Presentation and teaching material: Communication Theory - Cultivation Theory by George Gerbner. Research on Television and Violence based on the Cultural Indicators Project

1. Cultivationtheory

2. T H EORISTS

3. GerbNER& GROSS

4. Larry GROSS
35 years teaching communication at the
University of Pennsylvania before joining USC
Annenberg in 2003 as deputy dean of the
School of Communication.
Specializes in the areas of media and culture,
art and communication, visual
communication and media portrayals of
minorities, Gross helped found the field of
gay and lesbianstudies.
From 1971 to 1991, co-directed the Cultural
Indicators Project

5. GEORgegerbner
August 8, 1919 ‒ December 24, 2005
Doctoral dissertation, "Toward a General
Theory of Communication," won USC's
award for "best dissertation.
Dean of the Annenberg School for
Communication at the University of
Pennsylvania (1964‒1989)
1968 Founded the Cultural IndicatorsProject

6. impETUS

7. 1968:93%
Source: Parents Television Council
Pervasiveness
2/3of children watch inthe bedroom
EACH YEAR, The AVERAGE youth spends
1023 hours ON TVand 900hours in
school.
1928 GE had the idea of a
device that could show
moving images using
technology to wirelessly
broadcast them.
1945
TV sales
skyrocketed.
1954
First color
broadcast.
Early 70s
Dominant
media force.

8. 8000
murders by
the age of 12

9. Cultural
indicators project
Identify and track the
cultivated effects of television
on viewers; whether
watching television may
influence viewers' ideas of
what the everyday world is
like.

10. t h eORY

11. Positivist. Empirical.
Sociopsychological & sociocultural (Social control).
Represented a shift from the limited effects paradigm
of Paul Lazarsfeld that had dominated since the 1940s.
Is described as a stalagmite theory; the Ice Age analogy.
The third most frequently utilized theory; continues to
be one of the most popular theories in mass
communication research (Bryant & Miron, 2004).
O ERiewv

12. Cultivation
TV contains so much violence,
"people who spend the most
time in front of the tube
develop an exaggerated belief
in a mean and scary world.

14. PROCESS
Studied televisionfor
22 years. Quantity of
violence in programs
are found to be stable
over time.
Correlated content
data with survey data
‒ relationship of
amount of watching
to views on violence.
Two groups:
Heavy watchers (more
than 4 hours per day)
Light Watchers (less
than 2 hours per day)
Heavy viewers were
susceptibleto a
perception that the
world was a
dangerous place.

15. CHANCES OF INVOLVEMENT WITH VIOLENCE
Light viewers predicted their weekly odds of being involved in
violence were 1 in 100 while heavy viewers said it they were 1 in 10.
FEAR OF WALKING ALONE AT NIGHT
Women were more afraid than men, but both worried about criminal
victimization.
PERCEIVED ACTIVITY OF POLICE
Heavy viewers believed that police drew their guns more regularly
and that about 5% more of society is involved with law enforcement.
GENERAL MISTRUST OF PEOPLE
People who were heavy viewers tended to see other people s actions
and motives more negatively.
deltas

16. VIEWS ABOUT TV
Fundamentally different. Only
medium in history with which people
can interact with throughout their life.
Cultivates basic schemas
about life on which
conclusions are based.
Major cultural function is to stabilize social
patterns, to cultivate resistance to change.
The central
cultural arm of
American society…
the chief creator
of synthetic
cultural patterns.
The observable, independent contributions of TV to culture are
relatively small.

17. 3b’s of television
Blurs traditional distinctions of
people s views of their world.
Blends TV s realitiesinto our
cultural mainstream.
Bends that mainstream to the
interests of content owners.

19. resonance
Accessibility principle
Mainstreaming
Mean worldindex

20. t h eORY
critique

22. Methodology does not match conceptual reach of the theory. (Potter 1994)
Failed to differentiate violence in different types of TV shows.
Ignores differences in the way people interpret television realities.
Assumes too much homogeneity of violence in TV shows. (Newcomb 1978)
RANTS
Focuses on heavy users of television.
Is difficult to apply to media used less heavily than television.

23. RAVES
Macro- and
micro-level
theories
Cognizant of television s unique role
Provides basis for
social change
Applies empirical study to
widely held humanistic
assumptions
Redefines effects as more than
observable behavior change

24. Relatedresearch
In 2003, Hargreaves and Tiggemann
studied the impact of viewing televised
images of female attractiveness on the
body dissatisfaction of young adolescent
girls.
Their findings show that televised images
of attractiveness lead to increased body
dissatisfaction and schema activation for
girls as young as 13 years old.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003, pp. 367‒373 (2003)

25. You know, who tells the
stories of a culture really
governs human behavior.
It used to be the parent, the
school, the church, the
community. Now it's a
handful of global
conglomerates that have
nothing to tell, but a great
deal to sell.
George Gerbner
“”

26. Bryant, J., & Miron, D. (2004). Theory and research in mass communication. Journal of
Communication, 54(4): 662-704.
Gerbner, G. (1970). Cultural indicators: The case of violence in television drama. The Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 388(1), 69‒81.
Gerbner, G. & Gross, L.(1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of
Communication, 26(2), 172-199.
Griffin, Em (2012). A First Look at Communication Theory. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill
Companies, Inc., 363.
Hargreaves, D., & Tiggemann, M. (2003). The effect of thin-ideal television commercialson body
dissatisfaction and schema activation during early adolescence. Journal of Youth and
Adolescence, 32, 367-373
Newcomb, H. (1978). Assessing the ViolenceProfile Studies of Gerbner and Gross: A Humanistic
Critique and Suggestion. Communication Research, (5), 264 ‒ 282.
Potter, W. J. (1994). Cultivation theory and research: A methodological critique Journalism
Monographs, 147: 1-35.
REFERENCES

27. dadaBELTRAN
dadaspeaks.com
dadaspeaks@gmail.com
bootsLIQUIGAN