Cultivation and Counter Cultivation: Does Religiosity Shape the Relationship between Television Viewing and Estimates of Crime Prevalence and Assessment of Victimization Likelihood?

Abstract

Religiosity may change the direction of the effect of TV viewing on assessment of the likelihood of personal victimization and estimates concerning crime prevalence. A content analysis of a representative sample of TV programming (56 hours of prime-time shows) was done to identify the most common crimes on television, followed by a survey of a representative sample of the adult public in a large urban district (778 respondents) who were asked to estimate the prevalence of these crimes and to assess the likelihood of themselves being victimized. People who defined themselves as non-religious increased their estimates of prevalence for crimes often depicted on TV, as they reported more time watching TV (ordinary cultivation effect), whereas estimates regarding the prevalence of crime and assessment of victimization likelihood among religious respondents were lower with reports of more time devoted to television viewing (counter-cultivation effect).