly.

Mainstreaming

Resonance

The condition that exists when viewers’ real-life environment is like the world of TV;

these viewers are especially susceptible to TV’s cultivating power.

Light viewers

TV viewers who report that they watch no more than two hours per day.

Heavy viewers

TV viewers who report that they watch at least four hours per day; television types.

Cultivation differential

Meta-analysis

A statistical procedure that blends the results of multiple empirical and independent

research studies exploring the same relationship between two variables (e.g., television

viewing and fear of violence).

Mean world syndrome

The cynical mindset of general mistrust of others that’s subscribed to by heavy TV

viewers.

Principal Changes

The chapter has been edited for clarity and precision. A new cartoon focuses on the

theory’s concept of mainstreaming.

Kick-off Questions & Interaction Starters

• What are some of your favorite TV shows? According to Gerbner, how do these shows

influence your view of the world? Do you think they influence you in that way or not?

• Do media have the same effect on you if you binge (watch multiple episodes or season

• Is athletic violence (like tackles in football or fights in hockey) different from scripted

violence?

Suggestions for Discussion

Contrasting Gerbner with Barthes and McLuhan

Methodologically speaking, cultivation theory forms an excellent contrast with the

theories featured in the Media and Culture section, and I would recommend calling attention

to the clear differences between Gerbner’s empirically-based work and McLuhan’s, Barthes’,

and Hall’s interpretive/critical theorizing. It’s important for students to see that a subject such

as television can be approached fruitfully from different perspectives. For some students, who

might have earlier been less embracing of a scientific approach, Gerbner might now seem like

a refreshing change as someone who focuses extensively on the pragmatic side of media

effects. But on the other hand, you might demonstrate common ground between Gerbner’s

Gerbner and Katz

To explore the relationship between cultivation theory and uses and grats (ch. 28), ask

your students how Katz might interpret the findings of Gerbner and his associates. By

examining what the media do to us, cultivation theory has at least a hint of the “magic bullet”

approach to media that Katz rejected. And so, cultivation theory is relatively silent on why

Defining violence

Some students fervently object to Gerbner’s definition of dramatic violence. As a

preemptive measure, you may want to ask students how they would define violence if they

were in charge of this research program. Both a conceptual definition, which defines an

abstract term and provide parameters of study, and an operational definition that defines a

variable using specific, measurable, and observable conditions are essential within the social

excellent springboard to explain that a focused research agenda (such as Gerbner’s) must

make choices about what to include and what to leave out. Of course, harkening back to Hall

and Deetz, the follow-up question you might be prepared to ask your students is, “Are those

Cartoon violence

You may want to speculate with your students why Gerbner includes cartoon violence,

but not slapstick. Put another way, why are attacks between battling Pokémon considered

violent while Moe’s continual pokes in the eyes of the Stooges is not? In the current media

environment, particularly that of the typical college student, cartoons are consumed in vast

quantities. From The Simpsons and The Family Guy or South Park and Adult Swim, some

students watch a lot of animated programming. When Gerbner started his research, cartoon

programs were aimed at children. But, over time, the age of the target audience for cartoons

has increased. Gerbner found violence rampant in cartoons. Have your students speculate if

that is still true for the dominant cartoons of this age.

It might also be fruitful to ask if the nature of slapstick has changed. While the Three

Stooges have cult appeal, few contemporary college students are familiar with that genre of

What makes a heavy television viewer?

You may also wish to discuss why four hours was chosen as the low end for heavy

viewing. What would you discover if you raised the minimum to five or six, or lowered it to

three? Is the effect of television viewing steadily cumulative, or do viewers “max out” at a

certain level? How could you find out? Would a continuum be usefully employed in this type of

research? You might want to point out to students that the light vs. heavy television viewer

distinction is based on an average amount. In other words, the sports fanatic who watches

very little else during the week, but spends all day Saturday and Sunday surfing from game to

game, may still be considered a heavy viewer.

Each semester, my students claim they watch very little television. I’m intrigued, but

somewhat skeptical that they consume as little as they claim to watch. You might want to think

aloud with them. Do they watch 2-3 episodes of Modern Family on Hulu or binge-watch Suits or

The Walking Dead? Does a slow drip (regular, continuous consumption) differ from a huge

Does the way we watch alter the amount we watch?

