Mean World Syndrome: Cultivation Theory And Its Effects On Society

Proposed by Professor George Gerbner, Dean of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, and also known as cultivation hypothesis and cultivation scrutiny, cultivation theory is the belief of what you see on television, is how the world/ society is actually like. The research originally began in the mid- 1960s with the purpose to study the effects of media and television influences. “Heavy viewers are exposed to more violence and therefore are affected by the Mean Worlds syndrome, the belief that the world is a far worse and dangerous place then it actually is” (Mass Communication Theory). Mean World Syndrome is the belief that heavy dependence of media and violence causes the viewers to get in a panic that the world is a much more dangerous place than it actually is. The theory states that excessive television users are more likely to exaggerate the perception of real life as a result of what they are exposed to on television.

It is believed that this theory is one of the most controversial in media research because it studies the media effects. The theories main

In easier terms, resonance explains the deepened influence and effect on the viewer when what the viewer sees on television is what they experienced in life. For example, if a heavy viewer was watching television and they saw a violent scene, they are more likely to have already experienced that violence in real life (robbery, fight, sexual assault, accident, etc.) and relive that experience in their mind, causing them to go through resonance. Theorists argue that heavy television viewers that are fearful already are more dependent and should accept and welcome repression from television to refrain from being manipulated and controlled by the violence they see on