Analysis+of+Studies





Summary written by: Kari Filer
 * Cultivation Analysis: An Overview ** written by George Gerbner

In Cultivation Analysis: An Overview, George Gerbner discusses the history and studies of his Cultivation Theory. He explains how our society has changed over time, going from sharing stories face to face, to the now mass distribution of imagery through the mainstream of television. Gerbner uses the term cultivation to “describe the independent contributions television viewing makes to viewer conceptions of social reality.”(p. 180) Cultivation analysis focuses to determine the effects of long term viewing of the similar and repeating conceptual patterns shown in today’s media (namely television.) Gerbner believed that society unwillingly adapts behaviors and beliefs from messages and images consumed through television media.

Gerbner’s Cultural Indicators research was a three-pronged strategy including researching policies dealing with the distribution of information to the masses, then analysis of the information, and analysis of what we as society cultivates from those mass-distributed messages. The information analysis begins with actually analyzing the different messages broadcast through television programming to determine the reoccurring patterns that reside within majority of what society watches. They focus on namely long running consistent programming, rather than short term exposures. Viewing is measured by the amount of time spent watching television on an average given day. The amount of viewing will determine how much a person’s perceptions of reality are influenced by what is seen through media. Surveys done in the study are used to asses mature adults, young adults, and children likewise. This article also references studies of cultivation done in different countries throughout the world, those which have varied numbers but relatively similar results as to the amount of influence media has on one’s perceptions of reality and the world.

This research found that, the more heavy viewing (more hours in front of T.V.) a person does, the more of their knowledge and actions will be those absorbed and learned from watching these programs on television. This goes as far as understanding of people of different cultures, to politics, to behaviors we show during social interaction. Television this day and age is an influence that is present from infancy. From birth, we begin learning and mimicking behaviors we see portrayed on television. Children especially are at risk of adopting behaviors seen on television, as they have less real life experiences in which to combat cultivation with.

As more and more studies on cultivation are done, the theory has been challenged as well as confirmed. Some variables that can effect the amount of information we cultivate include education and time invested in family oriented activities (rather than time spent ingesting television programs.) These things can defend against cultivation, and lead to less “T.V. answers” when surveyed. As our society and culture continues to grow and change, also will the images that are constructed and broadcasted through television, thus changing cultivation as well.

Source: Gerbner, G. (1998). Cultivation Analysis: An Overview. //Mass Communication & Society//, //I//(3/4), 175-194. Link: http://library.calstate.edu/sandiego/metasearch/record?group=2011-03-05-006624&resultSet=084833&startRecord=1

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Summary written by: Amy Prows
 * The State of Cultivation **

Michael Morgan and James Shanahan discuss the Cultivation Theory and how is is changing in their article, “The State of Cultivation”. First proposed by George Gerbner in the 1960’s, Cultivation Theory must evolve with television and society, which it has. There is an enormous amount of research, development, and exploration that can be attributed to cultivation.

Cultivation analysis looks at the way television viewing effects one’s view of reality. Researchers develop a hypothesis on what a person’s beliefs would be if they were to develop their beliefs from their viewing of television. They create surveys that ask viewers opinions on issues within society and explore differences there may be between heavy viewers, medium viewers, and light viewers. Within Gerbners study, it was found that heavy viewers felt less trust for people in general. He went on to do more research on issues such as sex, sexual orientation, and race, and also found differences in beliefs between people of different ranges of television consumption.

Today’s researchers have been taking a closer look at specific genres and how they might affect cultivation. One major topic of interest is the modern talk show. Researchers have found that people who view talk shows on a regular basis tend to believe that issues such as infidelity and runaway children happen more frequently within society. Another topic of interest for researchers was the ne phenomenon of make-over shows. While there was little correlation between watching such shows and negative self image, it was found that people who viewed these shows were more likely to consider plastic surgery. The genre of reality dating shows also interested researchers in relation to cultivation theory. It was found that younger men who viewed such shows were more likely to hold stereotypical beliefs about men and women within society, such as “men only think about sex” and ”women are sex objects”. Television and the different types of genres that are viewed through it are forever changing, and these genres continue to be relevant and cultivate within our society.