Is it possible that the way people watch television is just as important as—if not more

important than—the number of hours they watch per day? The work of John Fiske suggests

that many consumers of television and other forms of mass media deconstruct or

recontextualize the images they perceive. If critics such as Fiske are correct, then viewing

technique would be much more important than hours of exposure. Ask students to describe

their own approaches to viewing. Do they talk about shows with fellow viewers? Do they

critique the action as it unfolds? Do they, as I do constantly, find themselves making fun of

what they see? If so, then this model may need complicating. Likewise, how might portability

affect Gerbner’s conclusions? Gerbner proposed that one of the contextual elements

At this point, you will likely want to re-address the thoughts of McLuhan, who was much

more concerned with the conduit that carried the message than the message itself. These

positions (that of McLuhan and Gerbner) are arguing for very different conclusions and it is

worth clarifying that point with your students. In the current edition, the chapter on McLuhan

does not differentiate between hot versus cold media, but you may want to bring up that

distinction at this point. A hot medium involves singular sensory stimulation and requires little

audience participation. For McLuhan, the movie theater was a hot medium. On the other hand,

a cool medium is more involving; it is multi-sensory and requires more of the consumer to get

Cable television and the watering down of the heavy viewer

Much of the foundational research for cultivation theory was done before the explosion

of digital and cable television, and you may also wish to discuss with students whether the

proliferation of cable channels affects Gerbner’s notion of mainstreaming. Griffin mentions

that radio stations “narrowcast” while television “broadcasts,” yet the hundreds of highly

specialized cable channels, from “Oxygen” to the NHL Network, may challenge this distinction.

In contrast, when Gerbner developed the theory originally, viewers only had three national

networks to choose from (ABC, NBC, and CBS). Is the notion of the “television type” altered by

these changes in programming? Might a heavy viewer of these more specialized channels be

Gerbner intended! On that point, when Andrew has taught the theory, he’s read to his students

a list of Lifetime movie titles, such as Deadly Sorority, Fatal Honeymoon, I Killed My BFF,

Murder in the Hamptons, and Stalked at 17. Although these don’t represent the entire flavor of

Lifetime’s movie catalog, it isn’t hard to imagine what Gerbner would say about a steady diet of

films with titles like this.

Another issue to consider involves watching as shopping with the popularity of QVC and

the Home Shopping Network (HSN). What effect might these shows have when viewed for

Methodological considerations

Since the authors do an excellent job of demonstrating the link between theory building

and research methodology in this chapter, you have the opportunity to discuss with your

students some of the data used to support Gerbner’s conclusions. One aspect of the process

that is worth special consideration is Gerbner’s decision to focus his primary attention on the

relationship between heavy television viewing and viewers’ fear of violence. You might ask

your students questions such as the following: Why this particular causal relationship? Why

not emphasize the relationship between heavy viewing and viewers’ attitudes about poverty, or

the American dream, or education? How about the connection between viewing patterns and

specific voting patterns, or violent behavior, or racism, or ageism, or sexism, or xenophobia, or

homophobia? Cultivation theory could be a useful framework for examining the following

behaviors and norms:

1. The posh world syndrome, implied by economist Juliet Schor, in which people

2. The cultivation of consumerism. Michael Schudson and others have written about

3. The skinny world syndrome. Julia Wood and others contend that distorted body

4. The just world syndrome. Markus Appel suggests that viewing televised, fictional

narratives creates a belief that the world is a just and fair place.

