Anna Backens - outside 2 - cultivation theory

I recently finished an article by Helena Bilandzic entitled "The Perception of Distance in the Cultivation Process", which describes the role television has played in American society. The Cultivation theory was developed and studied in-depthly by George Gerbner in the mid seventies. Gerbner believed that the more time an individual devoted to watching television, the more their perception of reality would change to mirror media's narrative. The article outlines how the Cultivation theory is used to study how heavy viewers' belief systems are changed because of the amount of television that they watch. Data had been given that viewers learn first-order effects, which are facts and then they can learn second-order effects which are attitudes that the viewer can believe about societal issues like materialism. As society uses and integrates movies and television more and more into their lives, media becomes the narrator of real life, when in reality, television gives only a virtual reality doesn't it?

Issues like consumerism or materialism that plague parts of American society on a daily basis are placed in programs and commercials, which only perpetuates the size of the issue at hand. The movie the Fight Club, incredibly popular within pop culture, deals with consumerism outright, teaching the lesson that more is not always better. But what about programs that don't point out the bad but encourage viewers to give in to the cycle of buying? The virtual reality that television and movies sets up for us in not really fair. Producers are able to romanticize life with money or big houses; what does that do for viewers? If media is now a source of knowedge and the narratives they give in films are taken as fact, individuals beliefs will be based on what they see not on what they experience everyday in the real world. Looks and money are among some of the most valued aspects in pop culture, yet that gives a distorted view of what is really important in life. I think that the idea of religion can also be misinterpreted by viewers. The idea of who God is has been narrated in several different ways. Sometimes religion can be interpreted symbolically, like in the movie the Matrix. On the other hand, films can be religious satires, such as in the movie Dogma. Both movies make strong statements about religion and about the culture. The problem lies if viewers make assumptions based only on their viewing experience and do not study through other sources such as the internet, journals, and books. There is importance in balance.