Cultivation theory

Cultivation theory holds that long-term exposure to television content can shape viewers’ perceptions of social reality toward the world depicted on screen.

Mainstreaming: A proposed cultivation effect in which heavy television viewing narrows differences in social outlook across groups. It describes how shared television exposure can make distinct groups’ beliefs more alike.
George Gerbner: A communication scholar who developed cultivation theory and led research on television’s cultural influence. He formulated the theory and directed its foundational research program.
Mass communication: The production and distribution of messages to large audiences through media technologies and institutions. Cultivation theory studies effects arising from a mass medium’s repeated, shared messages.
Uses and gratifications theory: A media theory explaining how people actively select media to satisfy particular needs and goals. It emphasizes audience choice, unlike cultivation’s focus on accumulated exposure.
Resonance: A proposed cultivation effect in which television messages have stronger influence when they match a person’s lived experience. It explains why television portrayals may feel especially persuasive when they echo viewers’ circumstances.
Annenberg School for Communication: A communication research institution at the University of Pennsylvania, where Gerbner conducted influential television research. Gerbner’s research team developed the theory within this institutional setting.
Media effects: Changes in individuals or society associated with exposure to media content or technologies. Cultivation theory is a long-term account of one kind of media effect.
Agenda-setting theory: A theory that media influence which issues audiences regard as important through patterns of coverage. It concerns issue salience, whereas cultivation concerns beliefs about social reality.
Mean world syndrome: A tendency among heavy television viewers to see the world as more dangerous and threatening than evidence warrants. It is a prominent proposed outcome of repeated exposure to television violence.
Violence Profile: A recurring analysis of violence in popular television drama conducted by Gerbner and colleagues. Its content findings supplied the television-world patterns used in early cultivation studies.

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