The Net Through The Lens Of Cultivation Theory

Back in the 18th century or even the 19th century in order to share information people would have to send letters or write them in a book to get published by a publishing company. Fast forward to the 20th century information can be shared in seconds just by clicking a few keyboards and hitting “enter”. The internet has become a pathway for information to fly through and with the internet comes great innovation that ranges from: air missiles to robots that will clean your house. The internet has brought our society great knowledge and opportunities but also some believe the internet has brought grave danger to our society. One of those firm believers is Chuck Klosterman, author of “Electric Funeral”. Klosterman address the people of the internet,

The Internet, a word that is vaguely observed by the many people of this world, is an idea that plays with people’s minds and manipulates individuals by slowly taking over the way they conduct themselves. A person’s mind and the way they control their daily lives changes as the Net dominates the world of technology. In the novel The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, the Net is expressed through the psychological and mental health of people’s habits. Over time, society has become accustomed to the ways of self-connection and a loss of interpersonal communication, using the Internet as their shield from the communal society. No matter the type of person an individual identifies as or what electronic device

Carr’s factual diction demonstrates his conviction that the internet is causing people to become shallow individuals by saying that it causes a “slow erosion of our humanness and our humanity” and that it “poses a threat to our integrity as human beings.” The first half of his book covers topics about biology and technology, and how those two relates to each other. Then in the second half, he transitions into a detailed explanation about how the internet is actually harmful to us. After reading his thoughts about it, it is clear that the internet is in fact damaging to people.

Throughout history, no single piece of technology has been so heavily relied upon such as the internet. Things such as the first car, the first telephone, and even the first airplanes were not as easily, or readily accessible as the Net is today. In all reality, the internet is the greatest and most useful tool that humanity has ever dreamt up. From instant transferring of data to endless sources of information, the Net not only connects all corners of the world, but makes each and every person more knowledgeable and self-aware. But as with all new and virtuous things, there is a darker and more dangerous side. The internet is a tool that consumes the intellectual, changing the way the brain functions and ultimately creating a reliance. This reliance is so severe that all of life’s functions depend on the internet without the same dependency being reciprocated. The relationship is one sided, where the Net has much to gain while the user has little. Furthermore, in its relatively new state, the internet is very obscure and has very questionable ethics. Although beneficial in specific cases, the internet affects one’s emotional state and latently mars cognitive function while creating a devastatingly powerful and coercive reliance.

According to George Gerbner, cultivation theory says that as time passes more people in the real world of television are easier to believe that social reality resembles the

When discussing internet use, the proverbial double-edged sword is perhaps more evident, and frankly substantially more terrifying, than nearly anything in this information-driven society because it’s cutting edge goes relatively unnoticed, leaving a swath of carnage in its wake. In his piece for The Telegraph, Carr supports his concern that dependence on the internet and the wealth of instantly accessible information is leaving us “blind to the damage we may be doing to our intellectual lives and even our culture” (p.19).

In Growing Up With Television: Cultivation Process, Morgan, Shanahan and Signorielli assert that “long-term exposure to television tends to cultivate the image of a relatively mean and dangerous world (Morgan et al., 2009).” Rooted in the amount of time spent consuming content, the mean world syndrome is central to Gerber’s Cultivation Theory, or Effect. The theory states that they are viewing habits range from light to medium to heavy. Although subjective, the amount of time spent consuming content is a key component of cultivation effect. Morgan et al., noted that “the relative difference in viewing levels are more important than the specific amount of viewing (Morgan et al, 2009).”

Throughout the years the impact of the internet on society has evolved in many different ways. Since the creation of the internet its purpose in society has also evolved in various ways. At its simplest the internet is a tool that can be used for communication. As many of us know the internet is a flexible tool unlike any others that one can shape to fulfill their vision. In recent years the internet has emerged as a major source for information entertainment, and news, and other various means of communication. The internet has revolutionized the way in which the media operates. The media uses the internet as a tool to get information to the masses. Before the internet

Have you ever thought about the way you watch television? One way is to watch live television, mainly sports games and news broadcasts, but the other, more common way is to watch by DVR (digital video recorder). I am unable to watch my shows until the weekend, but thanks to my DVR, I am able to catch up on all of the ones I had missed during the week due to school and/or extracurriculars. Because I can watch what some would call excessive amounts of television using my DVR, I have become incredibly invested in the worlds portrayed on my screen, using these worlds as a more credible source of reality than the actual world in which I live. This is what George Gerbner, a professor who holds both a master's degree and a doctoral degree in communications, calls "cultivation theory" (Jamieson and Romer 31).

