IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/meanco/v2y2014i2p31-41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Violence in Popular U.S. Prime Time TV Dramas and the Cultivation of Fear: A Time Series Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Romer

    (Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA)

  • Patrick Jamieson

    (Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA)

Abstract

Gerbner and Gross’s cultivation theory predicts that prolonged exposure to TV violence creates fear of crime, symptomatic of a mean world syndrome. We tested the theory’s prediction in a time series model with annual changes in violence portrayal on popular US TV shows from 1972 to 2010 as a predictor of changes in public perceptions of local crime rates and fear of crime. We found that contrary to the prediction that TV violence would affect perceptions of crime rates, TV violence directly predicted fear of crime holding constant national crime rates and perceptions of crime rates. National crime rates predicted fear of crime but only as mediated by perceptions of local crime rates. The findings support an interpretation of cultivation theory that TV drama transports viewers into a fictive world that creates fear of crime but without changing perceptions of a mean world.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Romer & Patrick Jamieson, 2014. "Violence in Popular U.S. Prime Time TV Dramas and the Cultivation of Fear: A Time Series Analysis," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(2), pages 31-41.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v2:y:2014:i:2:p:31-41
    DOI: 10.17645/mac.v2i2.8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/8
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/mac.v2i2.8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deighton, John & Romer, Daniel & McQueen, Josh, 1989. "Using Drama to Persuade," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(3), pages 335-343, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Randy K Lippert & Jolina Scalia, 2015. "Attaching Hollywood to a Surveillant Assemblage: Normalizing Discourses of Video Surveillance," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(3), pages 26-38.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dessart, Laurence & Pitardi, Valentina, 2019. "How stories generate consumer engagement: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 183-195.
    2. Cao, Xinyue & Qu, Zhirui & Liu, Yan & Hu, JiaJing, 2021. "How the destination short video affects the customers' attitude: The role of narrative transportation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Kai Dominik Renchen, 2020. "Influencer Impact on Brand Awareness: A Mixed Method Survey in the German Fashion Segment," European Journal of Business Science and Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics, vol. 6(2), pages 138-153.
    4. La Torre, Matteo & Dumay, John & Rea, Michele Antonio & Abhayawansa, Subhash, 2020. "A journey towards a safe harbour: The rhetorical process of the International Integrated Reporting Council," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    5. Paul J. H. Schoemaker, 2023. "Exploring scenario planning through controlled experimentation: Commentary on Derbyshire et al. (2022)," Futures & Foresight Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(2), June.
    6. Brian Hughes & Cynthia Miller-Idriss & Rachael Piltch-Loeb & Beth Goldberg & Kesa White & Meili Criezis & Elena Savoia, 2021. "Development of a Codebook of Online Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric to Manage COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-18, July.
    7. Appel, Markus, 2022. "Affective resistance to narrative persuasion," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 850-859.
    8. AJILORE Kolade Ph.D. & AROWA O. Oladipo, 2022. "Contemporary Issues on Usage of Humour and Drama Advertising Appeals in Television Advertising in Nigeria: A Conceptual Review," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(10), pages 792-799, October.
    9. Shuili Du & Edward Vieira, 2012. "Striving for Legitimacy Through Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Oil Companies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(4), pages 413-427, November.
    10. Hamby, Anne & Daniloski, Kim & Brinberg, David, 2015. "How consumer reviews persuade through narratives," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1242-1250.
    11. Arora, Anshu Saxena & Sivakumar, K. & Pavlou, Paul A., 2021. "Social capacitance: Leveraging absorptive capacity in the age of social media," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 342-356.
    12. Ardelet, Caroline & Slavich, Barbara & de Kerviler, Gwarlann, 2015. "Self-referencing narratives to predict consumers' preferences in the luxury industry: A longitudinal study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 2037-2044.
    13. Sun, Yuan & Chen, Jin & Sundar, S. Shyam, 2024. "Chatbot ads with a human touch: A test of anthropomorphism, interactivity, and narrativity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    14. Flurry, L. A. & Burns, Alvin C., 2005. "Children's influence in purchase decisions: a social power theory approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(5), pages 593-601, May.
    15. Tjaša Alegro & Maja Turnšek, 2020. "Striving to Be Different but Becoming the Same: Creativity and Destination Brands’ Promotional Videos," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.
    16. Shuili Du & C. B. Bhattacharya & Sankar Sen, 2011. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Competitive Advantage: Overcoming the Trust Barrier," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(9), pages 1528-1545, March.
    17. Elodie Jarrier & Dominique Bourgeon-Renault & Maud Derbaix & Christine Petr, 2017. "Narrative transportation scale: Measure development for transmedia experience," Post-Print hal-02139849, HAL.
    18. Yi-Ching Hsieh & Hung-Chang Chiu & Yun-Chia Tang & Chen-Hao Liu, 2018. "Understanding the influences of story elements in service businesses," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 12(3), pages 601-619, September.
    19. Shuili Du & C.B. Bhattacharya & Sankar Sen, 2010. "Corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: Overcoming the trust barrier," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-10-006, ESMT European School of Management and Technology.
    20. Quesenberry, Keith A. & Coolsen, Michael K., 2019. "Drama Goes Viral: Effects of Story Development on Shares and Views of Online Advertising Videos," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-16.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v2:y:2014:i:2:p:31-41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.