Cultivation Theory: Media & Perception

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Questions and Answers

According to cultivation theory, what is the "mean world syndrome," and how does television viewing contribute to it?

Heavy viewers are more likely to see the world as a scary, mean, violent, and dangerous place.

What is 'mainstreaming' in the context of cultivation theory, and why is it considered a product of cultivation?

The process by which television's symbols monopolize and dominate other sources of information and ideas about the world for heavier viewers.

Briefly explain the concept of 'resonance' in cultivation theory and how it affects viewers' perceptions.

Viewers see things on television that are congruent with their own everyday realities.

What are the two types of cultivation effects?

<p>First-order cultivation effects and second-order cultivation effects.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is the 'digital divide,' and how might it relate to the diffusion of innovations?

<p>The gap between those who have access to digital technologies and those who do not. It affects who can adopt innovations.</p> Signup and view all the answers

In the diffusion of innovations, describe the role of communication channels and how they influence adoption.

<p>Communication channels are the means by which messages get from one individual to another and influence awareness and understanding.</p> Signup and view all the answers

How do 'innovators' and 'laggards' differ, according to the diffusion of innovations theory?

<p>Innovators are venturesome and interested in new ideas, while laggards are oriented towards the past and resistant to change.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Explain the five stages of the innovation-decision process a person goes through when deciding whether to adopt a product.

<p>Knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Briefly describe two of the factors, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, triability, and observability, that influence the adoption of an innovation.

<p>Relative advantage (how much better it is than what it replaces) and compatibility (how consistent it is with existing values).</p> Signup and view all the answers

How do behavioral beliefs influence our attitudes, according to the theory of planned behavior?

<p>Behavioral beliefs (consequences) produce favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward the behavior.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Explain the role of 'subjective norms' in the theory of planned behavior, and how they impact our intentions.

<p>Normative beliefs (expectations) result in perceived social pressure or subjective norm.</p> Signup and view all the answers

According to the theory of planned behavior, how do 'control beliefs' and 'perceived behavioral control' influence behavior?

<p>Control beliefs (factors that facilitate or impede behavior performance) produce perceived behavioral control or self-efficacy.</p> Signup and view all the answers

In the theory of planned behavior, what is the role of 'intention', and what factors influence a person's intention to act?

<p>Intention is the immediate antecedent of behavior. Attitude, subjective norm and perceived control influences a person's intention to act.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Briefly explain how the concept of 'actual behavioral control' functions within the theory of planned behavior.

<p>It moderates the effect of intention on behavior.</p> Signup and view all the answers

How does the social construction of reality suggest that reality is created?

<p>Reality is not objective, rather a product of human social interactions.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Explain the role of socialization. How does it contribute to the social construction of reality?

<p>Societies construct their own understanding of reality through a process of socialization.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Briefly describe the two key elements relevant to communication within social construction theory.

<p>People make sense of experience by constructing a model of the social world and how it works, and the emphasis on language as the most important system through which reality is constructed.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is the role of conversation in 'reality maintenance' according to the social construction of reality?

<p>Conversation serves as a critical tool for reality maintenance.</p> Signup and view all the answers

In relation to symbolic interactionism, describe the role of 'meaning' in how humans interact with their environment.

<p>Humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Explain how language is the source of meaning according to symbolic interactionism.

<p>Meaning arises out of the social interaction that people have with each other; negotiated through the use of language.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is 'thinking' in the context of symbolic interactionism, and how does it affect our interpretation of symbols?

<p>An individual's interpretation of symbols is modified by their own thought processes.</p> Signup and view all the answers

How does symbolic interactionism explain ways individuals create and share their own social world?

<p>Individual members of a society has agency, autonomy, and can create their own social world.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is 'Dramaturgy,' and explain its importance in social interactions?

<p>How we manage the impression of ourselves within social interactions.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What are the 'frontstage' and 'backstage' in dramaturgy, and how do they differ in terms of social behavior?

