NON-FICTION.materials / 18. Social-Cultural Effects

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The central hypothesis of the research was that viewing television gradually leads to the adoption of beliefs about the nature of the social world which conform to the stereotyped, distorted and very selective view of reality as portrayed in a systematic way in television fiction and news. Cultivation is said to differ from a direct stimulus-response effect process mainly because of its gradual and cumulative character. It involves first learning, and secondly the construction of a view of social reality dependent on personal circumstances and experience (such as of poverty, race or gender) and also on reference-group membership. It is also seen as an interactive process between messages and audiences.

In this theory of media effect, television provides many people with a consistent and near-total symbolic environment that supplies norms for conduct and beliefs about a wide range of real-life situations. It is not a window on or a reflection of the world but a world in itself. The resulting research has two main thrusts: one directed to testing the assumption about the consistency (and distortion) of the television 'message system', the other designed to test, by way of survey analysis, a variety of public beliefs about social reality, especially those which can be tested against empirical indicators. The core of the ensuing analysis is the comparison between beliefs about reality and actual reality, taking account of varying degrees of habitual exposure to television. There is some basic similarity to the ideas underlying the 'agenda-setting' hypothesis (see p. 512).

Testing the theory

Those who watch increasing amounts of television are predicted to show increasing divergence of perceptions of reality away from the known picture of the social world and towards the 'television' picture of the world. A major focus of the research has always been on questions concerning violence and crime, with cultivation research paying attention to its television portrayal, its actual incidence and its differential risks on the one hand, and to public awareness of and attitudes towards crime on the other. Early cultivation research findings (Gerbner and Gross, 1976) showed that the more television people viewed, the more likely they were to exaggerate the incidence of crime in the real world and the personal risks they run. This relationship still seems to hold (Romer et al., 2003), at least in the USA. Other topics of political and social concern have also been studied, including the media production of political consensus (Gerbner et al., 1984).

In an extensive review of numerous studies of the television construction of reality, Hawkins and Pingree (1983) found many scattered indications of the expected relationships, but no conclusive proof of the direction of the relationship between television viewing and ideas about social reality. They say that television can teach about social reality and that the relationship between viewing and social reality may be reciprocal: television viewing causes a social reality to be constructed in a certain way, but this construction of social reality may also direct viewing behaviour. In a recent extensive overview of cultivation research, Morgan and Shanahan (1997) draw the conclusion that cultivation effects do occur but are on average quite small.

The television experience is probably more differentiated and non-cumulative than allowed for in the theory and may be becoming more so as production and supply increase (both in the USA and elsewhere). For instance a study of the cultivation effects of television on expectations about marriage (Segrin and Nabi, 2002) found that TV viewing of genre-specific 'romantic' content was associated with unrealistic expectations, but not general TV viewing. Sotirovic (2001) found negative images of welfare recipients amongst viewers of cable TV news and entertainment shows, as opposed to other sources. Rossler and Brosius (2001) also found limited cultivation effects in Germany from specific talk show contents, but not from all TV or the genre as a whole. Active audience theory (see Chapter 15) also challenges the assumption of the long-term cumulative effect of powerful 'message systems'. Several authors have raised doubts about the causal relationship posited between television use data and survey data concerning values and opinions (Hirsch, 1980; 1981; Hughes, 1980). The 'cultivation' effect seems more likely to occur in the United States, where (mainstream) television content is more commercial and less diverse.

The evidence from other countries is still mixed, despite the amount of work that has been done. In relation to images of a violent society, Wober (1978) found no support from British data, and Doob and McDonald (1979) reported similarly from Canada. A longitudinal study of Swedish children (Hedinsson, 1981: 188) concluded, however, that evidence amounted to 'if not a direct support, at least a non-refutation of Gerbner's theory'. Rosengren and Windahl (1989) report a number of findings of longer-term changes in relation to the television experience of the young that could be taken as support for the cultivation hypothesis. One example appears in the 'mental maps' of the world that differ significantly according to the amount of television viewing. For high-viewing adolescent boys the world outside Sweden consists of little apart from North America.

However plausible the theory, 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 variables. It is also hard to separate out any process of 'cultivation' from general socialization. Despite all this, it appears that the line of enquiry represented by cultural indicators and cultivation research is not a spent force and can lend itself to more specified and nuanced enquiries on particular topics (Signorielli and Morgan, 1990).

Media and Long-Term Social and Cultural Change

The theories of mass communication outlined in Chapters 4 and 5 all in some way posit a variety of significant social and cultural effects. The same is true of the effects of globalization as discussed in Chapter 10. However, any such effects are likely to be gradual, long term and difficult to measure. There are also often divergent and even inconsistent possibilities. For instance, mass media have been said to lead to personal isolation, individuation and social diversity or even fragmentation. Putnam (2000) has blamed television use in particular for the decline in 'social capital' in America and a consequent reduction in participation in civic and social life. Some support for this thesis was found by Moy et al. (1999).

