Cultivation Theory

Year: 1969

Theorist: George Gerbner

Background: Looks at how exposure to media overtime can cultivate beliefs about society and promote particular ways of looking at the world, especially with susceptible audiences, like children or the elderly. While it looked primarily at TV at the time, it now extends to other mediums – films, video games that can be watched or passively engaged with for hours on end. The media cultivates beliefs over time.

Cultivation Theory vs Hypodermic Needle Theory:

·The Bullet Theory might imply that you watch a violent film and then go out and repeat those violent actions in the real world.

·The Cultivation Theory might imply that you watch a violent film, and another violent film and another violent film, and over time you begin to believe that the world around you is a violent place.

Research: Gerbner found on average 5 traumatic incidents for adults occurred in every hour of television viewed. Children’s programming averaged 20 incidents per hour.

The stats showed that “by the time a child graduates from high school they will have watched 13,000 violent deaths on television”. As a result, Gerbner believed that audiences began to see the world as a violent and scary place.

Weaknesses: Too reliant on statistics and implies viewers are passive and mindless. A problem lies in defining violence. What one person sees as violent, the next person might see as funny or silly. This would in turn affect how this media impacts that person over time.

Key terms:

Cultivation: The process of nurturing or developing something (in this case the cultivation of belief)

Level of media power:  ★★★/★★★