Two articles summary

The Cultivation, Mainstreaming, and Cognitive Processing of Environmentalists Watching Television Jennifer Ellen Good

Cultivation theory research has found a relationship between heavier viewing of

television and less concern about the natural environment. The current research delves

further into this issue by exploring how environmentalists’ television viewing is related to

their attitudes about the environment. The findings indicate that when overall television

viewing is the independent variable, there are cultivation and mainstreaming effects for

environmentalists (i.e., environmentalists who were heavy viewers of television scored

lower on the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale than lighter viewing

environmentalists, and were more similar to the general public in their environmental

attitudes than lighter viewers). The findings also show that the cultivation effects are

related to need for cognition (NFC) and attention to television (such that those with

higher NFC, and those who pay more attention to television, have lower scores on the

NEP scale). When non-fiction programming is the independent variable, however,

heavier television viewers score higher on the NEP, and NFC and attention to television

do not relate to the cultivation effect.

Keywords: Environment; Television; Cultivation Theory; Cognitive Processing

Introduction

In this age of climate change, what the United Nations Environment Programme has

called the ‘‘the number one issue of our times’’ (www.unep.org), the need for

environmental concern and action has never been greater. Therefore, research that

Jennifer Ellen Good is an Associate Professor at Brock University, Department of Communication, Popular

Culture and Film, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Canada. Email: [email protected]. An earlier version of this paper

was presented at the National Communication Association annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts,

November 2005.

ISSN 1752-4032 (print)/ISSN 1752-4040 (online) # 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17524030903229746

Environmental Communication

Vol. 3, No. 3, November 2009, pp. 279�297

focuses on those people who are most likely to be concerned about and take action

for the environment, people we might categorize as ‘‘environmentalists,’’ is valuable.

This paper focuses on one aspect of environmentalists’ lives, television viewing,

and investigates how use of this medium is related to their attitudes about the

environment. Cultivation theory is used to look at this relationship and further

analysis is done to investigate the possible role of two types of cognitive processing:

need for cognition (NFC) and attention to television. Addressing climate change, and

the myriad other environmental concerns we currently face, will require widespread

and dedicated attention; understanding those who have an underlying interest in

helping the environment seems of utmost importance.

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Environmental Cultivation

Cultivation theory seeks to explore the relationship between television viewing and

how we understand the world around us. Specifically, cultivation theorists propose,

and their research has shown, that heavier viewers of television are more likely than

lighter viewers to draw on television’s portrayal of reality in order to answer questions

about the world in which they live (see, for example, Gerbner & Gross, 1976;

Shanahan & Morgan, 1999). One area of cultivation research, which might be called

‘‘environmental cultivation,’’ has focused on the relationship between television

viewing and attitudes about the natural environment. Environmental cultivation

research has found that heavier viewers of television can be more apathetic and less

concerned than lighter viewers about the state of the natural environment (Good,

2007; Good & Shanahan, 2002; Shanahan, 1993; Shanahan & McComas, 1999;

Shanahan, Morgan, & Stenbjerre, 1997). Explanations for why this ‘‘environmental

cultivation effect’’ exists have taken three forms.

First, time displacement or the idea that the more time spent watching television,

the less available time there is to spend ‘‘in nature.’’ The implications for less time in

the outdoors have been conjectured about in many writings, and Louv’s (2005) Last

Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder provides an

excellent overview of the research in this area. A second proposal for why there is this

environmental cultivation effect is symbolic annihilation (Shanahan & McComas,

1999) or the cultivation phenomenon proposing that when television does not

present a type of person, issue, etc., heavy viewers do not have an opportunity to

learn about, or even think about, that type of person, topic, etc. In other words,

cultivation research has shown that fictional television has very little environmental

programming (McComas, Shanahan, & Butler, 2001) and in the absence of such

programming, heavy viewers would not receive content that would inform them

about the environment or otherwise encourage them to think about the environment.

A third idea for why there is an environmental cultivation effect is related to

materialism. Research has shown that heavier viewers of television are more

materialistic than lighter viewers of television and materialism has been shown to

280 J. E. Good

mediate the relationship between television and attitudes about the environment

(Good, 2007). Through a testing of type of programming, two aspects of cognitive

processing, and a focus on a specific population, environmentalists, this paper

furthers our understanding of the environmental cultivation effect.

Environmental cultivation studies have made use of a variety of sampling

techniques*Good (2007) used a national random sample, Good and Shanahan (2002) used the 2000 General Social Survey, while Shanahan (1993), Shanahan and

McComas (1999), and Shanahan et al. (1997) made use of college student convenience

samples. Environmental cultivation research that makes use of ‘‘environmentalists,’’ 1

however, has been limited to Good’s (2007) study on environmental cultivation and

materialism which found that there was a cultivation effect for members of an

environmental organization (i.e., the more television they watched, the less concern

they had for the environment). Based on this previous research, the following

hypothesis is proposed:

H1: There will be a cultivation effect for environmentalists (i.e., the heavier the

television viewing by environmentalists, the less concern they will have for the

natural environment).

