Television reinforces certain values and beliefs. The more television we watch, the more cultivation occurs. Repetitive viewing over a long period of time gives us certain perceptions of the world that are skewed. For example, heavy viewers tend to believe:
-crime rates are higher
-racism is a thing of the past because of the portrayal of the successful middle class black family this also making people less empathetic towards blacks living in poverty(if this middle class black family on tv did it, these poor black families have no excuse, they could easily become successful if they tried)
-we need more policing accompanied by harsher and longer sentences
-their own neighborhoods to be unsafe
-fear of crime as one of their most compelling problems
Effects Research-the study of how media images bring about negative effects in their viewers
Mass Society(a sociological approach)
In this theory, the masses are imagined as ignorant and docile who are vulnerable to negative influence. They are seen as potentially unruly and prone to violence. As industrialization and urbanization took hold, society became atomized into fragmented communities. this led to increased vulnerability. People became detached from traditional social ties and kinship. Moral cohesion begins to disappear, social ties became dismantled, and morals were no longer in place. With this phenomenon, crime and anti-social behavior increased. One connection people did maintain was that of the media. The media was a way for people to cope with this fragmented and individualistic lifestyle. It was significant enough to control people's thoughts and values.
Problems-how is society atomized, but also centrally controlled by the media? Also, this thoery claims that people are completely malleable and easily manipulated when this is often not the case.
Behaviorism(a psychological approach)
People's identities and behaviors are shaped by their responses to external stimuli. You can elicit certain responses from people in a predictable way. Basically, you can train people through a system of rewards and punishments.
Positivism
This is a way of approaching the social world through observation and scientific methods. They believe that society works in a cause and effect manor, and you can predict human behavior.
cause(external stimuli)--->effect(behavior)
Hypodermic Syringe Model
The media 'injects' values, ideas and information directly into a passive receiver.
On Mondays class I thought that it was really interesting to watch Tom and Jerry. I never really thought of linking cartoons such as Tom and Jerry with violence. Growing up I feel that seeing a real person on TV partake in violence was scarier and more life like than ever seeing the same violent act being performed between two cartoon animals. I always thought that cartoons were just entertainment and never realized that the violence that occurs in cartoons can really place a negative impact on a child. I think its scary how much a cartoon can negatively influence a child's life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Melissa...
ReplyDeletewhen you are a child growing up, watching cartoons is something you do. I don't think that I ever took into account the violence in cartoons when I used to watch it growing up. It didn't negatively influence me, but that doesn't mean that another child isn't watching it and repeating whatever it is he/she is seeing. Tom and Jerry was a great example and as I thought about all the other cartoons that I used to watch (Looney Tunes, Nickelodeon and Disney shows, etc) and I realize how much violence there really is. The cartoon shows the violence, but doesn't show the negative impact or pain that the violence inflicts; so the children are seeing it as funny with no consequences. I think that some tv shows can definitely influence the behavior of children.
The Cultivation Theory makes perfect sense to me. But if you are an avid TV watcher and those are the types of things that are being portrayed even on True TV and Reality TV how are you suppose to think any different. You never hear about the other side of the story, and if you do it is not on the TV that you religiously watch it is in those empirical articles that TV watchers are just not into reading.
ReplyDeleteSociety is atomized because we are becoming more individualized. We do more for ourselves in our everyday lives than we do for anyone else, even family. But we are held together by the media because people still do need to feel like they are a part of a group. A group that protects them and that they can claim if they ever needed. Also this theory claims people in masses are easily malleable and controllable which is many times not the case. There are instances of this like in Nazi Germany but it is still rare. It is extremely hard to persuade someone out of their beliefs, even with a mass of people.
I do believe in behaviorism to an extent. I think that people's behaviors are in reaction to external stimuli and one can elicit these behaviors in a predictable way. But what I believe that is quite different is that each person does not behave in that same predictable way to the same stimuli. I think to get predictable behaviors one must know the other and know how to elicit those certain behaviors and it will take something different for each person to achieve the same behavior. I do not believe that a person can be trained to believe and act anyway by simply rewards and punishments.
I think that people do portray observable and certain cause and effect behaviors, but only to an extent. When someone's mother dies the vast majority of observed behavior is sadness, but the unpredictable part is the intensity of the sadness, this is completely determined by the individual. Not all reactions and behaviors follow strict cause and effect roles and not all can be observed and studied in a scientific way.
The hypodermic syringe model is a little intense. I think the media brings ideas, values, and information to the surface for individuals but each individual interprets this differently and then reacts differently from that interpretation. The receivers are active in this process in their reaction and subsequent action to the ideas, values, and information presented to them.