Fear of violence is by no means an insignificant component of contemporary American life, but

it seems less obviously connected to behavior than other attitudes we might measure. Given

the fact that Gerbner was able to amass so much information about viewers’ attitudes, it might

be productive to have students thoughtfully analyze his decision to center his investigation in

one place and not others. In the current treatment, Griffin does mention that the effects of

cultivation might not be limited to violence alone, but certainly that was chief among Gerbner’s

Sample Application Log

Beth

My freshman year roommate and I differ on opinions. She thinks that it is all right for her to

drive to Chicago’s Midway Airport alone at night, whereas I believe that it is dangerous for a

woman to drive there alone at night. Every time she goes to the airport to pick up a friend I ask

her to bring a boy along with her because “it is much safer to have a boy with you.” After

reading Gerbner’s cultivation theory, I understand why we differ so much on opinion. Growing

up, I loved to watch television. In high school, my favorite shows were ER and Chicago Hope,

Exercises and Activities

Is crime on the rise… or do we just think it is?

To test the prevalence of the mean world syndrome, ask your students if American

crime levels are increasing, decreasing, or remaining about the same. How does the answer

complicate Gerbner’s findings that suggest a distorted sense of reality? Heavier viewers may

overinflate the numbers but perhaps low viewers are too naive. You may consider looking up

the crime stats for your area or the Clery report (federally mandated public safety numbers for

college campuses which are released annually) to bring some perspective to your discussion.

Based on their viewing habits, can you predict if students think there was more theft, assaults,

or incidents in their own community?

Discussion of the prevalence of television violence may lead to a classroom

consideration of possible solutions. For example, you may wish to debate the value of the

television rating system (which, in the US, labels shows as TV-PG, TV-MA, etc.), which gives

parents information about certain kinds of programming. Will this system help solve some of

the problems that Gerbner’s theory exposes?

It can also be useful to expand and challenge Gerbner’s focus on fear of violence rather

than committing violence. Particularly after events such as school shootings, might it be more

important to examine the impact of media on the potential for violent behavior? But, following

Burke (ch. 23), why might we target TV as our scapegoat? Might violent rock music or Internet

consider a theory that would suggest that viewing violence may lead to violence, you might

direct your students to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory (available in the archive section

of www.afirstlook.com).

Students’ viewing habits and classroom clickers

Gerbner’s provocative analysis of viewers’ habits and mindsets invites students to

ponder their own relationships with television, and it may be useful to spend some class time

discussing the range of viewing behaviors exhibited by your students. Devise an in-class oral

or written poll that distinguishes among light, moderate, and heavy viewers and discuss the

results with your students. If you want more precise data, have your students formally chart

their viewing patterns for one week. They should indicate how many hours they watch each

day. You may also wish to have them keep track of the kinds of shows selected. Were most of

the shows watched drawn from the supposed two-thirds majority of violent programming, or

Students who watch an embarrassing amount of television may dispute Gerbner’s

conclusions about the consequences of such activity, asserting—as I suggest above—that the

kind of viewing one practices might be more important than the actual number of hours one

engages in it. Four hours of critical viewing, in which one actively processes the images on the

screen and challenges the worldview presented there, may have less of a mainstreaming

What else might be cultivated?

Test out this proposition on your students. Gerbner examined violence because he saw

it as the most prevalent theme on TV. But, does the principle of cultivation hold true with a

different theme? As mentioned in the chapter, violence isn’t the only content message that

heavy television viewers might receive in high quantities.

You might start by asking students to list the TV shows of which they are heavier

consumers—even if it doesn’t hit Gerbner’s threshold. Based on their viewing habits, do a mini

content analysis and estimate the themes that are repeated or consistent. For example, if your

students are foodies, Great British Baking Show, Chopped, The Pioneer Woman, or Cupcake

Correlation does not equal causation

You may want to clarify further these two concepts. Though both suggest a relationship,

only causation suggests a stimulus or trigger and its effect or outcome. For Gerbner, the

consumption of hours of television is the stimulus, and the outcome is an altered view of the

Further Resources

Ellen Wartella takes up the issue of television violence in her 1996 Carroll Arnold

Distinguished Lecture, “The Context of Television Violence,” Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1997 (as

of this writing, a copy is available at

Theoretical considerations

Kimberly Gross and Sean Aday, “The Scary World in Your Living Room and Neighborhood:

Using Local Broadcast News, Neighborhood Crime Rates, and Personal Experience to

Test Agenda Setting and Cultivation,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 53, 2003, pp.

411-426.

Michael Morgan, James Shanahan, and Nancy Signorielli, “Yesterday’s New Cultivation,

241-255.