Other theorists have credited the media with (or accused them of) promoting homogeneity and social cohesion, sometimes to an excessive degree of conformity (see p. 495). The media have been blamed for declining cultural standards (and reducing content to the lowest common denominator) and also praised for disseminating traditional and contemporary culture more widely. Despite the plausibility of these and other ideas about the influence of mass media on culture and society, there is little firm evidence of the general effects posited.

Central to the process by which the media contribute to social and cultural change is their capacity to define situations, provide frames of reference and disseminate images of social groups. They also tend to constitute the 'collective memory' of a given national society, in the absence of extensive historical knowledge. The media are not primary inventors or sources of any of these, but they put them together in more or less consistent and repetitive narratives that become the secondary sources for ideas that people have about their own society and their place in it. The media have an insatiable appetite for novelty as well as continuity, and contribute to change by picking up on every new fashion, fear or significant fact that might become part of a larger story, whether in news or fiction. For the majority of people the media become effectively the gatekeepers of change, especially when they seem to agree on the same selection and perception of what is going on.

In determining these and other questions, much depends on the perspective of the assessor and the initial assumptions made about the problem at issue. We should also keep in mind the fact that there is a continuous interaction between media and society. The media, whether as technology or as cultural content, do not have a simple one-way causal relation with cultural and social change. The outcomes of these interactions are very variable, unpredictable and different from one set of circumstances to another. As the media have developed they have, without doubt, diverted time and attention from other activities (displacement effects); become a channel for reaching more people with more information than was available under 'pre-mass-media' conditions; and changed the way in which information and ideas circulate. These facts have implications for any social institution that needs to gain public attention and to communicate to the society at large. Other institutions are under pressure to adapt or respond in some way to the mass media, or to make their own use of mass media channels. In doing so, they are likely to change their own practices.

The influence of media is generally likely to be indirect. They work to change public expectations, the possibilities for meeting needs and, especially, the way things are done in other social institutions. These have become more and more dependent on the media for their communicative links to their publics, and communication has adapted to what has been called a 'media logic' (see p. 331) which has profound effects on their conduct. As Altheide and Snow (1991: ix) have remarked, 'today all social institutions are media institutions'. The case of the political institution is assessed in Chapter 19, but similar conclusions apply to cultural and social institutions.

Entertainment Effects

The largest category of media content can probably be labelled as 'entertainment' and it is the main reason why media are so popular. We are reminded by Zillmann and Bryant (1994) that entertainment also has many effects beyond the unintended negative consequences so often studied and that entertainment is also an effect in itself, intended as such by producers and audiences. Entertainment has proved difficult to define, although the essential idea seems to be of diversion and getting caught up in some story or spectacle. It can also be considered in terms of more specific kinds of effect, including being amused; emotionally aroused so as to experience sadness, happiness, anger, relief, excitement, fear, etc.; diverted from anxiety; and so on. Music, in particular, has also been credited with a number of effects, especially on moods and dispositions and on arousal (Knobloch and Zillmann, 2002).

Zillmann (1980) identified the appeal of drama in terms of enjoyment and annoyance induced by the changing fortunes of positively or negatively portrayed characters. Zillmann and Bryant (1994) raise more questions than they can answer about the appeal of suspense and especially also about the apparent appeal of news presentations of tragic events, which seem to fascinate even where, unlike in much fiction, there is no reason to dislike the main victims. The 'uses and gratifications' tradition of research (see pp. 423-7) offers some ways of uncovering the satisfactions (intended effects) sought out by audiences and some relevant findings, but there is still little clear conceptualization in this neglected area of media effects. The concept of 'escapism' is inadequate to account for entertainment effects, and the various theories of pleasure that have been put forward (see Bryant and Miron, 2002) do not lend themselves to precise formulation and testing.

Conclusion

The social and cultural effects of mass communication are difficult to assess for the reasons given. There are some possibilities for observing short-term changes affecting individuals, which can then sometimes be generalized to larger aggregates and even the society as a whole. However, we hardly have the methodological capacity to measure larger trends at the higher level of analysis with any reliability and have to depend on theory and argument. There is little doubt that media do have many effects and they probably do account for some general trends. However, their effects are often inconsistent and cancel each other out, and complex societies are often characterized by different lines of development at the same time. The media are unlikely to be the main driving forces of fundamental long-term change. Rather they act as a channel and facilitator and they help to make society aware of itself as well as of changes, by reflecting them in content and also by providing the means for debating and adapting to change.