Conceptualizing Television Viewing in the Digital Age: Patterns of Exposure and the Cultivation Process
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses March 2018 Conceptualizing television viewing in the digital age: Patterns of exposure and the cultivation process Lisa Prince University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation Prince, Lisa, "Conceptualizing television viewing in the digital age: Patterns of exposure and the cultivation process" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1186. https://doi.org/10.7275/11216509.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1186 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONCEPTUALIZING TELEVISION VIEWING IN THE DIGITAL AGE: PATTERNS OF EXPOSURE AND THE CULTIVATION PROCESS A Dissertation Presented by LISA PRINCE Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2018 Communication © Copyright by Lisa Prince 2018 All Rights Reserved CONCEPTUALIZING TELEVISION VIEWING IN THE DIGITAL AGE: PATTERNS OF EXPOSURE AND THE CULTIVATION PROCESS A Dissertation Presented by LISA PRINCE Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________ Michael Morgan, Chair _________________________________ Erica Scharrer, Member _________________________________ Wenona Rymond-Richmond, Member ___________________________________ Mari Castañeda, Department Head Department of Communication ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Michael Morgan, for invaluable wisdom and guidance throughout the writing process. I would like to thank my parents, who are truly the most dedicated, caring, and supportive individuals in the world; words can't express my gratitude for all you have done for me from day one. I want to thank my husband, whose faith in me and endless patience throughout this process was unwavering. I am so happy your steadfast belief that I would become Dr. Prince was actually realized. And finally, to Lester and Jonathan, for being the most loyal study buddies imaginable. iv ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALIZING TELEVISION VIEWING IN THE DIGITAL ERA: PATTERNS OF EXPOSURE AND THE CULTIVATION PROCESS FEBRUARY, 2018 LISA PRINCE, B.A. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA M.A., TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Michael Morgan With an ever-increasing variety of platforms, devices and services to choose from, new media technologies have altered and transformed the television viewing experience. With television more accessible and convenient than ever, viewers are consuming even more content, ensuring that television continues to dominate the cultural landscape. Therefore, it is imperative to understand how television viewing in the current media environment impacts audiences. For more than fifty years, cultivation theory has proven to be an enduring and generative research approach to understanding how exposure to the world of television shapes audiences' views of social reality. However, no cultivation study to date has addressed the question of how different television technologies and patterns of viewing intervene in the cultivation process. This study fills this void by examining this unexplored area of cultivation research. A questionnaire was developed that measured television exposure in the current media environment, specifically focusing on the use of new and traditional viewing platforms, devices, and services. These new and traditional forms of exposure were presented along with measures of overall viewing, demographic control items, and traditional measures of cultivation outcomes, including estimates of violence, crime, and the distribution of law enforcement in the workforce, and second order measures including mean world views and politically moderate ideology. Employing a cross- v sectional research design, five hundred and nine adults completed the questionnaire designed for this study. In order to investigate the impact of new and traditional forms of exposure on the cultivation process, regression analyses were conducted for each cultivation outcome, with overall exposure serving as the independent variable, and each new and traditional form of exposure serving as a moderating variable. Each regression analysis tested the interaction between overall exposure and each respective moderating variable to determine whether the interaction significantly predicted the cultivation outcome. For each of the significant interactions, further analyses were conducted to specifically examine how cultivation outcomes varied across levels of exposure as a function of the moderator variable. The patterns of conditional effects reveal the ways in which traditional and new forms of exposure both differentially and similarly impacted the cultivation process. And, there is evidence, albeit mixed, that new and traditional forms of exposure differentially impact cultivation outcomes. This study serves as a starting point for future analysis and avenues of inquiry into what was previously an unexplored area of cultivation research: the implications of new and traditional forms of viewing on the cultivation process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................. x LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................ xii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................... 1 Television Today.......................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical Approach................................................................................................... 4 Study Rationale and Overview..................................................................................... 6 2. CULTIVATION THEORY........................................................................................... 9 Origins and Formative Research.................................................................................. 9 Theoretical Advancement and Refinement.................................................................. 13 Cognitive Processes................................................................................................ 19 Cultivation and the New Media Environment.............................................................. 24 3. METHODOLOGY........................................................................................................ 40 Procedures.................................................................................................................... 40 Sample.......................................................................................................................... 42 Measures....................................................................................................................... 44 Independent Variable: Overall Television Exposure............................................. 44 Television Viewing Environment Variables.......................................................... 45 Platform Exposure...................................................................................... 45 Television Set Viewing.............................................................................. 45 Live and Time-Shifted Viewing................................................................. 46 Diversity..................................................................................................... 47 Dependent Variables.............................................................................................. 48 First Order Estimates.................................................................................. 48 Second Order Outcomes............................................................................. 50 Research Questions and Planned Analyses.................................................................. 52 4. RESULTS...................................................................................................................... 72 Sample Demographics and Overall Viewing............................................................... 72 Distribution of New and Traditional Forms of Exposure............................................ 75 Viewing Styles—Patterns of Exposure........................................................................ 79 Forms of Viewing and Overall Exposure..................................................................... 84 Classic Cultivation Analysis—The Impact of Overall Exposure................................. 111 Traditional and New Forms of Exposure and the Cultivation Process........................ 115 Platform Exposure—Impact on Cultivation........................................................... 122 Laptop Computer.......................................................................................