Cultivation Theory- Prof. George Gergner

Cultivation Theory

While watching a programme the other day called "How TV ruined your Life" I came across this information.  A professor back in the 1960's who researched into the audience and the power of the television over the viewer.

He came up the theory called the "Cultivation Theory"which is:

Over time watching television alters a viewers perception of the real world.  If the viewer sees things more frequently they start to relate this perception of world on the television with that of the real world.

This means if they see something such as a dark alley in a city where crimes always go on, then they will start to believe that they are more susceptible to crime.  This could be at a time even when crime rates are going down people start to believe otherwise because of this increase in watching it on the television and relating it to the real world.

This could therefore be used in a good way as in the television producers could then shape their viewers perceptions of the world to a positive view or a negative one.  This all depends however on the viewer and how often they watch television.  The more the viewer watches television the more likely they are to be "cultivated" and believe more of what they see is in the real world.  less frequent viewers will have more access and input from other sources of media which will change their perception and views of the real world.

Mean World Syndrome

This Professor George Gergner calls the "Mean world syndrome".  This is the feeling of fear a person has to something they see on television such as the example.  We as viewers start to think the world is against us and is a "Mean world".

Mean world syndrome is commonly used in rap music videos with violence and gangs, showing killings and murders,  I could then use this in my own work if I wanted to show that the world I lived in was like this for then my audience to believe this.

However as this was made in the 1960's where people believed in a lot they saw on TV it is not so true today.  People get hold of actual facts and figures which actually confirm their firms told to them by the media such as crime figure or disprove what the media says such as there is a massive decrease in house prices for example.

Criticisms of Cultivation Theory

 McQuail argues that ‘it is almost impossible to deal convincingly with the complexity of posited relationships between symbolic structures, audience behaviour and audience views, given the many intervening and powerful social background factors'


He says that are views of the real world are not just changed by how much we take in television but all of the other media mediums and also our friends and people we talk to.


How I could use it in my own Work


I could use this in my own work by showing images of things that I feel as an artist are important to me in my videos. If i were to make more videos I would then show these images again in more of my videos which then increase the amount of times my viewers see this. This would then make my viewers believe this thing is real in real life or that is how I am.


For example I could place me driving cars in the video.  Then by me repeatedly doing this my viewers of my music video would think I like cars and therefore maybe as an artist copy this or believe in real life I am really interested in cars when in reality i could hate them.