Page 58 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

3. GROWING UP WITH TELEVISION 47

world of television. We want to determine whether those who spend
more time with television are more likely to perceive social reality in ways
that reflect the potential lessons of the television world (the “television
answer”) than are those who watch less television but are otherwise com-
parable (in terms of important demographic characteristics) to the heavy
viewers.
We use the concept of “cultivation” to describe the independent contri-
butions television viewing makes to viewer conceptions of social reality.
The most general hypothesis of cultivation analysis is that those who
spend more time “living” in the world of television are more likely to see
the “real world” in terms of the images, values, portrayals, and ideologies
that emerge through the lens of television. The “cultivation differential” is
the margin of difference in conceptions of reality between light and heavy
viewers in the same demographic subgroups. It represents the difference
television viewing makes to some outlook or belief, in dynamic interac-
tion with other factors and processes. Recent research has established the
stability of the cultivation differential across different variables and popu-
lations, showing a remarkable consistency in the direction predicted by
theory over many dozens of studies (Shanahan & Morgan, 1999).

THE SHIFT FROM “EFFECTS” TO “CULTIVATION” RESEARCH

The bulk of scientific inquiry (and most public discourse) about televi-
sion’s social impact follows theoretical models and methodological
procedures of marketing and persuasion research. Much time, energy,
and money have been invested in efforts to change people’s attitudes
and behaviors. By and large, however, the conceptualization of “effect”
as short-run individual change has not produced research that helps
us understand the distinctive features of television we have noted
earlier. These features include massive, long-term, and common expo-
sure of large and heterogeneous publics to centrally produced, mass-
distributed, and repetitive systems of stories. But research traditions
and ideological inhibitions both tend to produce resistance to the “culti-
vation perspective.”
Traditional-effects research is based on evaluating specific informa-
tional, educational, political, or marketing efforts in terms of selective
exposure and measurable before/after differences between those exposed
to some message and others not exposed. Scholars steeped in those tradi-
tions find it difficult to accept the emphasis of cultivation analysis on total
immersion rather than selective viewing and on the spread of stable simi-
larities of outlook rather than on the remaining sources of cultural differ-
entiation and change.