Cultivation Theory Research

http://www.suite101.com/content/theories-of-violence-in-the-media-a52284
Key Quote: One finding of this research is that when people are exposed to heavy media violence, they seem to have an attitudinal misconception called mean world syndrome. This means that they overestimate how much violence actually occurs in their communities and the rest of the world. People who are exposed to less media violence have a more realistic sense of the amount of violence in the real world.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/cultiv.html

• Key Quote: Cultivation theorists argue that heavy viewing leads viewers (even among high educational/high income groups) to have more homogeneous or convergent opinions than light viewers (who tend to have more heterogeneous or divergent opinions). The cultivation effect of television viewing is one of 'levelling' or 'homogenizing' opinion. Gerbner and his associates argue that heavy viewers of violence on television come to believe that the incidence of violence in the everyday world is higher than do light viewers of similar backgrounds. They refer to this as a mainstreaming effect.
• Cultivation theorists tend to ignore the importance of the social dynamics of television use. Interacting factors such as developmental stages, viewing experience, general knowledge, gender, ethnicity, viewing contexts, family attitudes and socio-economic background all contribute to shaping the ways in which television is interpreted by viewers. When the viewer has some direct lived experience of the subject matter this may tend to reduce any cultivation effect.

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Cultivation_theory
Key Quote: Two ways "in which cultivation theorists have extended their theory to account for small effects and differences in effects among subgroups" (Miller, 2005, p. 286) are the concepts of mainstreaming and resonance, added to the theory.

• Mainstreaming "means that television viewing may absorb or override differences in perspective and behavior that stem from other social, cultural, and demographic influences. It represents the homogenization of divergent views and a convergence of disparate viewers (p. 31)" (Miller, 2005, 286).
• Resonance "is another concept proposed to explain differential cultivation effects across groups of viewers. The concept suggests that the effects of television viewing will be particularly pronounced for individuals who have had related experience in real life. That is for a recent mugging victim or someone who lives in a high crime neighborhood, the portrayal of violence on television will resonate and be particularly influential" (Miller, 2005, 286).

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Cultivation_Theory

Key Quote: Gerbner found that heavy television viewing has a small but significant impact on the attitudes and perceptions of an audience, influencing their outlook on the social world around them. Massive exposure to television has a cumulative effect; it is not just individual messages that the viewer responds to, but also the accumulation of exposure in the aggregate.