The word “cultivation” is defined as “the process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill.” The Cultivation Theory is considered a social theory that delves into the long-term effects of television. Cultivation Theory is about the misperception/misinterpretation of what is true in our world. Gerber believes that modern television has surpassed religion as the key storyteller in our culture and that heavy television viewing creates an “exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world. J. Cohen and G. Weimann argue that “the primary proposition of the cultivation theory states that the more time people spend ‘living’ in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social ‘reality’ portrayed on television.”

George Gerber argues that the Cultivation Process is like the pull of a gravitational field and the magnitude of TV’s influence is not the same for every viewer, but everyone IS affected by it.” Gerber describes three prongs that constitute the Cultivation Theory. The first prong is the Institutional Process which includes research that addresses scholars’ concerns for the reasons why media produce the message they do. Secondly, is the Message System Analysis which utilizes content analysis to study what exactly are the messages that TV projects. The third prong of the Cultivation Theory is the Cultivation Analysis which deals with how TV’s content might affect viewers.

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023%2FA%3A1018709905920.pdf