Cultivation Theory

This past weekend I saw the cultivation theory being used with one of my roommates. My roommate watches a lot of crime shows such as NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Dexter. For the most part these are the only shows she watches and has seen almost every episode of each series. She is always talking about what happens in these what goes on, on these shows and how it could really happen. For example she talks about how someone on one of her shows walked out of her back down in the middle of the night and was kidnapped. She is always worried and watching her watching her back in situations that she thinks could be potentially dangerous. Every time she leaves the house she has to turn the porch light on and check for people outside before she can walk outside. I found this to be so strange because I always just walk out of the door without thinking twice about it.

Over the weekend my roommate and I left our house in the evening. The first she did when we were ready to leave was turn the porch light on. She wanted to make sure that we came home to a lit house, and she did not want people to know that no one was home at our house, because dark houses are likely to get broken into. At first I thought she was just being cautious because maybe she had a real life experience when something bad happened. Then I realized she was being extra carefully because she watches so many crime shows and has a built up fear that what she has receptively seen on television will actually happen to her in real life. When I noticed this behavior I thought about the cultivation theory and how this theory applies to my roommate and what she experiences through watching certain television shows.