Karyn Riddle, W. James Potter, Miriam J. Metzger, Robin L. Nabi, and Daniel G. Linz, “Beyond

Cultivation: Exploring the Effects of Frequency, Recency, and Vivid Autobiographical

Memories for Violent Media,” Media Psychology, Vol. 14, 2011, pp. 168-191.

Anna Schnauber and Christine E. Meltzer, “On the Distinction and Interrelation Between First-

and Second-Order Judgments in Cultivation Research,” Communications: The European

Journal of Communication Research, Vol. 41, 2016, pp. 121-143.

Critiques and contrasting opinions of cultivation theory

Markus Appel, “Fictional Narratives Cultivate Just-World Beliefs,” Journal of

Communication, Vol. 58, 2008, pp. 62-83.

prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.

Lennert Coenen and Jan Van den Bulck, “Cultivating the Opinionated: The Need to Evaluate

Moderates the Relationship Between Crime Drama Viewing and Scary World

Evaluations,” Human Communication Research, Vol. 42, 2016, pp. 421-440.

W. James Potter, “A Critical Analysis of Cultivation Theory,” Journal of Communication, 64,

2014, pp. 1015-1036.

Cultivation and news coverage

John W. Cheng, Hitoshi Mitomo, Tokio Otsuka, and Stefan Y. Jeon, “Cultivation Effects of Mass

and Social Media on Perceptions and Behavioural Intentions in Post-Disaster Recovery

– The Case of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake,” Telematics & Informatics, Vol.

33, 2016, pp. 753-772.

Zeeba Khan and Jon Bruschke, “Media Coverage of Muslims, Perceived Threats,

Violence

John R. Chapin and Grace Coleman, “Optimistic Bias About Dating/Relationship Violence

Among Teens,” Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 15, 2012, pp. 645-655.

Kathleen Custers and Jan Van den Bulck, “The Cultivation of Fear of Sexual Violence in

Women: Processes and Moderators of the Relationship Between Television and

Fear,” Communication Research, Vol. 40, 2013, pp. 96-124.

Video Games

971.

Dmitri Williams, “Virtual Cultivation: Online Worlds, Offline Perceptions,” Journal of

Communication, Vol. 56, 2006, pp. 69-87.

Sex and gender role cultivation

Dawn Elizabeth England, Lara Descartes, and Melissa A. Collier-Meek, “Gender Role Portrayal

and the Disney Princesses,” Sex Roles, Vol. 64, 2011, pp. 555-567.

Hilary Gamble and Leslie R. Nelson, “Sex in College Relationships: The Role Television Plays in

Scott Parrott and Caroline Titcomb Parrott, “U.S. Television’s ‘Mean World’ for White Women:

The Portrayal of Gender and Race on Fictional Crime Dramas,” Sex Roles, Vol. 73,

2015, pp. 70-82.

Erica Scharrer and Greg Blackburn, “Is Reality TV a Bad Girls Club? Television Use, Docusoap

Reality Television Viewing, and the Cultivation of the Approval of Aggression,”

Other applied contexts

Kathleen Beullens, Keith Roe, and Jan Van den Bulck, “Music Video Viewing as a Marker of

Driving After the Consumption of Alcohol,” Substance Use & Misuse, Vol. 47, 2012, pp.

2005, pp. 253-264.

Amir Hetsroni and Hila Lowenstein, “Cultivation and Counter Cultivation: Does Religiosity

Shape the Relationship Between Television Viewing and Estimates of Crime Prevalence

and Assessment of Victimization Likelihood?,” Psychological Reports, Vol. 112, 2013,

pp. 303-324.

Amir Hetsroni, Abira Reizer, and Uri Ben Zion, “Interest Rate Demands and Television Viewing–

Is a Single Exposure More Influential Than Routine Viewing?,” Psychological

Reports, Vol. 120, 2017, pp. 332-360.

Teaching ideas

Elizabeth Ribarsky, “The Frankenstein Project: Examining Media’s Role in Constructing

Romantic Relationship Ideals,” Communication Teacher, Vol. 28, 2014, pp. 160-164.