<p>Frontstage is the social stage where we project an image, while in the backstage we feel comfortable (nearest to our true selves).</p> Signup and view all the answers

Explain the concept of 'impression management' in dramaturgy and why individuals engage in it.

<p>Impression management is how one maintains a certain representation of the situation.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What are 'teams' in the context of dramaturgy, and what is their purpose?

<p>A group of people who are involved with one another to maintain a certain representation of the situation.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is "face" in Face Negotiation Theory, and why is it important to consider in intercultural communication?

<p>How we want to look in front of others. Important in how to talk to people from different cultures.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Explain the term, "Facework" in Face Negotiation Theory and why it's used.

<p>Strategies used to maintain or protect face in interactions.</p> Signup and view all the answers

How does Face-Restoration preserve face for one's self?

<p>Focuses on the need to be able to exercise personal freedoms and protect oneself from others infringing on one's independence.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Compare and contrast Preventative Facework with Supportive Facework during negotiations.

<p>Preventative facework focuses on conflict preventions while supportive facework focuses on both parties acting civilly and peacefully throughout negotiations.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Explain how “framing" contributes to the understanding of reality in a communicating text.

<p>Framing involves selection and salience. To frame something in communication is to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Describe the role of the 'communicator' within framing. What guides that role?

<p>Make conscious or unconscious framing judgment in deciding what to say; guided by frames (schemata) that organize their beliefs.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is 'salience' in the context of framing?

<p>Making a piece of information more noticeable, meaningful, or memorable to the audience.</p> Signup and view all the answers

In Speech Act Theory, what is meant by 'illocutionary force,' and why is it important for understanding speech acts?

<p>Intended action. This is important because it can give a deeper meaning to the meaning of the the sentance.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Describe two categories of illocutionary acts, citing examples of each.

<p>Assertives and Directives. Assertives state, claim, hypothesize, and suggest with sincerity. Directives command, dare, defy and challenge.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is the "Culture Industry" according to Horkheimer and Adorno, and how does it function as a system of deception?

<p>Culture Industry explores the culture industry as a system of deception. functions by catering to the mainstream at the exclusion of other voices.</p> Signup and view all the answers

According to Walter Benjamin, how did mechanical reproduction change the nature of art and its accessibility?

<p>Because of the mechanical reproduction of art, people can now freely look and make art, making this a mass cultural activity.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What does Benjamin mean by the 'aura' of a work of art, and how does mechanical reproduction affect it?

<p>&quot;The uniqueness of a work of art is inseperable from it's being imbedded in the fabric of tradition&quot;. For aura is tied to his (art/artist's) presence; there can be no replica of it.</p> Signup and view all the answers

According to political economy, what is the primary focus when critically analyzing media practices, processes, and structures?

<p>The primary focus is to critically analyze media practices, processes, and structures in relation to the larger picture of political and economic control.</p> Signup and view all the answers

What do media, according to political economy, do in capitalist societies?

<p>The role of media in capitalist societies, considering how media systems are embedded within market-driven economies and how they contribute to profit-making.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Flashcards

Cultivation analysis

Contribution of TV viewing to people's conceptions of social reality.

Mean world syndrome

Heavy viewers see the world as scary, mean, violent, and dangerous.

Mainstreaming

Process where TV symbols monopolize and dominate information sources.

Resonance

Viewers seeing things on TV congruent with their everyday realities.

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First-order cultivation effects

Probability judgments on real-world occurrences.

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Second-order cultivation effects

Attitudes/beliefs resulting from perceptions of probability and expectations.

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Diffusion

The process by which an innovation spreads within a social system over time.

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Innovation

The introduction of something new, such as a practice or idea.

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Communication channel

Path for messages to travel between individuals.

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Innovation-decision process

Progression from first encountering an innovation to its adoption.

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Innovativeness

Willingness to adopt new ideas; early adopters.

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Rate of adoption

The speed with which an innovation is adopted.

