Cultivation Theory

George Gerbner was born on August 8th 1919 in the city of Budapest in Hungary. Gerbner emigrated to the USA in 1939 and was a professor of communication and founder of the cultivation theory.

Gerbner tracked the amount of violence that was being portrayed during prime time television and found that 80% of the material had violent content. George then put television viewers into two groups this included:

• Light Viewers: This type of viewer watches 2 hours or less of television daily
• Heavy Viewers: This type of viewer watches 4 hours or more of television daily. 

He predicted that heavy viewers would perceive the world as a more dangerous place, as these viewers would have higher exposure to violence on television. From this theory, the idea that television influences people has been used through the years, for example parents blame the media for showing violence to children when their children behave badly.

The theory suggests that people who watch more television become more racist, more violent and unaware of what television and realiy is.

This can be applied to horror films, as the viewers who watch the horror films cna become confused on what reality is. So after watching these type of films the viewers can become paranoid about what is real and what is fake, however some film trailers include ''based of a true story'' which scares the audience as this makes them believe that everything in the trailer is real.