This course is about communication on various levels. Over these 9 weeks we will cover a number of theories, cases and applications in the field of communication science. We will start with the foundational concepts of communication theory, defining what the theory is and going through a number of approaches to communication itself. Each week you will have a test to check on your progress and understanding. We also have a final text in the end of the course and a little bit of writing. As Oscar Wilde said, if you cannot write, you cannot think. If you cannot think, others will do thinking for you. So we find writing and reflecting pretty important for our classes. Along the course we provide you with in-class materials: lecture presentations, articles and additional readings. If you really want to get into the topic, don’t avoid this extra work. Although a substantial part of this course is theory-based, communication theory has a very practical application. Communication is an underlying process which creates and develops relationships, communities, societies. We communicative on a daily basis via a variety of means and channels. In our globalised and increasingly interconnected world, communication skills are essential in both the personal and professional spheres. It is our goal to leave you with a contextualisation and conceptualisation of communicative processes that will poise you to hone your own communicative skills — in other words, to put theory into practice.
Cultivation Theory
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En provenance du cours de National Research University Higher School of Economics
Communication theory: bridging academia and practice
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
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À partir de la leçon
Mass communication and media effects
In this lecture student will be provided with the brief history of media effects theories and further in-depth explanation of various traditions in media effects. Why some people are being more influenced, how do we select and process the information and what is the role of media in society? All these questions will be addressed in this class along with the case study in the end.
Rencontrer les enseignants
Olga SolovyevaLecturer
Integrated Communications Department, Faculty of Communication, Media and Design
Maria MordvinovaHead of BA Program in PR and Advertising
Integrated Communications Department, Faculty of Communication, Media and Design
[SOUND] As we now discuss the media effects within the media ecology and
the way how different means of communication shape our perspectives and
the way how do we approach social reality,
let's now move on and focus at the cultivation theory.
Just like all the theories devoted to the media facts,
it's focusing on the way how media is changing our attitudes and our behavior.
But this particular theory was mostly focusing at one
medium, which is television, just like the media ecology approach.
You may say that quite many people nowadays have no TV at home.
And thus this theoretical approach would be useless
as we are losing our attachment to the television and
we're using different sorts and different means of the communication nowadays.
Still, the cultivation theory might be very helpful to understand the media
effect on the very radical level of the influence, and
as well as this approach highlights the important of the content itself, and
is direct influence on the perceptions,
rather than on how technology is shaping our view of the reality.
So let's take a look what was it like.
The whole approach was developed by George Gerbner in the 70s,
and it was all focusing on the TV,
as TV was seen as the dominant force which shapes modern society.
The core assumption of the theory is that it predicts not the directing
of our thinking, but
the direct impact of television on the way we perceive the world.
So it's all about the embedded frames, which are transmitted
through the television, which we used in order to construct our reality.
So the most we know, or
at least we think about what we know, we have never experienced personally.
And we need to add our experiences
in order to have the complete view of the reality.
So these stories which appear on television,
they just changing the way how we see
the missing parts of what's supposed to be in our world here.
So the stories that animate our cultural environment to reveal first of all,
how things work.
Well, you might never be a fireman so you are watching a TV series about firemen and
the understanding and perception on the way how people in the fire department
would work would come directly from this TV series or it can be a movie.
Describe what the things are.
The description of the sudden processes and the way how different things
happen in different parts which are on the border and away from our experience.
This is quite an important function of the television.
Also these stories from television, they tell us what we need to do about them.
So they add a little bit of reality, and they provide us
with an understanding, how should we perceive different people
within the next upcoming situation of the social reality.
For example, you'd never been dealing with the police, but you see a lot about law
enforcement too serious, or maybe it can be shows, any other shows on the TV.
And In this case, in particularly dialogues between characters and
the representatives of the police, would shape your attitudes.
And after that, this is the TV series which is navigating you through
the difficult situation when you get caught by the police, for example.
Hopefully, it would never happen.
So what are the basic assumptions of the theory?
The technological advancements make storytelling available in a large scale
and the main source is the TV.
