Page 71 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

60 GERBNER ET AL.

consistently lower among heavy than among light television viewers in
the United States, but not in the former Soviet Union (where it was rela-
tively low for everyone).
Lacking regular prime-time dramatic series and relying more on
movies, theater, documentaries, and the classics, Soviet television did, in
fact, present more diversified dramatic fare than U.S. television. Perhaps
due to this, television viewing seemed to have far greater mainstreaming
consequences in the United States than was the case in the Soviet Union.
The availability of different cultural and language programming in the
different former Soviet republics may also have contributed to the relative
diversity of their television—and to the centrifugal forces that eventually
tore the Soviet Union apart.
In sum, in countries in which television’s portrayals are less repetitive
and homogeneous than in the United States, the results of cultivation
analysis also tend to be less predictable and consistent. The extent to
which cultivation will occur in a given country will also depend on vari-
ous structural factors, such as the number of channels available, overall
amount of broadcasting time, and amount of time audiences spend view-
ing. But it will especially depend on the amount of diversity in the avail-
able content, which is not necessarily related to the number of channels. A
few channels with a diverse and balanced program structure can foster
(and, in fact, compel) more diversified viewing than many channels com-
peting for the same audience by using similar appeals and lending them-
selves to viewer selection of the same “preferences” most of the time.
Different media systems differ along all these dimensions, and com-
plex interactions among these elements may account for substantial cross-
cultural variations in cultivation. Imported U.S. programs can augment,
diminish, or be irrelevant to these dynamics. The key questions are:
(a) How important is television in the culture? and (b) How consistent
and coherent is the total system of its messages? The more important, con-
sistent, and coherent the more cultivation can be expected. The privatiza-
tion of former public service broadcast systems around the world and the
march toward globalization in programming, distribution, and marketing
together make the need for international cultivation analysis more critical
than ever.

CULTIVATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The theory of cultivation was developed when “television” in the United
States was synonymous with three national broadcast networks, plus a
small handful of independent and public/educational stations. The three
major networks attracted well over 90% of the viewing audience, night