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Do you ever get too attached to fiction? Do you get movies stuck right in your head even when you finished them like, three hours ago?
While the characters aren’t real, the emotions they trigger very much are. Movies and tv show vicariously evoke a hundred emotions at once and interestingly, these have very intense, real-time implications you may not be aware of. They do much more than just serve as an escape from reality. Instead, they shape your reality, giving you an extra lens to look at your life with.
The ‘Cultivation Theory’ is a famous media theory that was propounded by an eminent American journalist and media professor, George Gerbner, along with an American screenwriter, Larry Gross, during the 1960-70s.
The theory proposes that repeated, long-term exposure to media can influence people’s perceptions of reality. It attempts to understand how media cultivates and shapes its consumers’ attitudes, values, and interpretations of social reality.
The study conducted by Gerbner had a special emphasis on television, however, fresher researches have focused on newer forms of media as well.
The theory suggests that heavy television viewers are more susceptible to passively believing that the messages conveyed by the media are completely real, valid, and applicable to their real lives, even if they’re fictional. The more they watch television, the more they’re likely to perceive the world in a way that is most commonly depicted on the medium, thereby having their reality distorted.
Frequent exposure to media also plays an important role in shaping an individual’s basic beliefs, ideals, and values about the real world. For example, it subliminally internalizes sociocultural norms of ideal body images and gender roles.
Media content mostly portrays females as a dependent, submissive homemakers who are subordinate to their male counterparts. They’re expected to have a successful romance with their partner and to largely look after the household. Males, on the other hand, are sole independent breadwinners who take on major financial responsibilities of running the family. As a result of repeated exposure, children become conscious of these gender portrayals and expect similar roles in the real world.
This can be reflected in their choice of toys and colors – mostly, you’d find little boys scoffing at the color pink. Why? Because ‘ew, it’s girly and gross’. It’s literally just a color, so from where is this value attachment coming from?
The whole process is so subtle that you wouldn’t even notice that you’re being manipulated to think exactly how the media wants you to. Sure, those are your own individual thoughts – but where have they come from? From everything you read and watch i.e., media.
Gerbner also coined the expressions of the “Mean World Syndrome” and “Mainstreaming and Resonance” during his course of research on the effects of television viewing.
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The Mean World Syndrome
Gerbner’s original focus was to study the influence of violent content on the consumers of television. He used this term to describe the cognitive bias that resulted from watching a great deal of violence on television.
The more people watched tv, the more they believed that the world they’re living in is a mean and dangerous one, with a criminal/rapist/murder lurking around in every corner of the street.
Television is more likely to induce a great deal of fear, pessimism, anxiety, and greater alertness to imaginary threats within the heavy viewers who start believing crime, terror, and aggression to be rampant in the world.
One example of this is “Crime Patrol.” Every time women watched Crime Patrol, they feared stepping out of the house.
Gerbner’s original focus was to study the influence of violent content on the consumers of television. He used this term to describe the cognitive bias that resulted from watching a great deal of violence on television.
The more people watched tv, the more they believed that the world they’re living in is a mean and dangerous one, with a criminal/rapist/murder lurking around in every corner of the street.
Television is more likely to induce a great deal of fear, pessimism, anxiety, and greater alertness to imaginary threats within the heavy viewers who start believing crime, terror, and aggression to be rampant in the world.
One example of this is “Crime Patrol.” Every time women watched Crime Patrol, they feared stepping out of the house.
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Mainstreaming and Resonance
Mainstreaming occurs when heavy viewers from diverse backgrounds develop a common, homogenous, ‘mainstream’ perspective of the world that they cultivated through repeated exposure to the same television images and content.
Resonance occurs when a message conveyed by the media especially stands out to a consumer because it somehow coincides with his/her real-life experiences and he/she can relate to the events portrayed on the medium. This gives him/her a confirmation bias i.e., the content of television confirms and reinforces their already existing opinions and beliefs, making them stronger and even more rigid.
For example, watching Crime Patrol in a city with a high crime rate will resonate with the audience who live in that city, thereby amplifying the cultivation of the belief of the world to be a mean and scary place.
The whole theory mainly focuses on heavy viewers of television – the ones who spend prolonged hours watching television, absorb more content, and therefore are more influenced than light viewers i.e., the ones who watch less television. Light viewers are less likely to be easily and wholly convinced by the messages circulated by television. They are more open to other sources of information and are also more open to changing their opinions and perceptions.
Mainstreaming occurs when heavy viewers from diverse backgrounds develop a common, homogenous, ‘mainstream’ perspective of the world that they cultivated through repeated exposure to the same television images and content.
Resonance occurs when a message conveyed by the media especially stands out to a consumer because it somehow coincides with his/her real-life experiences and he/she can relate to the events portrayed on the medium. This gives him/her a confirmation bias i.e., the content of television confirms and reinforces their already existing opinions and beliefs, making them stronger and even more rigid.
For example, watching Crime Patrol in a city with a high crime rate will resonate with the audience who live in that city, thereby amplifying the cultivation of the belief of the world to be a mean and scary place.
The whole theory mainly focuses on heavy viewers of television – the ones who spend prolonged hours watching television, absorb more content, and therefore are more influenced than light viewers i.e., the ones who watch less television. Light viewers are less likely to be easily and wholly convinced by the messages circulated by television. They are more open to other sources of information and are also more open to changing their opinions and perceptions.
Criticism
This theory has been highly criticized for being oversimplified as social relationships are more complex than it has assumed. It has only focused on television, which is only one of the many mediums people are exposed to.
It has also been critiqued for having considered the audience as completely passive. A huge proportion of the media consumers is active in challenging what is showcased on television. They do not blindly believe anything and everything. Also, they have the upper hand in choosing the content they want to be exposed to. As much as media affects its consumers, the consumers affect media content too.
This theory has been highly criticized for being oversimplified as social relationships are more complex than it has assumed. It has only focused on television, which is only one of the many mediums people are exposed to.
It has also been critiqued for having considered the audience as completely passive. A huge proportion of the media consumers is active in challenging what is showcased on television. They do not blindly believe anything and everything. Also, they have the upper hand in choosing the content they want to be exposed to. As much as media affects its consumers, the consumers affect media content too.
Written By - Vidhi Nankani
Edited By - Anamika Malik
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