Cultivation Theory
Cultivation theory: This theory, dating from the 1960’s, deals with the alleged effects that television has on peoples’ mindsets and influences their views of the world. The main points of this theory include the argument that television shapes an individual’s attitudes towards the occurrences that happen in life and may change their perceptions of these occurrences; violence being one example. It may lead to desensitizing the person to things that if they happened right in front of them in real life, would leave a much stronger impression (aber.ac.uk).
This theory has been contributed by George Gerbner and Larry Gross (aber.ac.uk; annenberg.usc.edu).
Click here to view an example of how video games affect children.