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Innovation-decision steps

Awareness, attitude formation, decision, implementation, confirmation.

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Relative advantage

Better than the current product it replaces.

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Compatibility

Consistency with values and experience.

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Complexity

Describes ease of understanding and usage.

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Triability

Describes opportunities for testing or experimentation.

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Observability

Describes visibility of the innovation's results.

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Innovators

Venturesome, keep cosmopolite relationships.

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Early adopters

Oriented towards local peer networks.

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Early majority

Adopt new ideas just before the average.

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Late majority

Adopt new ideas only after the average member.

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Laggards

Oriented to the past; cautious.

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Theory of Planned Behavior

Used to predict and explain behavior in specific contexts.

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Theory of Planned Behavior Components

Attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control.

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Intention

Immediate antecedent of behavior.

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Behavioral beliefs

Beliefs that produce favorable or unfavorable attitudes.

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Normative beliefs

Expectations which result in perceived social pressure.

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Control beliefs

Factors that affect behavior performance.

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Perceived behavioral control

Moderates influence of attitude and subjective norm.

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Actual behavioral control

Moderates the effect of intention on behavior.

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TPB Flexibility

Framework that adapts to behaviors.

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Social Construction of Reality

Product of human social interactions, not objective.

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Social

Socially granted characteristics; not physical.

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Construction

Each generation reaffirms parts of the social world

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Reality

People create the social world.

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Symbolic Interactionism

Addresses how society is created/maintained through interactions.

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Meaning

Humans act based on meanings assigned to people or things.

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Language

Arises from social interaction.

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Thinking

Interpretation of symbols is modified by thought.

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Study Notes

Cultivation Theory

  • Developed by Dr. George Gebner.
  • Evaluates if media impacts views.
  • Heavy TV viewers have a scary perception of the world, considered mean, violent, and dangerous, called the Mean World Syndrome.
  • Research looks into institutional media processes and TV shows production.
  • Looks into the most prevalent images in media content, including audience exposure.
  • Examines the relationships between media exposure and audience beliefs/behaviors.

Products of Cultivation

  • Mainstreaming: Media messages homogenize beliefs, attitudes
  • Resonance: When TV aligns with lived experience
  • First-order cultivation effects relate to probability judgements
  • Second-order cultivation effects involve attitudes arising from such judgements

Strengths of Cultivation Theory

  • Combines macro and micro-level theoretical approaches.
  • Offers detailed explanations for TV's unique societal role.
  • Allows for empirical studies of widely held humanistic assumptions.
  • Redefines media effects, considering more than just observable behavior.
  • Applicable to varied effects issues.
  • Provides a basis for social change initiatives.

Weaknesses of Cultivation Theory

  • Early research faced methodological limitations.
  • Assumes TV shows are homogenous
  • Focuses on heavy TV viewers.
  • Difficult to apply to media used less than TV.

Diffusion of Innovation Theory

  • Originated with Dr. Everett M. Rogers
  • Diffusion: the process an innovation spreads over time through a social system
  • Innovations: introduction of something new
  • Diffusion of Innovations focuses adoption of new technologies as markers of modernity

Diffusion Stages

  • Innovations proceed through a series of stages before widespread adoption
  • Communication channels are conduits for messages between individuals
  • Time: Includes the innovation-diffusion process
  • Time: Includes innovativeness, and rate of adoption

Innovation-Diffusion Process

  • Begins with awareness
  • Includes attitude formation and decision to adopt or reject
  • Involves implementation and confirmation

Key Concepts on Diffusion

  • Diffusion is the process by which something makes it's way to members of a social system
  • Innovation is the introduction of something new
  • Innovation-decision process: individuals adopt innovations
  • Innovativeness: measures early adoption, agents are willing to adopt new ideas
  • Rate of adoption: relative speed something is adopted

Adopter Categories

  • Innovators: risk-takers, connected to outside networks
  • Early adopters: local, respected, sources for advice
  • Early majority: adopt before average
  • Late majority: adopt due to economic reasons or pressure
  • Laggards: traditional, cautious, use limited resources

The Innovation-Decision Process Steps

  • Knowledge: awareness of innovation's existence and understanding how it works
  • Persuasion: developing an attitude toward innovation
  • Decision: deciding to adopt the innovation which may involve a trial phase
  • Implementation: using the innovation and continuing to learn, reducing innovation's uncertainty
  • Confirmation: collecting information reinforcing the decision, reversing adoption if information conflicts

Innovation Adoption Factors

  • Relative advantage: better than the idea being replaced
  • Compatibility: consistent with the values, experiences, and needs
  • Complexity: difficult to understand or use
  • Triability: testing of something before committing
  • Observability: provides tangible results

Diffusion of Innovation - Strengths

  • Integrates empirical findings into a useful theory
  • Provides practical guide for information campaigns
  • Guided successful adoption of innovations

Diffusion of Innovation - Weaknesses

  • Is linear and source-dominated
  • Underestimates the power of media
  • Stimulates adoption by groups that do not understand innovation

Theory of Planned Behavior

  • Developed by Dr. Icek Ajzen.
  • Designed to predict/explain human behavior in contexts.
  • TPB: attitudes, norms, perceived control which informs intentions to predict behavior
  • More favorable the attitude, norm, control, the stronger the intention to perform said behavior

Constructs in Planned Behavior

  • Behavioral beliefs (consequences): produce attitude
  • Normative beliefs (expectations): results in pressure
  • Control beliefs (factors affecting performance): produce self-efficacy
  • Intention: a mediator of behavior, immediate antecedent
  • Perceived behavioral control: moderates attitude, norm and intention influence
  • Actual behavioral control: moderates effect of intention

Theory of Planned Behavior - Strengths

  • Provides a flexible framework for behaviors
  • Allows incorporation of variables
  • Easy to understand for casual science understanding
  • Flexibility, validity, utility

Theory of Planned Behavior - Weaknesses

  • Requires components relationship clarification
  • Components implemented inconsistently
  • Behaviors are incredibly complex

Social Construction of Reality

  • Developed by Peter L. Berger & Thomas Luckmann
  • Reality is a product of social interactions/
  • Individuals & societies make own meaning through a socialization process
  • Social construction theory highlights how people construct understandings of world
  • Focuses on knowledge over communications

Key Elements

  • People make sense of experience by making social models
  • Language is important

Three Parts of this Social Construction of Reality

  • Socially granted traits
  • Each generation recreating/discarding parts of the world.
  • People creating the social world

Strengths of Social Construction of Reality

  • Conversation is a critical tool
  • Using analysis at the microlevel to examine a macroprocess
  • Implies reflexivity, questioning assumptions

Weaknesses of Social Construction of Reality

  • Overlooks views
  • Doesn't consider power, social structures
  • Doesn't explain persistence

Symbolic Interactionism

  • George Herbert Mead theory, micro level theory
  • Society is made through interactions
  • Individual members have agency
  • Streamlines sense of world

Symbolic Interactionism Premise

  • Meaning: humans act based on association
  • Language: comes from social interaction and negotiation
  • Thinking: the individual interpretation of symbols is modified

Principles to This Theory

  • Meaning: construction of social reality
  • Language: the source of meaning
  • Thinking: taking the role of the other

Strengths of Symbolic Interactionism

  • Micro-level of human interactions
  • Highlights agency in social world
  • Identity: a self-construed concept

Weaknesses of Symbolic Interactionism

  • Discredits social institutions
  • Underestimates structure
  • Overestimates agency

Dramaturgy

  • Theory by Erving Goffman, 1956
  • The way we manage our selves
  • Depends on the setting, audience, cooperation
  • Is about what is perceived

Social Character

  • The impressions we make
  • The impressions made

Terms

  • Frontstage: A social stage
  • Backstage: A place to be comfortable
  • Performances: Inviting participation
  • Idealization: emphasizes aspects of self
  • Teams: Maintains certain situations

