Abstract
Background: According to cultivation theory, distorted representations of social reality on television can lead to distorted perceptions of reality among viewers. For example, the death penalty has been abolished in most Western countries a long time ago, but is often portrayed or mentioned in US crime shows, which are very popular outside the United States. Previous research suggests that the amount of television viewing can be associated with erroneous perceptions of the use of the death penalty—even when the death penalty is not used in the respective country. Unfortunately, available evidence on this association is inconclusive.Methods: In a cross-sectional web-based survey, we used quota-based sampling techniques to recruit 1,002 individuals representative of the Austrian population in terms of gender, age, education, and region of residence. We asked about their weekly amount of television viewing and use of US crime dramas and measured their beliefs on the use of the death penalty in Austria.Results: Although television viewing in general was not associated with erroneous perceptions of the death penalty (i.e., no overall across-the-board cultivation effect), data analysis provided supporting evidence for the idea of a genre-specific cultivation effect: The more US crime shows participants watched, the more likely they were to mistakenly believe that the death penalty is used in Austria. This association held true even after controlling for the gender, age, and education of participants.Conclusion: The finding that watching US crime shows, which are based on social reality in the United States, is associated with Austrian viewers' confusion with regards to perceptions of the death penalty is consistent with the genre-specific cultivation hypothesis. Some viewers may be guided more by mediated reality than by actual social reality.
Highlights
IntroductionOne of the most important and debated theories for understanding the social and cultural impacts of media has been cultivation theory (Morgan et al, 2015), which focuses on the question whether television contributes to viewers’ conceptions of social reality (Gerbner and Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al, 1986)
We hypothesized that the more respondents watch US crime shows and television in general, the more likely they are to inaccurately assume that the death penalty is used in Austria
Individuals with a college degree had a higher probability of mistakenly believing that capital offenders in Austria were executed by lethal injection or electric chair in the past five years and scored higher on the traditional sum score
Summary
One of the most important and debated theories for understanding the social and cultural impacts of media has been cultivation theory (Morgan et al, 2015), which focuses on the question whether television contributes to viewers’ conceptions of social reality (Gerbner and Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al, 1986). Television, as has been argued extensively, has replaced reading and interpersonal narrative as the primary means of storytelling for many citizens and has become the source of the most broadly shared images and messages in history (Gerbner and Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al, 1986) Based on this idea, it is believed that if television represents a constant flow of remarkably consistent depictions about a specific aspect of social reality, cumulative exposure to these messages may subtly influence audiences’ perceptions of these aspects of social reality (Gerbner and Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al, 1986; Morgan and Shanahan, 2010; Morgan et al, 2015).
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