cultivation theory media n. examines how people respond over time to the social realities depicted on television and how television as a medium of mass communication shapes perceptions of reality. It was initially developed by the Hungarian-American communication theorist, George Gerbner (1919-2005), who studied the “cultivated,” or long-term cumulative effects, of television on viewers. Gerbner specifically focused on the representation of violence on American television and investigated the ways in which television produces a shared symbolic environment for viewers that contributes towards the creation of normative social roles and behaviour. ****