Another topic of interest for researchers within television is crime and the cultivation of fear within society through watching the news. There is little evidence between fictional crime dramas and the cultivation of fear, but non-fictional crime on the television (in shows such as news programs) tend to cultivate fear within the viewers. Specifically, when viewers watch local news programs that depict crime within their geographic area, they are more fearful of crime within their area despite the actual local crime rate. Studies show that people who view local and national news tend to be more fearful of crime in general and in support of imprisonment instead of rehabilitation and support for the death penalty. It is also notable that parents who view such programs pass their concerns on to their children. The children then pass on their parents beliefs and are more likely to overestimate the amount of crime within their surroundings comparable to actual crime rates.

With television in a constant state of change, cultivation is also constantly changing. All viewers of television are going to be affected by what they see, and it is important to continue researching and exploring the effect that television has on society.

Source: Morgan, M., & Shanahan, J. (2010). The state of cultivation. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 54(2), r2010, Vol-r2010, 355.

**Overrepresented Topics, Underrepresented Topics, and the Cultivation Effect ** written by Amir Hetsroni
Summary written by: Danielle Zens

This study was done to examine if people believe that the likelihood of something happening in reality is influenced by the amount it is represented on TV programming.

The basis for this experiment is that heavy TV viewing is correlated with distorted estimates of social reality. Cultivation is said to occur when heavy users of television give answers that represent the TV world but not of the real world more frequently than light viewers or light viewers provide real world answers that reflect social circumstances more often than heavy users. Decades of research have shown that cultivation occurs from learning and construction or heuristic processing. Some believe that TV is a social teacher “from which viewers learn fact and figures and construct estimates concerning he likelihood of various events occurring in their surroundings” [201]. Others believe that reality is only established when judgment is required because little active memorizing occurs while viewing.

The two research questions examined in this experiment are: [1]Is there a unidirectional cultivation effect in topics that are underrepresented on television programming, just as there is one in topics that are overrepresented on television? and [2] Is the size of the cultivation effect in topics that that underrepresented on television programming larger than, smaller than, or equal to the size of this effect in overrepresented topics? [202-203]

This study consisted of content analysis of TV programming with values that indicate the likelihood of different occurrences on television followed by a survey where respondents were asked to estimate the frequency of these occurrences in the real world. A sample of 517 male and female college students ranging from 19 to 28 years old were observed and surveyed.

The four content domains that were used to detect over and under represented topics included criminality, occupations, demography, and sex life. In each domain, an overrepresented topic and underrepresented topic were each present. “For criminality, the indicators were violent crime (overrepresented in the TV world) and property crime (underrepresented in TV content). For occupations, the indicators were the share of lawyers in the workforce (overrepresented on television) and the share of salesmen in the workforce (underrepresented on television). For demography, the indicators were the percent of people over 65 years of age who live in the country (an age cohort that is underrepresented in popular TV shows) and the percent of single parent families from among all the families with children (a sector that is overrepresented in popular TV shows). For sex life, the indicators were the share of teens under 18 years of age who are sexually active (a group that is overrepresented in television programming) and the share of people over 65 years of age who are sexually active (a group that is underrepresented in television programming)” [203].

The respondents were separated based on the amount of television viewing into three categories; light, medium, and heavy viewers. The results corresponded with cultivation predictions. Heavy viewers gave TV answers more frequently than medium viewers, and medium viewers gave TV answers more frequently than light viewers. In general, there was a positive relationship between the amount of television viewing and people’s tendency to provide answers consistent with TV content but it was also found that the content domain did have an affect the size of the results.

As for the first research question, this study found that, yes, there is a “unidirectional cultivation effect in topics that are underrepresented on television programming, just as there is one in topics that are overrepresented on television” [202]. In response to the second research question, “it appears that although cultivation effects vary in size, there is no pattern that unequivocally distinguishes overrepresented topics from underrepresented topics” [207].

The findings of this study confirm many theories of the cultivation effect. The more people watch television, the more their perceptions of reality are distorted. “Heavy viewers see the world in a manner that is more similar to the way reality is presented in popular television programming more often than light viewers do” [208]. This study also proved that the content domain did matter. The size of the cultivation effect changed across topics. They found that the cultivation effect would be stronger when the person’s environment paralleled what was shown on TV and weaker when a person’s surroundings provide first-hand information that contradicts what was presented on the programming.

There was a relationship between the amount of television viewing and answers consistent with TV content. This means the learning and constructive model of cultivation pertains to this situation. According to this model, “cultivation occurs because, in comparison with light viewers, heavy viewers have more time to learn and recount information from the screen” [208].

