The Media And Television Influences People 's View Of Reality

Television was invented in the 1920’s and one of the most exceptional innovations of all time. Meanwhile, it is going to be 100 years old in a few years and still retain the primary source of entertainment for the kids, prolific for the teenagers and matures. Likewise, it is the major source of knowledge and amusement for every class of people as per their predilection. Similarly, watching television becomes a habit of the people from the past few decades when monochromatic picture turned into a vibrant color television. As for me, television means more than just entertainment and similarly the same television plays a different role for different members of the family, they also has appendage courtship with a television.

In “Life According to T.V.” written by Harry Waters and published in Newsweek in 1991, Waters examines the effect that television has on everyday lives. He says that TV has given Americans an unrealistic view of how life works. From jobs to minorities to how women are portrayed to crime rates nearly all aspects of TV are unrealistic or exaggerated. George Gerbner was used to back up Water’s theory on how television impacts people. Water states that heavy viewers of TV are more unrealistic in their view of the world than light viewers because they are exposed to more of the unrealistic ideas portrayed in TV shows than light viewers. The jobs on TV are often expressed as high ranking jobs like lawyers, doctors and athletes rather than blue collar or service jobs such as small businessman or teacher. According Waters the elderly are depicted as being sick and weak when they are actually the opposite. Women are also portrayed as mothers and lovers more often than successful working women.

What can be the effect of television on people’s lives? People living in these days are addicted to watching TV. However, it is true that watching too much television makes people lose touch with the reality of their lives; they start to see the TV “world” as the real world instead of the world they are living in. This situation divides their loyalties, and all of this is controlled by the people who control the media. Many examples exist in the world that we live and in the world of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. For example, the way the media lies people proves that people are not in the “real” world when they are watching TV and being taught to what had been told to them. Or, people are hooked on television so much that they neglect and

The spread of television has affected American households universally, which started in the 1940s but has continued to make a dramatic surge. There is a trend at that is being captured across televisions in households everywhere. Politics, reality television, social media and public information is being broadcast from household to household. Television has in a way become a mode of how we think and interact with each other. Television is starting to leave that bubble where it was strictly entertainment, now television is becoming a source of what we must believe. The consumer demand for television as spiked dramatically, in the way we view ourselves and perceive others in the world around us is through a television screen. Although we are

     As a television viewer myself, I believe that television has us all trapped in a world where we believe everything that is being said. As

Cultivation Theory was developed by George Gerbner, and it speculated that the longer people watched television, “the more likely their conceptions of reality will reflect what they see on television” (Lett et al., 2004, p. 40). This way of thinking emerged when television gained popularity during its younger years, and people started investigating the long-term effects of watching television.

    As previously stated, the Cultivation Theory is the belief that prolonged exposure to the media will condition your thinking. To be specific, repeatedly seeing something (or the lack thereof) on TV or in movies affects the way you view the world around you. According to “Living With Television: The Violence Profile”, “All societies have evolved ways of explaining the world to themselves and to their children. Socially constructed ‘reality’ gives a coherent picture of what exists, what is important, what is related to what, and what is right.” (Gerbner). This quote relates to the idea of media representation by implying that what is shown on the media is portrayed in such a way that makes the consumer believe it is reality. As an example, if the media portrays homosexuals as sassy and bossy, it will be done repeatedly until that single idea becomes a ‘reality’. The media also uses this tactic in reverse, which is called symbolic annihilation. This concept says that lack of representation in the media equates to lack of existence in society. The less you are seen in the media, the more you are deemed imaginary and will be treated as such.

Television is incorporated into my daily routine whether it is watching the news in the morning or a movie at night. When I watch the news in the morning I catch up on current events and other news. On the other hand. At night I watch movies for entertainment and enjoyment. Television is not just changing people into couch potatoes by watching “chasing fast cars, drinking lite beer, shooting each other t close range, etc.”, it also can be a daily tool to learn new things and catch up on current events.

Cultivation Theory is the idea that because television and the media has become so pervasive, it cultivated our culture’s certain views in segments of society. Through the case study, John McHale used the medium of television and film to promote Joe Amrine’s case. The film was promoted at different venues for screenings of the documentary. Different forms of media were also used such as press releases, press kits, and a web page. All of these acts can be classified as the cultivation theory because they are using television and other forms of media to persuade society and inform society on Joe Amrine’s case.

Cultivation theory is a method to study what viewers are seeing in television shows, and is based on their beliefs and attitudes. It focuses on patterns of images that have been exposed repeated and over a long period. In cultivation analysis, that determines concepts of social reality, there is the process know as mainstreaming. It is when television symbols monopolize and dominate other sources of information and ideas about the world, especially in a heavy television viewers (Baran, & Davis, 2012, p. 334). If the viewership of a television drama features doctors in a negatively way and start to relate towards their doctors this way in the real society then this research method fits perfectly.

According to George Gerbner, cultivation theory says that as time passes more people in the real world of television are easier to believe that social reality resembles the

In Growing Up With Television: Cultivation Process, Morgan, Shanahan and Signorielli assert that “long-term exposure to television tends to cultivate the image of a relatively mean and dangerous world (Morgan et al., 2009).” Rooted in the amount of time spent consuming content, the mean world syndrome is central to Gerber’s Cultivation Theory, or Effect. The theory states that they are viewing habits range from light to medium to heavy. Although subjective, the amount of time spent consuming content is a key component of cultivation effect. Morgan et al., noted that “the relative difference in viewing levels are more important than the specific amount of viewing (Morgan et al, 2009).”

Gerbner’s cultivation theory states that television has become the main source of storytelling in today's

George Gerbner’s *cultivation theory* a macro-level system theory that examines mass communication by studying institutions, message systems, and cultivation analysis (1967; 1970; Gerbner & Gross, 1973; Gerbner et al., 1980; Potter, 2014). Theorized during the “Age of Television” (Shanahan & Morgan, 2004), the theory has been applied to newspapers and other media formats, assuming that media institutions “cultivate facts, norms and values of society” (Gerbner, 1970; Gerbner & Gross, 1976). Specifically, frequent television viewers are more likely to be influenced by portrayals of the world than viewers who watch less. The theory’s popularity grew after the rapid integration of televisions into American homes in the 1940s and 1950s, it was

This brings me to television programming and how it impacts out lives. Television is hands down the most influential form of media we have. Hundreds of millions of people sit down each day to plug themselves into their favorite sitcom or program. Television shows help us not only structure our appearance but also shape our morals and