Cultivation_Effects

Harley2011 December 5, 2010 COM – 126 Communications and the Media 15-Nov-2010 Cultivation Effects George Gerbner (1976) focused on the cultivation effects of violent television on heavy and light television viewers. An early example of cultivation effect (Wichert, Robert, 1997) was back in 1947 when Jose Joaquin Salcedo used radio to teach the native Colombians to ‘read, write and cultivate their land and care for their stock using improved methods’ (Brownstone, 1970) using a radio system constructed for the purpose of teaching the men, women, and children within a seven hundred mile radius. These uses of the radio lead to 250,000 farm families being able to read and write. According to Robert Wichert (1997), the Colombians were exposed frequently to educational radio broadcasts that taught them to read and write, while also leading them to a harmonized group of farmers. This use of mass communication in the untouched culture of the 1947 Colombian was very successful and shows that in other untouched cultures, it can work just as well to help them learn how to read, write, and improve their way of life. One bad side effect of the mass communication in Colombia was the growth of the illicit drug trade during the 50’s and 60’s. By using mass communication in 1947, today’s cultivation analysis will improve mass communication in intercultural contexts. Another place cultivation effect was found is where daytime television talk shows (show like those hosted by Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, and Ricki Lake) influenced how international students saw American life. These shows focused on scandal and embellished stories of people who think that it is important to cause a scene. According to Hyung-Jin Woo and Joseph R. Dominick (Fall, 2001); these particular programs focus on people who are having trouble in their relationships with other people. Woo and Dominick feel that people from other cultures who do not know our culture or speak the language, will think that all Americans are like those that are on the daytime television talk shows. They fear that foreigners who watch a lot of television will get a distorted idea about what Americans are really like and think that all of us are like those people on the talk shows. According to Woo and Dominick there is one possible reason that people associate what they see on television and what they think is reality, Shrum and O’Guinn (1993) theorized it. Shrum and O’Guinn think that the human mind is like a filing cabinet and when some new information was learned about a subject, it was put in the front of the file. Therefore, when the person needed information about something they only looked at what was in the front of the file. For example, ZoLee is watching television and she watches Montel, Jerry Springer and all she sees is people fighting on the television, that get file in her brain that all Americans fight and argue. She goes out and meets some Americans and all she can think is these people are about to start fighting because the file in her mind tells her that Americans fight. So when asked ZoLee might base her judgment on Americans on what she has seen on the talk shows that she watches so much, according to Woo and Dominick (Fall, 2001). According to John Galt (2007), everything we can see on television in one day can affect how we perceive things. According to him, the things that scare us the most affects us the most. Fear is used a lot on the television to get people to feel a certain way about certain subjects, like crime, terrorism and things that might happen if certain things are not done to stop them. The media uses fear to manipulate people into watching the television more because they have found that the ratings go up when there is something on television that scares people according to John Galt (2007). The way the media puts a subject on display often misleads the public on how bad something really is most of the time thing are not as bad as they seem. The Media uses emotions on the television to get people, who watch television a lot, to feel certain ways about certain subjects. Say, they want people to get excited about the Super Bowl they use advertisements leading up to the Super Bowl to get people into the game. Getting people ready for Christmas, the media uses Christmas shows, specials and advertisements to get people in the buying mood. Watching television can be a very fun thing to do if you do not take anything on it too serious. There are only a few things on television that are worth taking serious, the weather and maybe half of what they say on the news. The media will always try to get people to do things that they might not do normally. So when watching television take everything on there with a grain of salt, because most of what is on television is make believe and should not be taken serious. References Brownstone, Paul (1970), International understanding through communication: One plan – one plea. Journal of Communication, 20, 142-152 Galt, John (October 10, 2007), Cultivation Theory and Fear in the Media posted on Associated Content from Yahoo! Contributor Network, retrieved from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/pop_print.html'content_type=article&content_type_id= Gerbner, George (1976), Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of Communication, 26(2), pp. 173-199 Shrum, L.J., & O’Guinn, T.C. (1993),Processes and the effects in the construction of social reality. Communication Research, 20(3), pp.436-471 Wichert, Robert (1997), Cultivation Analysis Research; an intercultural overview posted on Wichert .org retrieved from: http://www.wichert.org/iccultivation.html Woo, Hyung-Jin & Dominick, Joseph R.,(Fall, 2001), Daytime television talk shows and the cultivation effect among U.S. and international students. Posted on Entrepreneur, retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/print/81767326.html