Source: Hetsroni, A. (2008). Overrepresented Topics, Underrepresented Topics, and the Cultivation Effect. Communication Research Reports, 25(3), 200-210. doi:10.1080/08824090802237642

Link: http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.sdsu.edu/ehost/detail?hid=106&sid=0430adea-169e-4d5f-8935-9c17d8df04ab%40sessionmgr104&vid=3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d3d#db=ufh&AN=33402187


Summary written by: Fernando Valadez
 * Cultivation Theory Revisited: The Impact of Childhood Television Viewing Levels on Social Reality Beliefs and Construct Accessibility in Adulthood **//Written by: Karyn Riddle//

Cultivation theory states that the more television we watch, the more likely we are to believe that television reality is reality. This type of situation happens only after long-term, cumulative exposure to television.

This study explores the relationship between television viewing levels during childhood and accessibility and social reality beliefs in adulthood.

// H1: There will be a positive relationship between childhood exposure to violent television genres and social reality beliefs about crime and violence in adulthood. //
 * H1 is posed to test the cultivation theory’s primary proposition **

// H2: There will be a positive relationship between childhood exposure to violent television genres and the accessibility of violent thoughts in memory in adulthood. //
 * H2 was posed given the importance of the formation of schema and mental models **

A scale was developed to measure whether childhood violent television viewing levels can predict cultivation outcomes about and beyond measures of current exposure levels. This was done using research and theory from long-term memory. The two models from long-term memory theory used to create the scale were SMS (self-memory system) & the connectionist models of memory. The SMS says that we store our personal memories in an autobiographical knowledge base, which is divided in three levels of specificity: event-specific knowledge (individual events), general event knowledge (repeated events), and lifetime periods (broad periods of a person’s life; college years). The connectionist models of memory states that “human memory consists of nodes and the associative pathways that connect them.” (7) For example, in this case, when people think about shows they have seen on television, they will think about other shows they have seen. The fact that they are thinking about exemplars from a particular source, will help them generate a series of examples from that particular source. (6)

The scale used first cued participants to a particular lifetime. The lifetime period used in this study was current television use, high school television use, and current television use. Participants filled out the sections in that order. Second, it asks them to think about the types of television genres they viewed during that lifetime period. The 16 genres presented to participants were: daytime soap operas, local news, national, news, celebrity news, sports, sitcoms, crime/police dramas, medical dramas, lawyer/courtroom dramas, relationship dramas, daytime talk shows, nighttime talk shows, game shows, reality television, cartoons, and music television. This, as mentioned above, should trigger the nodes that are similar in content and contextually related. Only one age group was used for this study : young adults. The 206 participants were all from a large university and the average age was 19.46 years. The sample was skewed with 82.4% females and 17.6% male. Most of the participants were Caucasian (69.5%), followed by Asian-Americans (12.8%), Latinos (11.3%), and African-Americans (2%).

Participants were asked how often they watch television on a scale from 1 (never) to 7 (almost always). Then they asked participants to do a word completion where they needed to fill in missing letters in order to form a word. They were asked to write down the first word that came to mind. The missing letters were placed such that each item can make more than one word. For example, “Ki_ _” can make “Kiss” or “Kill”. “In total, 34 out of the 50 items had violent word options as possible solutions.” (11) This was done to access the violent constructs of the participants. Next, fifteen questions focusing on the topic of violence were asked to measure social reality beliefs.

Unexpectedly, the viewing of television news had a negative relationship with social beliefs for both the elementary school and high school periods thus not supporting hypothesis 1. A negative relationship was found between television news exposure during elementary school and the accessibility of violent thoughts in adulthood thus not supporting hypothesis 2.

Despite the unsupported hypothesis, the study suggest that television viewing during childhood can have an effect on people’s beliefs and the social world as young adults. The direction of the impact was in the opposite direction from what was predicted. The study concluded that:

“Exposure violence during childhood (i.e. crime/police dramas and lawyer/courtdramas) was not related to either social reality beliefs or accessibility in adulthood. On the other hand, exposure to the news during childhood (i.e. local and national news) was related to social reality beliefs. Surprisingly, people who were heavy viewers of the news during elementary school and high school gave lower estimates about the levels of crime and violence in the real world as young adults. Furthermore, participants who were heavy news viewers during elementary school were also less likely to have violent constructs accessible in memory according to the word completion task. On the other hand participants who ere heavy viewers of the news in the current time period gave higher estimates about the levels of crime and violence in the real world.” (16)

