Overrepresented Topics, Underrepresented Topics, and the Cultivation Effect

Abstract

This study examines whether topics that are underrepresented in TV programming differ from topics that are overrepresented in their capability to cultivate distorted estimations of social reality. A content analysis of prime-time programming (63 hours) was used to detect overrepresented and underrepresented topics in four content domains: criminality, occupations, demography, and sex life. A survey (N = 517) tested the effect of different topics on reality estimation and found no systematic differences between topics that are overrepresented in the programming and topics that are underrepresented. The fact that distorted reality estimation may occur with topics that are not frequently depicted in the programming supports the thesis that cultivation stems from actual learning of facts and figures from the screen.

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