Remember it was in 70s and, yes, TV was quite the dominant source of the news,
and source of the entertainment and TV become quite cheap, so
it was everywhere in states, and generally it would go on across the world.
Stories present co-construct.
Stories which are presented, they co-construct our view of the reality.
So we cannot have all the experiences.
We need to fill the gaps in our knowledge.
Mass media at the same time cultivates attitudes and
values which are already presented in culture.
So the people who are making the TV series, they kind of get the information
from somewhere, and this information is just exaggerated, or
it might be shown with a different focus, or it can be just slightly different.
But the high dominating forms of the cultural standards,
they would be reproduced through the mass medium.
Why TV was chosen for the theory?
First of all, it was fundamentally different from any other sources and
forms of the mass media.
It was quite a storyteller and it was interactive more or less,
and I provided and activated as many instances as it was never possible before.
And as well, it was quite interesting to see the dramatic shift as
the television spread really fast and almost 98%,
89% of the American homes had a television by this time.
Still, television has limited effects so these effects can be tracked.
So for the purposes of this research, Gerbner was conducting a very
interesting study while he was tracking how much people are watching TV,
and what their view and perception of the reality is.
First of all, he outlined three categories of the viewers.
Heavy viewers who would watch a lot of the TV,
light viewers who would be just watching slightly, less than ten hours a day.
And moderate viewer, those who can be stuck between those two categories.
So they're not spending too much time, but they're not avoiding television.
After that, he would be comparing the presence of TV
consumption to measuring the cultivation differential,
which brought him to the main conclusion of the mean world syndrome.
So what is that?
That first thing is the people who are exposed to the TV version
of the reality for a longer time, so the heavy viewers,
would have exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world due to the extensive
broadcast of the violent content, which was called the mean world syndrome.
The study was taken in a few steps and the respondents were asked how many
people live in the United States, how many people work in the law enforcement.
And during the week,
what are the chances of yours to be involved in some type of violence?
And should people be trusted?
But as you can predict, the heavy viewers would
significantly overestimate the number of people who work in the law enforcement.
As well as they would underestimate their real life danger
as they consume too much of the violent content.
And they co-constructed their view of the social reality with this content.
So definitely they would not trust much people, but people should be trusted.
What are the other cultivation effects?
There are two effects which Gerbner brings up to describe
the way how this cultivation works.
The first one is the mainstream effect which stands for
individuals with less direct experience being more affected by the media.
And the second one is resonance effect.
Individuals with a more direct experience will be affected more by the media.
So basically, you will be affected anyway if you know how does it work in
the reality or how it doesn't work.
But these two names, and these two definitions would be helpful
in order to provide an explanation of how the cultivation process happens.
The research and method, as an individual, you might be interested in how and
what parts of the reality are commonly constructed for you by the media.
And maybe you can do this little research on yourself, first of all.
But for the scholars, the most common variables in the cultivation framework
are the media use, perceptions, behavioral intentions, and personal experiences.
So you need to measure all four of them, and then try to seek for
the correlation between media exposure and the other dependent variable.
It's usually conducted through several steps and first you need to identify
this stable pattern within the TV content, or in the case of Gerbner, it was violent.
And you go through the institutional process analysis as there are some
people who would manage the way how content appears to the public and
those gatekeepers who actually will build up the agenda for
the upcoming media translation.
And the message system analysis is when you focus on the message itself, and
you're trying to break it down into particles to understand what is the major
focus of this message.
And then you see the cultivation analysis.
Basically this correlation between dependent variable and
independent variable.
So does the TV or any other
type of content consumption influence the way how we think about the reality?
So to summarize here, cultivation theory assumes that there is a strong power
of the TV on the reality.
Yet it can be done with any other medium,
doesn't have to be a TV or early cultivation of the violent content.
The primary message of the TV does not reflect the reality.
But here we need to question what is the reality, and how the social norms,
standards, and attitudes cultivated through the variety of media sources
actually work, and how do they shape our society?
[SOUND]
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