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Agenda-Setting, Cultivation Analysis,
and Uses and Gratifications
A new perspective in media effects research starts to develop after
the dominance of the “limited effects” paradigm. The
new approaches emphasize long-term effects, instead of short-term
campaign periods, a move from behavior and persuasion to cognition,
and a transition from minimal to more significant media effects
(Katz, 1980). One of the major developments in media effects is
the emergence of theories about the agenda-setting role of the media.
McCombs & Shaw (1972) present a hypothesis that the mass media
establish the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the
prominence of attitudes toward political issues. Drawing from Bernard
Cohen’s theory, the authors posit that the press may not be
successful most of the time in telling people what to think, but
they are very successful in telling readers what to think about.
This approach intends to investigate how the media set the agenda
of subjects that are considered relevant by the public in political
and electoral decisions, therefore attempting to mold the political
process. Critics of this approach contest that nobody can tell people
what to think about. The initial position fails to consider how
diverse forms information is presented might affect the process
of opinion formation (Williams et al., 1991).
The agenda setting approach contributes to broaden the horizons
of media effects research. However, another theory develops that
emphasized more long-term effects and proposes an even more powerful
media effects in the form of cultivation analysis (Gerbner et al.,
1994). George Gerbner (1982, 1984) and his colleagues propose the
theory that mass media, specifically television, plays a dominant
role in defining people’s cultural and social values. They
argue that television “cultivates” those values, opinion,
and concepts over an extended period of time; therefore studies
of exposure to television effects should always be analyzed on a
long-term basis instead of short-term response. They conducted studies
on how exposure to television’s dramatic content will shape
a viewer’s worldview. This exposure will lead to the cultivation
of shared understanding of reality, mainly among heavy viewers,
that otherwise will have little in common besides television. Cultivation
effects were established by comparing social perceptions of reality
by light and heavy viewers of television with media representation
of violence and crime. The cultivation perspective is criticized
at the methodological and conceptual levels. Some of the criticism
is for its simplistic understanding of television reception, translated
in terms of “exposure”, that is, the number of hours
people report to stay in front of the screen. Missing from this
approach is a more comprehensive understanding of the process by
which people interpret television programs and elaborate their own
meanings (Livingstone, 1998).
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