With the introduction of the Internet, there has been a global shift in our human culture. A profound, intense change in which every one of us has been impacted by, and one that has never been so pervasive or immediate as the one we have seen grow with each passing day. Now, the Internet was conceived with the purest of notions, where the intentions were good and the purpose was true: a glorified, all-encompassing systematic collection of the world’s expressions, where ideas, thoughts, reforms, and opinions can circle the globe, for conversations to be sparked and a global culture to be established. However, through the passage of time, certain facets of the Internet have become polluted, perverse even, where the malicious and ill willed could

In Esther Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”, the existence of the internet is seen as potentially dangerous to today’s society. Dyson insists that the internet was once a sanctuary for tech savvy individuals such as gamers and professionals like engineers. The author focuses on the negative websites and communities that are often found offensive to the majority. She thinks the World Wide Web harbors a lot of power. This power can be accessed and conquered easily by most of the population. According to Dyson, responsibility is the key to changing the future (295). Her argument is convincing but slightly unrealistic. The internet seems to be growing into a whole other alternate universe. Society’s rapidly growing technology industry will only be harder to regulate. Most people will do what they want, when they want especially when it comes to the internet.

Cultivation theory is a method to study what viewers are seeing in television shows, and is based on their beliefs and attitudes. It focuses on patterns of images that have been exposed repeated and over a long period. In cultivation analysis, that determines concepts of social reality, there is the process know as mainstreaming. It is when television symbols monopolize and dominate other sources of information and ideas about the world, especially in a heavy television viewers (Baran, & Davis, 2012, p. 334). If the viewership of a television drama features doctors in a negatively way and start to relate towards their doctors this way in the real society then this research method fits perfectly.

In his essay “The Net Is a Waste of Time,” novelist William Gibson analyzes the hidden potentials of the Internet in both its vastness and affect on society. He writes this piece at the dawn of the Internet, and during this undeveloped phase, he discusses its multitude of facts as is and will be. As hinted in the title of his essay, Gibson takes the stance that the Internet at its early stages is a waste of time -- an impressively large and complex waste of time -- but a waste of time nonetheless. He is ultimately concerned with how we are choosing to procrastinate through the Internet, and that our growing attachment and dependence on the Internet reveals a “fatal naïveté” (697) about us. Gibson also brings up the true enormity of the Web even at its premature standing, detailing how “the content of the Web aspires the absolute variety. One might find anything there. It is like rummaging in the forefront of the collective global mind” (697). Despite his concerns on what the Web might become, Gibson realizes that at the time of his writing, the Web was at a stage much like the larval stage of a butterfly’s life -- seems unassuming, but as he himself puts it, “The Web is new, and our response to it has not yet hardened” (697), and that there are “big changes afoot” (696).

Cultivation theory was created by George Gerbner, founder of the cultural environment movement and dean of communications at the University of Pennsylvania. Cultivation theory deals with the content of television and how it affects and shapes society for television viewers. The theory suggests that the violence embedded in television causes regular viewers to form exaggerated beliefs of society as a meaner and scary world. This is known as mean world syndrome. Although less than one percent of the population are victims of violent crimes in any one year period, heavy exposure to violent crimes through television can lead to the belief that no one can be trusted in what

The Cultivation theory is probably one amongst the foremost debated and polemic theories within the field of communications. It states that television has become the most supply of storytelling in today’s society and also the combined result of huge tv exposure by viewers over time subtly shapes the perception of social reality for people and for the culture as a full (Gerbner,1976). In alternative words during a serious television watchers mind, art is the imitation of life.