Page 57 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

46 GERBNER ET AL.

was found to be primarily a demonstration of power in the world of tele-
vision, with serious implications for social control and for the confirma-
tion and perpetuation of minority status (Gerbner, Gross, Signorielli, Mor-
gan, & Jackson-Beeck, 1979; Morgan, 1983). As it developed, the project
continued to take into account a wider range of topics, issues, and con-
cerns (Gerbner & Gross, 1976). We have investigated the extent to which
television viewing contributes to audience conceptions and actions in
areas such as gender, minority and age-role stereotypes, health, science,
the family, educational achievement and aspirations, politics, religion, the
environment, and numerous other topics, many of which have also been
examined in a variety of cross-cultural comparative contexts. 1
The Cultural Indicators approach involves a three-pronged research
strategy. (For a more detailed description see Gerbner, 1973.) The first
prong, called “institutional process analysis,” is designed to investigate
the formation and systematization of policies directing the massive flow
of media messages. (For some examples see Gerbner, 1972b, 1988.) More
directly relevant to our present focus are the other two prongs we call
“message system analysis” and “cultivation analysis.”
Message system analysis involves the systematic examination of week-
long annual samples of network television drama, in order to reliably
delineate selected features and trends in the world that television presents
to its viewers. These analyses began in 1967 and have continued under
2
various auspices until today. In recent years, cable programming and
additional genres have been added into the analysis. We believe that the
most pervasive patterns common to many different types of programs but
characteristic of the system of programming as a whole hold the potential
lessons television cultivates.
In cultivation analysis, we examine the responses given to questions
about social reality among those with varying amounts of exposure to the

1 The Cultural Indicators Project began in 1967–1968 with a study for the National Com-
mission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. It has continued under the sponsorships
of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behav-
ior, the National Institute of Mental Health, the White House Office of Telecommunications
Policy, the American Medical Association, the U.S. Administration on Aging, the National
Science Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the International Research and
Exchanges Board (IREX), the Carter Center of Emory University, the Hoso Bunka Founda-
tion of Japan, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, the Hungarian Institute for Public Opin-
ion Research, Moscow State University, the National Center for Public Opinion Research of
the USSR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Screen Actors Guild, Cornell Univer-
sity, and the Universities of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Delaware.
2 The most recent sample is from November 2000. To date, the message system database has
accumulated detailed coded observations of over 46,000 major and minor characters and over
2,400 programs. A complementary database at the University of Delaware began in 1993 and
contains observations for 1,200 programs and 4,600 major and supporting characters.