Cultivation Theory

Cultivation theory, also known as cultivation analysis, is one approach to finding answers to broad questions concerning television and its effects on children. It is the third component of a research paradigm that investigates (1) the institutional processes that underlie the media and the production of its content, (2) the prevalent images in media content, and (3) the relationships between watching television and audience beliefs and behaviors. Simply, cultivation analysis is designed to assess the contributions television viewing makes to people's conceptions of social reality. In its simplest form, cultivation analysis asks if those who watch more television have views that are more reflective of what they see on television compared to people with similar demographic characteristics but who watch less television.

Television is the United ...