Cultivation Differential
This term is what Gerbner sought to discover in his research. Griffin defines this as “the difference in the percentage giving the television answer within comparable groups of light and heavy TV viewers.” Gerbner wanted to find how often individuals who watched a significant amount of television were influenced to have the same opinion as what the media is feeding them. Gerbner believed there was not a before-television stage in a person's life. He alleged the media influences a person the moment they are born. There are four attitudes that Gerbner focused on: (1) the chances of involvement with violence, (2) fear of walking alone at night, (3) perceived activity of police, and (4) general mistrust of people. When a person watches more television, that person is more likely to think he or she has a higher chance of getting into violence. The individual is likely to have a greater fear of walking alone at night. Griffin notes that people who view heavy amount of television think, “that five percent of society is involved in law enforcement,” which is four percent higher than actuality. Finally, heavy television watchers are more mistrusting of people than light or medium television viewers. This suspicious view on the world is called the mean world syndrome. Griffin sums this up as "the cynical mindset of general mistrust of others subscribed to by heavy TV viewers".
Read more about this topic: Cultivation Theory
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