Riddle, K. E., 2009-05-21 "Cultivation Theory Revisited: The Impact of Childhood Television Viewing Levels on Social Reality Beliefs and Construct Accessibility in Adulthood"

Link: http://library.calstate.edu/sandiego/metasearch/record?group=2011-03-03-007841&resultSet=087189&startRecord=2


Summary written by: Ryan Walczuk
 * Virtual Cultivation: Online Worlds, Offline Perceptions ** by: Dmitri Williams

Link to article: http://dmitriwilliams.com/JOCCultivation.pdf
The purpose of this study of cultivation effects and video games is to investigate whether exposure to online video games, more specifically MMRPGs (massive multiplayer online role-playing games) lead to cultivation effects. Cultivation effects, which in this case refer to the perceived probability that the average person will encounter the same acts of violence experienced by the gamer in the video game, //Asheron’s Call 2//, at some point in their life.

The study has two main hypotheses and two related research questions. The first hypothesis is, “exposure to an MMRPG leads to cultivation effects” (Williams, 74). The second hypothesis is, “cultivation effects will work through spreading activation rather than remain constrained to a particular present construct (assault with weapons)” (Williams, 75). In addition to the two hypotheses the study has two research questions, the first of which being, “for which groups will cultivation effects be strongest?” (Williams, 75) and the second being, “what is the functional form and threshold of cultivation effects?” (Williams, 76).

The study consisted of 213 randomly selected men and women, 75 of which who were administered the treatment and 138 who constituted the control group. Those of which who were administered the treatment were given a copy of the MMRPG game, //Asheron’s Call 2//, instructions and time diaries to log in the amount of hours they played over the next month. At the end of the study both the control group and the treatment group were asked, to estimate the percentage chances (0-100%) of four crime events, only the first of which occurs in the game. The four questions, in order, were: “what do you think the chances are that any one person will be robbed by someone with a weapon in their lifetime?”, “… physically assaulted by a stranger in their lifetime?”, “…any woman will be raped in her lifetime?”, and “that any one person will be murdered?” (Williams, 78).

This study found that there was a “significant cultivation effect due to game play” (Williams, 79), so the first hypothesis was supported. The second hypothesis however was not. The study found that only the first question, robbery with a weapon, was the “only situation with both in-game and real-world parallels” (Williams, 79), and therefore the only question that showed a noticeable increase in perceived likelihood from the treatment group to the control group. At the end of the treatment those that participated in the treatment group reported a more than 10% increase, than those in the control group, when asked how likely it was that someone would be robbed with a weapon. One specific group with the two larger groups were not affected more than another, but one variable that did emerge was that the “more time participants played, the stronger the effect” (Williams, 80). To quote Williams directly, the final result of the study was that “contrary to expectation, this effect is the targeted and specific one predicated by central processing rather than the more heuristic-based spreading activation” (Williams, 81). Which essentially means that while the researchers thought that exposure to violence would spread over to a perceived notion of prevalence of all types of violence, only the type explicitly shown within the game saw an increase in perceived likelihood.

Williams will be the first to acknowledge that the cultivation theory has holes and still needs work. He points out six specific areas that pose objections about this theory. The list is as follows: the cultivation theory has a sense of falsifiability, imprecise content measures, imprecise exposure measures, ambiguity between “media” and “real” answers, spurious causation and ignoring variation in viewers. Williams suggests that future research experiments, in addition to addressing the six conflicts listed above, last longer, pay closer attention to the way different individuals take in media (especially genders), acknowledge that cultivation effects vary from game to game and genre to genre, study stimuli that closer mirror real life, expose subjects to a broader range of range of incidents within the studies and lastly to open our minds to the possibility that video games may have positive cultural effects such as increasing ethnic tolerance.

Source:
Williams, Dmitri. (2006) //Virtual Cultivation: Online Worlds, Offline Perceptions//. Journal of Communication, 56, pp. 69-87.

