Cultivation theory and Torture

In class we learned about George Gerbner's Cultivation Theory. George studied the affects of violence in the media. People are not more violent because of violence they see on T.V. but it is the exact opposite. The more violence people watch the more they think they will be the victim of violence. Although crime in the United States has actually gone down in the last decade, people are more fearful because there is so much violence portrayed on television and by the media that people think crimes are happening in large numbers all of the time.

We also watched a video on torture by John Oliver. In the video the use of torture to get information has been proven to not be effective. Even though it has been proven over and over that torture is not effective the majority of the population believe that torture is a good means for military/government personnel to use. I think that this indicates that our population is highly affected by the torture scenes we see on television and in the movies. This shows that George Gerbner's cultivation theory is true. People see these torture techniques work on movies and believe they will be useful in real life even after proven to be false.

I think it is very unfortunate the hold media has over our own personal thinking and society/culture as a whole. It is like the more television you watch the more ignorant you become to important issues.