What Is Cultivation Theory in Media Psychology?

Cultivation theory was developed by communication scholar George Gerbner in 1969 to explain how mass media (especially television) influences people over time. Gerbner proposed that media presents homogeneous messages about issues like crime and violence. Therefore, people who watch a lot of TV eventually adopt a shared understanding of social reality because they absorb the messages being presented to them.1

Cultivation theory is a popular framework used by media psychologists and scholars who are researching how long-term media exposure influences people’s worldviews.2

This article discusses the history of cultivation theory, new concepts that have been introduced to the theory, and criticisms of the theory.

History of Cultivation Theory

In the 1960s, Gerbner developed cultivation theory in response to media research that looked at the short-term effects of exposure to a single piece of media at one point in time.3

With cultivation theory, Gerbner wanted to explore the long-term effects of mass media in general. He proposed that TV was the dominant storytelling system through which messages were transmitted to the public and that these messages resulted “in the cultivation of the collective consciousness about elements of existence.”4

While the content of various TV programs may seem very different on the surface, Gerbner argued they offer similar depictions of social reality. Content analyses of TV have shown that there are consistent differences between the real world and TV world.5

For example, compared to reality, TV:

• Depicts the world as a more violent place
• Shows a disproportionate number of people working as lawyers, doctors, and police officers,
• Overrepresents wealth and affluence in society

Cultivation theory has become one of the most cited theories in research on media. One reason for the continued interest is that while television is no longer limited to a few channels like it was back when Gerbner formed his theory, watching TV is still one of the primary ways that people consume media.

In 2020, Americans spent an average of 3.1 hours a day with TV—including live TV, DVDs, and streaming—making it the most popular leisure activity amongst Americans of all ages.6

While there are more choices of shows to watch today, TV is still controlled by a small number of companies that need to make a profit. As Gerbner pointed out in 1998, since these companies tend to produce shows for a global audience, it diminishes the diversity of their messages.7

Additions to Cultivation Theory

As interest in cultivation theory took off, Gerbner and colleagues introduced new concepts that provided additional context to its original explanation of media influence. In particular, they contributed to the ideas of mainstreaming and resonance.8

• Mainstreaming suggests that heavy TV viewers who come from different demographic groups come to share the same beliefs about social reality. While people of various ages, genders, social classes, and races have different views of the world, frequent TV viewers from these groups will still come to share perspectives that are reflective of the same TV messages that they consume.
• Resonance proposes that when a media message lines up with an individual’s life experience, it enhances the effects of the message. For example, a person who has direct experience with a violent crime will find TV’s messages about the prevalence of crime very resonant, and it will boost the cultivation of the belief that the world is a violent place. Studies by both Gerbner and other researchers have found evidence of this effect.5

Social Media

In the modern age, cultivation theory can also be applied to social media. Like TV, social media often does not portray the reality of real life. Since people can curate their posts to show exactly what they want to portray (and hide what they don’t want to share), our perceptions of the world can be skewed by what we see on social media.910

Social media isn’t necessarily replacing TV viewing, either. Some research has suggested that social media has actually boosted TV viewership, particularly because people can post their reactions to a show in real-time on social media.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars have also seen firsthand how social media and cultivation theory were connected. Social media played a significant role in the dissemination of information—and misinformation—about COVID and shaped what people believed.11

Scholars are also investigating how other popular types of media such as video games and mobile apps cultivate users’ perceptions of reality.12

For example, one study found a connection between more dating app usage by gay men and their attitudes about masculinity, how much they internalized negative attitudes about gay people, as well as their overall body dissatisfaction.13

Another study found that users who browse Instagram’s public content hold biased views about strangers’ physical appearance and show more disordered eating.14

Evidence for Cultivation Theory

There is a great deal of evidence for cultivation theory. Many studies have backed up Gerbner’s idea that common messages promoted by TV distort people’s perceptions of social reality.15

For example, research has shown that frequent TV viewers overestimate things like rates of crime and violence, the risks posed by natural disasters, the number of people employed as police officers and lawyers, and the prevalence of affluence.16

While there is plenty of evidence for first-order cultivation effects, there is less evidence for second-order cultivation effects. The second-order effects happen when the messages taken in through TV change people’s values and attitudes about the world.

Some studies have suggested that heavy TV viewers are more likely to believe that most people cannot be trusted. They also feel that they are at greater risk of falling victim to crime—a perception Gerbner called “Mean World Syndrome.”1718

Criticism of Cultivation Theory

While cultivation theory remains a popular framework for media research, it has also been criticized.

Cultivation Theory Treats Viewers as Passive Consumers

One reason some media scholars question cultivation theory is that it treats viewers as passive.19 Gerbner’s focus was on the messages that television conveys, and he used that basis to make assumptions about the way viewers respond to the messages instead of investigating their actual behavior.

While the criticism is valid, research evidence for cultivation theory shows that mass media messages generally influence consumers despite Gerbner’s oversight.5

Cultivation Theory Does Not Consider How Different Genres Effect Viewers

Some scholars have taken issue with the way Gerbner looked at TV without differentiating between various shows and genres.

While Gerbner argued that it was the general system of messages that TV communicated that was important, recent research has used a cultivation perspective to explore the effects of heavy exposure to specific genres or even individual programs.2018

These studies have suggested that watching different genres has an even greater effect on a person’s perceptions of social reality than general TV consumption does.5

Summary

Gerbner’s cultivation theory states that people’s views of the world are heavily influenced by the messages they get from media, like watching TV. In the modern age, social media may also influence—and skew—people’s perceptions of reality. While there are some criticisms of cultivation theory, it continues to be one of the most popular theories in media and its effects on consumers, and many studies have backed up Gerbner’s claims.