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= = = = =**Transportation and Transportability in the Cultivation of Genre Consistent Attitudes & Behaviors **= Written by: Rick W. Busselle & Helena Bilandzic Summary written by: Anna Camacho

There are many areas that play a part in the Cultivation Theory, where mass media has had an impact on society’s behavior of how much in depth it persuades and motivates individuals to transport (portray) actions, images, language from different types of genre content shown on television. In this article written by Helena Bilandzic and Rick Busselle, “Transportation and Transportability in the Cultivation of Genre Attitudes and Behaviors” they analyze the cultivation theory effects in both the short run (in the moment of being exposed) and the long run (as time goes by behaviors). When they refer to transportation of the material, they mean how an individual interprets a genre and then transfers it into an action, thought or behavior immediately or constantly there and on (transportability). Therefore, it is a process that goes from transporting information at the moment to having the ability to impersonate what has been viewed in a type of genre (crime, comedy, suspense, romance, fiction and or science fiction). They analyzed a study based on “investigation of traditional cultivation effects and short-term effects of film narratives on genre-consistent judgments” which refers to individuals having specific attitudes and behaviors and changing them from according the the type of genre that they watch. According to Bilandzic and Buselle, every type of genre has a different form of affect in an individuals behavior, attitude and actions from what they sense that social reality is.

Basically, the theory that is being analyzed is Cultivation Theory which “posits that television viewing causes perceptions of the real world to be distorted toward realities presented in the television world” (Gebner, et al., 2002)” which in turn had Busselle conduct an analysis in order to expand more on the real and actual effects of viewing television genre. It discusses concrete effects from the time of exposure to the way the genre content is perceived by the individual. This study consist of applying two types of analysis ; "to investigate the role of the viewers activity in cultivation effects by exploring and extend research into a relationship between content categories and cultivation effects". They want to look more in depth to see if there are any patterns in individuals behavior when being exposed to various genres. Not everyone views or mimics a visual the same way, some may see it as “reality” some may see it simply as a “fantasy” where they know for a fact that what they are viewing is not real or doesn’t really happen in real life. However, what is being studied is being compared to what is actually being shown and the way people are grasping the information and transporting it into their own behaviors and or attitudes. Such that, when viewing genre that involved violence, compare the behaviors before and after to see if there are any changes in the way the individual handles situations any different than before. Perhaps fantasy and reality genre combined such as Alvin in the Chipmunks where real people are interacting with "live" animals that actually talk, think and act might impose a question to a child's mind to think that chipmunks really talk or if they actually understand and know that that is just fantasy mixed with reality. The studies Busselle and Bilandzic analyze look at different means, groups, short and long term effects which helps them understand more about individuals perception and application of media genre content regardless if their study is correct or might need improvement; they get a better look at individuals in relation towards media effects.

Despite the actual content of the various types of genre there is, whether it is film, television, books or a show series, they say that it is not necessarily intended to be persuasive to be or act in the manner it is being shown. However, the way it is being portrayed may raise questions and modify individuals actual sense and comprehension of how society really is like in the real world. The article presents an overview that what is shown on television cultivates individuals beliefs about the real world vs. being able to identify what is being modified into fantasy from something that is reality. The articles explanation towards studies that have been conducted express a relation between what is being viewed on television and how it is being applied into their own lives. In the analysis of the article, they explain how a violent type of genre can be transported from one individual to another in a harmless manner but another type such as drama that shows less harm and more “reality” can make individuals think twice of how society (men, women and children) behave in real life. This in turn can confuse the viewer into thinking that there is more out there (television) to see than what they live on a daily basis. “For example, estimates of violent death were positively related to overall viewing, they were negatively related to the amount of viewing action-adventure shows in a study by Potter and Chang (1990). In the same study, estimates of divorce and affairs were not related to overall television viewing, but positively related to watching soap operas”.

The overall relationship and discussion of genre-content having a different type of impact towards individuals transportation (gathering information) and transportability (how they portray the content) is yet to be looked and re-tested. However, they make it clear that studies and observation will increase the understanding and knowledge of how and why individuals are affected by genre-content and might change their view of social reality. Generally, this article which discussed different scenarios of individuals behaviors, shows that sometimes one thing might not have to do with another but they can be related in a manner that there was influence from a media source towards an action. Mass media has created a sense of reality from life that is really fantasy and being exaggerated nevertheless, individuals can tend to portray, believe or act from what they are expose to.

Source:

Busselle, Rick W. Bilandzic, Helena (1 January 2007). International Communication Association Date. 7 February 2011. Transpiration and Transportability in the Cultivation of Genre Consistent Attitudes and Behaviors.

Link to Article: