Lecture 8 -- Cultivation Theory and UGT PDF

COMM 2500 Uses and Gratifications Theory Cultivation Theory COMM 2500 // Robertson HOUSEKEEPING! Midterm grades will be posted next week, exam review by appt. FINAL DATE HAS BEEN POSTED! ○ December 17, 9:00 a.m., U170 ○ Two...

COMM 2500 Uses and Gratifications Theory Cultivation Theory COMM 2500 // Robertson HOUSEKEEPING! Midterm grades will be posted next week, exam review by appt. FINAL DATE HAS BEEN POSTED! ○ December 17, 9:00 a.m., U170 ○ Two hours total  Today’s Agenda pt 1 ➔ Midterm questions? ➔ Uses & gratification: Introduction. ➔ Assumption 1: People use media for their own particular purposes. ➔ Assumption 2: People seek to gratify needs. ➔ Assumption 3: Media compete for our attention and time. ➔ Assumption 4: Media affect different people differently. ➔ Assumption 5: People can accurately report their media use and motivation. ➔ A typology of uses and gratifications. ➔ Parasocial relationships: Using media to have a fantasy friend. ➔ A sampler of modern applications of uses & grats. ➔ Critique: Heavy on description and light on prediction? First! I need a volunteer please!  Uses and Gratifications: Introduction Elihu Katz: By studying media choices, the entire field of communication could be saved. ➔ He suggested that scholars should change the question used to generate their research: Instead of "What do media do to people?” Ask "What do people do with media?" Assumption 1: People use media for their own particular purposes The study of how media affect people must take into account of the fact that people deliberately use media for particular purposes. ➔ Uses and gratifications are known for a deliberate shift away from the notion that powerful media messages have uniform effects on large audiences. ➔ Uniform-effects model: The view that exposure to a media message affects everyone in the audience in the same way; often referred to as the "magic-bullet" or "hypodermic-needle" model of mass communications.  Assumption 2: People seek to gratify needs The deliberate choices people make in using media are presumably based on the gratifications they seek from those media. Just as people eat to satisfy hunger, they seek out media for need gratification. ➔ Straight-line effect of media: A specific effect on behavior that is predicted from media content alone, with little consideration of the differences in people who consume that content. Why might a room full of people be watching a hockey game? Assumption 3: Media compete for your time and attention Media compete with each other for your time. ➔ They also compete with other activities that don't involve media exposure. Social interaction via media versus in person – fulfilling the same need? According to uses and grats, we won't understand the media choices we make unless we first recognize the underlying needs that motivate our behavior.  Assumption 4: Media affect different people differently The same media message may not affect everyone the same way. ➔ Media effects scholarship lends strong support to the uses and grats claim that media affect different people differently. ➔ Few people voluntarily expose themselves to scary movies in order to experience fear. Assumption 5: People can accurately report their media use and motivation There is now a long tradition in mass communication research that asks people to report the amount of time they devote to different kinds of media. ➔ The controversial aspect of this strategy is whether people have the capability to discern the reasons for their media consumption. ➔ Research has shown that we cannot always trust people's reports of the reasons for their media consumption. ◆ Sometimes assumptions turn out to be wrong. ◆ Do you actually know why you log 1-2 hours of ACNH per day?  A typology of uses and gratifications Typology: A classification scheme that attempts to sort a large number of specific instances into a more manageable set of categories. ➔ Researchers have compiled various lists of the motives people report for media consumption to construct a typology. Alan Rubin developed eight motivations: ➔ Passing time. ➔ Companionship. ➔ Escape. ➔ Enjoyment. ➔ Social interaction. ➔ Relaxation. ➔ Information. ➔ Excitement. An updated typology!  Reminder! This is not exhaustive or exclusive! ➔ Eg. Some reports of television consumption is simply habitual ➔ Habits are easy to form, hard to break. ➔ Consider texting, social media, etc for uses & grats in this habitual category as well Subdividing would cause too much chaos in the theory ➔ Habitual use went under “passing time”  Parasocial relationships Parasocial relationship: Sense of friendship or emotional attachment that develops between TV viewers and media personalities. ➔ Can be measured by surveying media consumers about their involvement with popular characters. ➔ Public figures want to build parasocial relationships with their followers.  Video Short description of video Add url here Essential Think (2021, June 7). What are parasocial relationships? [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6vlo8DkWmDQ  A sampler of modern applications of uses and grats Few technologies that have received attention from scholars eager to understand the twenty-first-century media landscape are as follows: ➔ Podcasts: Let people engage while commuting or doing household chores ◆ What used to fulfil this? ➔ Snapchat: Has many uses and gratifications for sports fans. ➔ Diet and fitness apps: Recordability, network connections, credible health information, easy to understand, and trendiness of using technology. ◆ Gamification ➔ YouTube: Can be used as a radio and TV, to create own content to broadcast, to make social connections, and for educational opportunities.  Critique: heavy on description, light on prediction? One criticism of uses & grats is that its major contributions have avoided explanation and prediction in favor of merely describing how people use media. ➔ Users are guided by the affordances of technology. (Shyam Sundar) – “If the keyboard invites us to type, the mouse to point, the hyperlink to click and the joystick to navigate, shouldn’t we start there?” Uses and grats 2.0 ◆ What are some potential problems here? ➔ Some scholars continue to work from the original formulation of the uses & grats theory. The theory is not overly complex but relies on the ability of people to accurately report reasons for their media use. Uses & grats theory allows you to reflect on your media use and makes aware of your needs and how you choose to gratify them.  Today’s Agenda pt 2 ➔Cultivation Theory ◆ Introduction ◆ TV then, TV now ◆ What’s on TV? ◆ How much does TV influence us? ◆ Mainstreaming ◆ Who made TV this way and why? ◆ Critique Question! What do you think about the crime rate in Canada? Increasing? Decreasing? Violent vs petty? According to the statistics…  Some questions to kick us off ➔ What are some of your favourite TV shows? How have these shows influenced your view of the world? ➔ Does TV have the same effect on you if you binge watch compared to when you watch over a slow trickle? ➔ Gerbner claims that watching TV violence results in a mean-and-scary worldview. What might the effect of watching other sorts of programs, like comedies, be? ➔ Is athletic violence (like football tackles or fights in hockey) or natural disasters different from scripted violence?  Introduction ➔ Gerbner claimed that heavy TV users develop an exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world ➔ He regarded television as the dominant force in shaping modern society ➔ TV’s power comes from the symbolic content of the shows watched, binged, and rewatched Violence is a major staple of the TV world ➔ Gerbner was concerned that violence affects viewers’ beliefs about the world around them and the feelings connected to those beliefs  Television then, television now TV today is different in the following three ways: 1. Much more recordable than in Gerbner’s time when broadcasters placed their most popular shows during prime time a. Prime time television: a viewing window between dinner and bedtime when people are most likely to watch TV 2. TV today is mobile and hence more private 3. Provides many choices Gerbner created cultivation theory to explain a media world designed to “attract the largest possible audience by celebrating the moderation of the mainstream.”  “What’s on TV?” – the first prong Message system analysis: Scholarship that involves careful, systematic study of TV content, usually employing content analysis as a research method. ➔ Developed by Gerbner The Norwegian pop band A-ha reached the same conclusion as Gerbner after their hit song was released in the mid-1980s. ➔ The world of TV is a strange, strange place! What is shown on TV can be odd and sometimes, unrealistic ➔ You won’t see many people living in poverty, and you won’t find many older people  “What’s on TV?” – the first prong Gerbner studied the cultivating impact of media violence ➔ Dramatic violence: any intentional infliction of physical pain or harm on a character by another or the implication of intent to harm ◆ This definition rules out verbal abuse idle threats, and pie-in-the-face slapstick ◆ Includes physical abuse presented in cartoon format. Gerbner found inequality regarding the age, race, and gender of those on the receiving end of violence ➔ Elderly people and children, ethnic minorities, and women were common targets  How much does TV influence us? The second prong Cultivation analysis: research that examines whether those who spend more time watching TV are more likely to see the “real world” through TV’s lens ➔ Cultivation: the independent contribution television viewing makes to audience members’ conceptions of social reality Michael Morgan: the cultivation process is more like the pull of a gravitational field ➔ Although the magnitude of TV’s influence is not the same for every viewer, all are affected by it. L.J. Shrum relies on the accessibility principle in explaining TV’s cultivating impact ➔ Accessibility principle: when people make judgments about the world around them, they rely on the smallest bits of information that come to mind most quickly ➔ The most accessible information for making judgments is more likely to come from TV shows than anywhere else  Mainstreaming: blurring, blending and bending Mainstreaming: the blurring, blending, and bending process by which heavy TV viewers from disparate groups develop a common outlook through constant exposure to the same images and labels Gerbner illustrated the mainstreaming effect by showing how heavy TV viewers blur economic and political distinctions ➔ Most heavy TV viewers label themselves as political moderates as they pick up the non-extremist ethic of the TV dramas ➔ HOWEVER, these people’s positions on social issues were decidedly conservative  Resonance: the TV world looks like mine Resonance: condition that exists when viewers’ real-life environment is like the world of television; those viewers are most susceptible to TV’s cultivating power. ➔ Viewers who perceive that the world depicted on television was much like their own world get a “double dose” of the TV message  Measuring the cultivation differential Cultivation differential: the difference in the percentage giving the “television answer” within comparable groups of light and heavy TV viewers ➔ Gerbner believed that heavy TV viewers would be more likely than light viewers to see the social world as resembling the TV world ➔ Heavy viewers: those who watch four hours or more of TV per day ◆ Also referred to them as the television type, a more benign term than couch potato ➔ Light viewers: those who watch two hours or less of TV per day  Measuring the cultivation differential Gerbner’s comparisons between light and heavy viewers revealed the following provocative findings: ➔ Positive correlation between TV consumption and fear of criminal victimization ◆ Those with heavy viewing habits feared the risk of a victim to be 1 out of 10 ◆ Real stat? 1 out of 10,000 ➔ Perceived activity of the police ◆ Heavy viewers believe that five per cent of society is involved in law enforcement ➔ General mistrust of people ◆ Mean world syndrome: the cynical mindset of general mistrust of others that is subscribed to by heavy TV viewers. ABC News (Australia) (2022, July 7). Mark Humphries presents the awful news | 7.30 [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ttMvwPoTf44  Class survey What kinds of programs do you watch? (Genres, specific shows, etc). Do you think that these programs could influence your thoughts or attitudes about other cultural ideas? What other “syndromes” could exist? Person having feet up under blanket and watching TV – GETTY  Cultivation effects are small and ambiguous Cultivation analysis research suffers from the following two common problems: ➔ Small effect sizes ◆ Meta-analysis: a statistical procedure that blends the results of multiple quantitative studies exploring the relationship between two variables (such as TV viewing and fear of violence) ◆ One meta-analysis of Gerbner’s work calculated the average correlation over 82 different studies to be significant, but very small. ➔ Doesn’t provide definitive evidence that viewing TV causes fear of violence  “Who makes TV this way and why”? The third prong Institutional process analysis: scholarship that penetrates behind the scenes of media organizations in an effort to understand what policies or practices might be lurking there. ➔ Media companies in Hollywood are concerned with how to export its product globally for maximum profit at minimum cost ➔ Violence is a universal language  Critique: simple idea that may need revision There might be a disconnect between cultivation theory’s assumptions about how you watch TV and your actual viewing behaviour ➔ Studies by Morgan and his associates show that these assumptions don’t mesh with how many people consume media content in the 21st century Gerbner’s assumption about how TV ignores minority groups is also no longer accurate as networks for ethnic minorities (and practically any other minority) have sprung up and become profitable (Morgan) ➔ If the theory’s assumptions no longer hold, that raises questions about its ability to predict and explain media use today  Critique: simple idea that may need revision The explanation, prediction, and testability part of cultivation theory are weak and hence Elihu Katz wants this theory to be retired ➔ But the theory’s relatively simple claim that “the stories we tell (and are told) have something to do with the way we think about the world” has generated a lot of quantitative research ➔ Instead of retiring the theory, it can be revised through experimental and longitudinal studies that provide clearer evidence for the cultivation differential ➔ Message system analysis studies can be used to examine what content appears on the internet and streaming services