Michael Morgan

This is a meta-analysis of 460 effect sizes, from 66 independent samples, comparing social media usage to a variety of attitudes and beliefs, from the perspective of cultivation theory. We found an overall effect size of .123 and identified several significant moderators. Our analyses revealed higher effects for studies looking at exposure to specific types of content (as compared with general social media use), for younger samples, and for Asian samples. Observed effects were lower when active use was measured. We discuss our results in regard to the applicability of cultivation theory to the study of the effects of social media.

In the last decades, there have been substantial changes in public attitudes toward gender roles and in television’s landscape and messages. Our meta-analysis of nearly 50 years of studies of television’s contribution to gender role attitudes is based on 485 effect sizes from 69 independent samples (N = 57,542) and reveals an overall effect size of .102. While we found no evidence of any decline of this association over time, it is significantly weaker for gender role attitudes related to the public sphere. Our findings imply that television viewing may strengthen an “egalitarian essentialism ideology,” that is, a discrepancy between the endorsement of gender equity in the public sphere/workplace and the persistence of traditional views regarding the private/domestic sphere.

Since the earliest days of mass media, researchers, social critics, politicians, and the general public have been concerned about the extent to which media representations reflect or deviate from “reality.” Over the years, a great deal of research and public debate have revolved around the kinds of images of the world that are created and disseminated by media, and how they compare to the “real world” as revealed by official statistics or other objective indicators (→ Media and Perceptions of Reality).