Television-World Estimates, Real-World Estimates, and Television Viewing: A New Scheme for Cultivation

Abstract

This study proposes a new scheme for cultivation based on measures of television viewing and the relationship between TV-world estimates and real-world estimates as they are examined in three topics—criminality prevalence, the share of violent crimes, and the number of old people. Content analysis of prime-time and off prime–time programming (210 hours) and a survey of viewers ( N = 591) form the data set. A model that covers 85% of the respondents, and is composed of five groups of viewers, is suggested. The groups are specified as simple cultivation (when estimation of the real world is biased but does match a correct estimation of the television world), over cultivation (when the real world is seen as a replica of the TV world but estimation of television reality is exaggerated), double distortion (when TV reality and the real world are both exaggeratedly estimated), simple no cultivation (when both the real world and the TV world are correctly estimated), and distorted no cultivation (when estimation of the real world is correct but TV reality is incorrectly estimated). The groups are differentiated by the amount of television viewing as the heaviest viewers are in the overcultivation group, and the lightest viewers are in the distorted no cultivation group. These results hold when demographics and consumption of media other than television are controlled for.

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