Theory in Action
According to the public opinion in general, and even some experts in the field of media, the portrayal of violence in film and television, has a very small impact on the audience both television viewers and readers of newspapers and magazines. Also, there is a perception that only children and the mentally ill people are affected by this non-hazardous influence. However, the majority of scientists, who have studied the effects of the media, and those who have carefully read the special scientific literature, find this information not true. To better analyze this issue, this paper will use two different theories of media influence and will choose one that can more accurately describe the problem.
The first theory, which we will examine is the theory of cultivation. Its author and promoter George Gerbner analyzes the role of media in society, drawing on empirical research methods. In 1960-1970, the interest in television as a social force, and in particular, as a factor of increased violence on the level of the individual and society as a whole reached its peak. Gerbner participated in several national studies of the mass media in the United States. His goal was to determine the index of violence through an annual content analysis of television programs in Primetime. This approach has caused sharp criticism from both scientists and broadcasters. Gerbner and his team took into account the comments and began to prepare a profile of violence, based on a larger number of parameters. Since 1973, they began to carry out regular surveys of concepts of the social reality that television cultivates in children’s and adult audience (Utwente.nl).
Gerbner’s communicative model implies subjectivity, selectivity, variability and unpredictability of the communicative process, the consideration of it as an open system. A specific feature of the model is that it takes a variety of forms, depending on what type of communicative situation is described. Gerbner’s verbal description models resemble Lasswell’s scheme: 1) someone; 2) receives an event; 3) and reacts; 4) in this situation; 5) by using certain means; 6) to create accessible content for others; 7) in some form; 8) in the context of; 9) and transmits the message; 10) with some consequences (Potter). The key links of this model are processing and perception. Simultaneously, Gerbner emphasizes the role of many other factors, such as random noise, impulsivity, habits of the audience, while calling all this as the perception of context.
Since 1960 Gerbner group is engaged in the research of social consequences of showing the scenes of violence on television. New terms have been proposed to describe how the reality mediated by the mass media can affect people’s beliefs, and thus, determine their behavior. The authors called this process the Main Stream, assuming that the content of television cultivates messages, forms people’s opinions. In particular, people often watching scenes of violence on the TV screen, are inclined to wait for their recurrence in real life, even if with them has not happened anything like this in real life. The authors of cultivation theory believe, that viewing messages of mass media leads to the development of stereotypical, distorted and selective perceptions of social reality, which are a reflection of the world picture imposed as a news and movies.
The cultivation theory has analyzed not only the image of violence, crime and the legal system on the TV. It was also investigated the issues such as gender roles, marriage and family problems, disability, health, attractiveness, age stereotypes, science, education, politics and religion. Besides, it was found a lot manifestations of cultivation, although the credibility of the results and the quality of research is far from equal.
Television offers viewers an organic world of interconnected (both real and invented) stories, the viewer perceives it as a whole, undifferentiated, not as a window to the world or a reflection of the world, but the world itself. It is cultivated not only the view of the world, but also the view of social roles and values. It is necessary to emphasize the dynamic aspect of the theory of culture, because it, along with the interactive relationship “messages-audience” distinguishes it from the traditional model of stimulus-response effect. Hawkins and Pingree continued the researches in this direction. They proposed a model of culture, which are allocated with two main stages - the acquisition of knowledge of the reality on the TV channel and the construction of its image. At the same time each of the processes are influenced by a range of personal and social variables. This model leaves open many questions, including how the cultivation takes place, at any strata of society it is observed most clearly, what is the role of past experience, whether there is the same effect with the other mass media, etc.
The second theory, which we examine will be the theory of media system dependency theory. The model of media system dependency theory was first introduced by M.L. De Fleur and C. Ball-Rokeasch (1976), and describes the relationship between the information system and the social system (datasphere and society). It defines the relationship between the media and the person as a relationship in which the potential of people to achieve their goals depends on the information resources of the system media. These information resources can be classified as the ability to create and collect, process and disseminate the information. According to Baranov, and Davis (2009), the theory of media systems dependency suggests that the more a person is dependent on the presence of his or her needs are met through the use of the media, the more important will be the role played by the media in human life, and, hence will increase the influence of media in life of human. As the world becomes more complex, people are turning to the media, to understand what is happening. The more people rely on the media for information, the more people become under their influence (Encyclopedia Britannica).
This model suggests that in modern society the individual’s dependence on the media is constantly growing, it is associated with the level of stability or stability in society. For example, in critical situations (such as the September 11 attack) people are turning to the media as the sole source of information and are vulnerable to their influence. The Implementation of media system dependency theory model provides for the implementation of the individual effect on two areas: cognitive and affective. The sociologists are trying to capture more subtle effects of the mass media, which swarm can be identified with the help of well-controlled experiments, participation in which it will have negative consequences. All the efforts of scientists are focused on a few major issues related to media violence (Utwente.nl).
The aim of many studies of this theory is to measure the amount of media violence in different mass media. Many scientists analyze the media violence context. Studies have shown that the context is an important factor that contributes to the degree of the harmful effects of media violence. An example of context may be the nature of media violence, that is, if the act of violence was committed unintentionally or with an intent; the demonstration of the consequences of violence, such as criminal punishment, etc. Foremost, these studies examine the exposure to television viewers to violence and attempts to answer the difficult question of what impact media violence has on the consumer of this mass media.
In studying the effects of media violence was used different methods. Barrie Gunter reviewed a large number of scientific literature on this issue, and identified six basic methods of research. These include: laboratory experiment, field experiment, the correlation study, a longitudinal study, a natural experiment and experimental intervention.
Thus, after analyzing these two theories, we can draw the following conclusions. Whichever plausible the cultivation theory may seem, it is not able to explain the complex relationship between symbolic structures, audience behavior and opinions of viewers, because there comes into effect a set of powerful social background factors. Unresolved in cultivation theory also remains the problem of the origin and the direction of the negative influence of media on the formation of violence. What concerns the media system dependency theory, we can say that in today’s society, it is used primarily in the political and economic systems. Ball-Rokeach suggests that there is even a relationship between them, which is manifested in their assistance to each other in order to achieve the main objectives. Despite this, throughout the history of scientific research in the field of media impacts during many studies was fond evidence that watching violent movies and other TV shows lead to violence. Therefore, it is this theory which makes it possible, though not fully, but in its majority, to understand, to explore, and in future to reduce the problem of the negative impact of the media in the field of violence.
Works Cited
“Cultivation Theory”. Utwente.nl. N.p., 2016. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
“Cultivation Theory and Research” W. J. Potter 2016. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
“Media Dependency Theory | Communications”. Encyclopedia Britannica. N.p., 2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
“Dependency Theory”. Utwente.nl. N.p., 2016. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
