Cultivation Theory

George Gerbner's concept of cultivation through television programming is an idea that represents a skewed perspective of the world outside of the consumer's living room. Because television is such a widely used medium, it is only fair to say that it's content has an affect on its viewers. While Marshall McLuhan would argue that the television, itself, has the largest influence over its viewers, Gerbner found the theme of violence to be a great influencer in the lives of viewers. “Gerbner was convinced that TV's power comes from the symbolic content of the real-life drama shown hour after hour, week after week.” (Griffin, pp. 349)

It seems important to note that, although television programming can often be violent, people are generally smart enough to differentiate between a staged violent occurrence, on TV, and something that might occur in real life, on the street. Even more important is the constant and consistent exposure to the violence on TV. Essentially, the television serves as a conditioning device for people who watch a lot of programming. Over time the attitudes and events, which take place, on TV, become a way of thinking and understanding the outside world. Since the television is a staple in most homes, it seems fair to say that pretty much everyone is influenced by television, in one way or another. Those who spend a lot of time watching TV are more susceptible the conditioning and cultivation of false ideas.

The video below is an example of how cultivation theory affects a person who is a heavy television viewer (4 hours or more a day). The character expresses his fear of leaving his house and credits his discomfort, with the outside world, to the content on his television. His place on the couch is his haven. “That's guaranteed reliability,” the character says. “It's dangerous out there, man.” His entire existence is maintained through the mediated environment of his own house. The character would rather live inside than venture outdoors into the world of the unknown where anything could happen at anytime.

It is interesting to note that Gerbner's studies took into account the fact that television enters people's lives at infancy. Therefore, his experiments retrieved information based on the amount of time spent watching television rather than a before and after test for the effects of violence. Cultivation Differential is the term used to describe the data that Gerbner was able to collect based on different watching habits. Just as represented by the paranoid character in the video below, he found that heavy viewers indicated that they thought their odds of encountering violence outside of their house was 1 out of 10 on a weekly basis.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn6phBkcyqk (embedding was disabled, sorry)


This second video (below) is basically a montage of violent scenes from television and movies. This video is a representation of how TV conditions viewers over time. Gradually people become more and more connected to the violence that is depicted, and eventually accept it as truth. Because these people have come to accept these acts of violence as regular occurrences, it becomes difficult to actively participate in society without fear. These are the types of violent scenes that Gerbner would attribute to cultivating a television viewers way of life.