Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Man-woman relationships; Man-woman relationships in motion pictures; Motion pictures--Psychological aspects; Academic theses;
Abstract
Cultivation theory was only applied to the realm of media violence in previous academic studies, thus research needs to address the impact of this particular phenomena on a different sub-genre within society. Hence, romantic relationships and the application of intra-psychic or cultural scripting from Hollywood film, to peoples' interpersonal relationships in their lived realities. This research sets out to answer various questions relating to the broad topic of film audiences' perceptions of romantic relationships and as to whether they apply or act out what they have seen on the silver screen. This research aims to investigate such phenomena as: Do people learn how to behave in romantic relationships from Hollywood film? Do they perceive their love lives to be fairytales and how should a member of the opposite sex be treated in an intimate interpersonal relationship? The research project used survey research and Interviews in order to perform triangulation to determine film audiences' perceptions of romantic relationships. Participants' were recruited by a snowball sampling technique and consisted of both undergraduate and graduate students who completed the Perceptions of Romance in Reality Scale, which was an instrument developed by the researcher. After data collection was completed 6 couples were contacted and qualitatively interviewed. The Interviews were transcribed and analyzed for potential themes and the survey data was coded using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.) Major findings found were that in general terms participants' acted differently around their romantic partners after they had viewed romance in Hollywood film. They also were said to display behaviours that they had seen in film. Finally, it was found through quantitative analysis of data that the more participants' watched the romantic film genre the more they perceived that their own Interpersonal relationships would be like fairytales in terms of romance. This was usually related to their changes in attitude to their partners (e.g., getting more intimate) after viewing romantic films together. Overall, cultivation theory was supported and extended the current literature by being applied to romantic relationships; contrasted with perceptions of romance in Hollywood film. Increased theoretical integration will be necessary in order to fully maximize the potential of cultivation theory, and to extend academic scholarship within the field of mass communications.
Year of Submission
2005
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Communication Studies
First Advisor
Christopher R. Martin
Second Advisor
Paul D. Turman
Third Advisor
Ronnie Bankston
Date Original
2005
Object Description
1 PDF file (115 leaves)
Copyright
©2005 Nicholas Jensen
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Jensen, Nicholas, "Media Reality Versus Lived Reality: The Application of Cultivation Theory to a Film Audience’s Perceptions of Romantic Relationships" (2005). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 3060.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/3060
Comments
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