Cultivation theory

Passive audience theory

Professor George Gerbner developed cultivation theory in the 1960s. 

According to Cultivation Theory, media exposure influences a viewer's perceptions of reality, focusing on three aspects: institutions, messages, and the public. In practice, popular media images and ideological messages heavily influence real-world perceptions. The more people consume media, the more one‘s perceptions shift. Such images and messages, especially when repeated, contribute to the culture that they depict. Cultivation Theory seeks to understand how long-term exposure to television programming, with its recurring patterns of messages and images, can contribute to people's shared assumptions about the world.