Living With Television Now

George Gerbner’s cultivation theory provides a framework for the analysis of relationships between television viewing and attitudes and beliefs about the world. Since the 1970s, cultivation analysis has been a lens through which to examine television’s contributions to conceptions of violence, sex roles, political attitudes and numerous other phenomena. Hundreds of studies during this time have (mostly) found that there are relationships between television exposure and people’s worldviews, but important questions remain: just how big are these relationships, are they real, are some people more vulnerable to them than others, do they vary across different topics, and will we continue to find them in new media environments?
In this collection of nineteen chapters, leading scholars review and assess the most significant developments in cultivation research in the past ten years. The book highlights cutting-edge research related to these questions and surveys important recent advances in this evolving body of work. The contributors point us toward new directions and fresh challenges for cultivation theory and research in the future.

Michael Morgan (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His research interests include cultivation analysis and media effects, technology, and policy.
James Shanahan (PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst) is Professor in the College of Communication at Boston University. His research interests
focus on cultural indicators, cultivation theory, media effects, and public opinion. Special areas of focus are communication in relation to science and the environment.
Nancy Signorielli (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Communication and Director of the MA program in communication at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on images in the media, specifically on gender role images, television violence and health-related images, and how these images are related to people’s conceptions of social reality.