Strengths of Dramaturgy

  • Define a scene, decipher how to act
  • Turns interaction into negotiation

Weaknesses of Dramaturgy

  • Emphasizes person action more
  • Might not go into detail on contemporary society
  • Impedes group dynamics

Face Negotiation Theory

  • Stella Ting-Toomey theory
  • Cultural differences influence conflict management
  • Management is part of maintaining face
  • Culture influences everyone

About Face

  • Means look in from of others
  • Talking with people from different cultures
  • Face represents the social self and how we want to be perceived

Faces

  • Restoration: exercise of personal freedom
  • Saving: signaling the respect of space
  • Assertion: need for community and association
  • Giving: inclusion and association

Preventive Facework

  • Decreasing ones risk
  • Avoid issues
  • Be prepared/helpful

Supportive Facework

  • Both being graceful together
  • Preserve through respect
  • Acting civilized

Corrective Facework

  • Necessary when negotiations arise
  • Threatened situation
  • Involves moving intense issues away
  • Apologize to restore respect

Strengths in This Theory

  • Directing attention to our blind cultural actions
  • Used for training skills

Weaknesses of This Theory

  • Ting-Toomey found discrepancies in the culture of people
  • Not saving every face, neglecting individualism

Framing and Frame Analysis - Robert Entman

  • Central to this theory is selection and salience
  • Selecting specific aspects of a reality and make them important to a text
  • Promotes a particular problem definition
  • Focuses on causal interpretation
  • Suggests moral evaluation
  • Recommends what is described

Frames

  • Embedded, make manifest in a text
  • Influences peoples thinking
  • Power to offer communicative text
  • Precise way of influence over awareness
  • Transfer of information
  • Transfer from a person/place to awarenss

Frames - Problem

  • Define what a causal agent does
  • Using defined costs and benefits
  • Usual cultural values

Frames - Diagnosis

  • Forces creating the problem
  • Moral judgement
  • Evaluate effects/agents

Frames - Remedies

  • Treatments for problems
  • Predict their likelihood

Location of frames - Where they Are

  • Made by the communicator judgements
  • Guided by organizational schemata
  • Expressed from organized beliefs
  • Certain themes or stock phrases are used
  • Stereotypes and pictures are present

Role of Receiver

  • Thought/conclusion may align/affect messenger intent
  • Influences framing intention ###Role of Frames in Culture
  • Stock of commonly invoked frames

How Framing Works

  • Meaning more noticeable if salience is increased
  • Increase audiences probability to have the meaning to discern meaning
  • Thus processing means it stores it

Omission

  • Most frames omit
  • Omission definitions and explanation are key

Political News Frames

  • Highlight aspect while obscuring the rest
  • Play main part in exerting political power-

Framing Benefit

  • Audience freedom
  • Analytical content
  • Journalism objectivity for all
  • Popular normative belief

Strengths and Weakness to Framing

  • Focus is on mass individual and communication

Basic Speech Act Theory

  • By J.L. Austin and John Searle
  • How people accomplish action with words
  • Emphasizes use of language
  • Utterances have meaning to other people/users

Speech Acts Are

  • Locutionary meaning phrase used
  • Illusionary intent action
  • The resulting effect on the listener

Categories of Acts

  • Assertives, truth propositions
  • Directives, getting addressee to do something
  • Used to make commitment
  • Expressive, used to express acts
  • Illusions to relate feelings

Strength and Weakness

  • Takes action into contest and meaning
  • Takes speech norms into account
  • Classifies with context
  • Relates word meaning

Critical Culture Theory

  • By Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno
  • Explores cultures industry as deceptive
  • Discusses how it suppresses
  • It is now used for business
  • Mainstream consumers

Cultural Theory

  • Today is infected sameness (and other)
  • Media as Mass agenda
  • Culture media is insidious
  • Perfect harmounis control as marketable

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