Media Theories: Focus on Cultivation Analysis

               Like in any other research field, media research has many theories to explain many phenomena that have appeared as new media types make information sharing even easier. Today I’d like to talk about one such theory dealing with the way information and how it affects people due to the way it is portrayed on television. This theory is called the Cultivation Analysis theory which states that television cultivates in viewers a reality similar to the one being portrayed on television. To simplify it, this basically means that people start to take what is told to them on television as fact when it may not be, and may get a somewhat distorted sense of the reality of the topic in question. This also leads into the idea of mean world syndrome which is another theory that TV makes the world seem more dangerous than it is, but today I have another example of Cultivation Analysis.

               Throughout TV and other media, whether in ads aimed at adults or some cartoons aimed at kids or teens we see a lot of over exaggeration of many things. One prime example, and one that has garnered much controversy in past years is the shape of people, both male and female, that are portrayed as attractive on TV. Naturally humans are attracted to people who are physically fit, but media in recent years has gone somewhat overboard, especially with women. Women in magazines and commercials are usually portrayed with figures that are incredibly rare to be born with, or even worse, are digitally enhanced to fit the view of perfection the media wants to think is real and attainable. 

Before and after image of a model who has been photoshoped to be on a magazine cover.

Example of the type of people you see in beauty and wellness ads utilizing people who are unnaturally beautiful and sometimes digitally enhanced

Of course these portrayals are physically impossible for most people to achieve themselves yet the fact that TV says that that portrayal is beautiful makes viewers believe it is which can cause many psychological issues in the viewers. These portrayals cause people to aspire to be something they can’t be to the point of picking up dangerous, self-threatening habits. All of this to try and fit this image of perfection that they see and have accepted as the reality of what they should be, simply because that is what media tells them perfection is. It’s not only magazines and people on TV either, some cartoons such as animes, have over sexualized and unrealistic images of what people should look like as well. These may be argued as less harmful for adults but for kids or teens the affect might be the same.

Example of women from a popular anime who are drastically over sexualized and drawn very unrealistically beautiful.

 This is a prime example of the media cultivation effect I believe, as for the most part media producer’s plan these unrealistic ideas of perfection to draw in consumers to buy products that will help them reach the type of beauty they see on TV.

Ads like these basically say if you buy our product you can be this beautiful too!

This is most commonly seen in women’s commercials as producers try to get women to buy the makeup, the clothes, or the diet product needed to make them beautiful. Men aren’t exempt from this either as males in TV or movies are generally portrayed at a level of fitness just not attainable to the average person without much sacrifice. In ads perfectly sculpted men are used to try to get other males to buy products like weight training equipment and muscle building chemicals. These tactics are not right to use in my opinion but for today that is not the point. The point is Cultivation Analysis works and this is a big example of it that people have only recently began to notice the problems of.