Cultivation research has, historically, made use of television measures based on

overall viewing of fictional programming as this is the type of programming that is most

frequently watched. Some researchers have, however, looked at cultivation outcomes

associated with specific genres of programming, for example, O’Guin and Shrum’s

(1997) research on heavy viewers of soap operas and heavy viewers of L.A. Law. The

current study makes use of a general measure of television viewing as well as a measure

of environmental (and other non-fiction) programming. Given that this sort of genre-

specific cultivation research is the exception in cultivation research, the expectation of

what the relationship between programming and attitudes will be is unclear. The

content of environmental and non-fiction programming would, presumably, be quite

different from the content of fictional programming (i.e., Shanahan & McComas, 1999,

found that environmental themes were much more likely in news than fictional

programming). Some cultivation theorists have proposed that heavy viewers draw on

television to answer questions about the real world because television’s content is most

accessible to them (i.e., Shrum, 2001). As such, we might expect heavier viewing of

environmental and non-fiction programming by environmentalists to be associated

with greater environmental concern (i.e., because environmentally ‘‘positive’’ pro-

gramming is more prevalent in environmental/non-fiction programming and

environmentally ‘‘negative’’ content such as advertising and materialistic messages is

less prevalent). However, one area of speculation about why there is an environmental

cultivation effect (explored above), is that heavier viewers of television experience time

displacement such that the more time people spend watching television, the less time

they have available to spend in the environment (which would continue to be the case

with environmental and non-fiction television viewing). Given these contradictory

expectations, the following research question is offered:

Environmental Cultivation 281

RQ1: What is the relationship between environmentalists’ viewing of environ- mental/non-fiction television programming and their attitudes about the environment?

Mainstreaming

The concept of mainstreaming was developed by cultivation researchers to focus on

the potential interaction of demographic variables. ‘‘[M]ainstreaming means that

heavy viewing may absorb or override differences in perspectives and behavior which

ordinarily stem from other factors and influences’’ (Shanahan & Morgan, 1999, p. 73).

For example, Shanahan and McComas (1999) compared environmental concern for

politically active and less politically active individuals and found that television

viewing decreased environmental concern for both groups but much more so for the

politically active group. The mainstreaming relationship that might exist for

environmentalists and those who do not necessarily have such predispositions (i.e.,

the ‘‘general public’’), has not been explored.

We would expect there to be differences in environmental attitudes between

environmentalists and members of the general public because environmentalists, by

definition, tend to be more concerned about, interested in, etc., the environment

than, on average, members of the general public. According to the concept of

mainstreaming, we would expect these differences to continue to be present when the

environmentalists and members of the general public are light viewers of television,

but we would expect the attitudinal differences to be smaller when environmentalists

and members of the general public are heavy viewers of television. In other words, we

would expect that television’s ‘‘gravitational pull,’’ that Shanahan and Morgan (1999,

p. 73) refer to, would be greater for environmentalists, whose attitudes are farther

from the messages contained in television’s mainstream, than for members of the

general public, whose attitudes are closer to that of the mainstream. Or as Shrum and

Bischak (2001) offer, ‘‘those whose life experiences are more discrepant from the

world of television are the most likely to be influence by the television message’’

(p. 190). As such:

H2: There will be a mainstreaming effect for environmentalists’ attitudes about the natural environment (i.e., heavy television viewing environmentalists’ attitudes about the natural environment will be more similar to the general public’s attitudes about the natural environment than light viewing environmentalists’ attitudes about the natural environment).

Attention to Television and Need for Cognition

The question of how cognitive processing might help to explain cultivation research has

not historically been of interest to cultivation researchers. As Shanahan and Morgan

(1999) state: ‘‘Indeed, we believe that to become sidetracked by the peculiarities of how

individuals receive, process, interpret, remember and act on messages can distract

attention from the more central questions of cultivation research’’ (p. 172). That said,

282 J. E. Good

researchers have more recently turned to cognitive processing as a way of furthering our

understanding of cultivation relationships. This paper explores whether the NFC and

attention to television affect the strength of the relationship between television viewing

and attitudes about the environment.

A handful of cognitive theories have been proposed and tested to explain the

relationship between heavy viewing of television and the tendency to draw on

television content to answer questions about the real world (see Shanahan & Morgan,

1999, for an overview of the research). The research that has garnered the most

promising results, and, arguably, has been truest to the underlying tenets of

cultivation theory, is the work of L.J. Shrum (e.g., Shrum, 2001, 2007; Shrum,

Burroughs, & Rindfleisch, 2005).

Shrum, Burroughs, and Rindfleisch (2003) and Shrum et al. (2005) break the study of

the cognition of the cultivation effect into three components: (1) Whether the

dependent variable that is being tested taps into perceptions of ‘‘set-size/probability

judgments’’ (i.e., the researcher asks for the subject’s estimate of the likelihood of

something happening, frequency of an occurrence, etc.) or explores values and attitudes

(i.e., emotions, likes, dislikes, etc.); (2) When television viewing has its impact (i.e., at

the time the viewing is taking place or after viewing when the information is processed

and stored in memory); (3) How judgments, values, and attitudes are cognitively

constructed (i.e., at the time the question is asked or stored in memory). The current

study, therefore, draws on these three components to investigate how the cognitive

variables of NFC and attention to television may be related to the relationship between

environmentalists’ television viewing and their attitudes about the natural environment.

Need for Cognition

Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) elaboration likelihood model (ELM) explores what

motivates individuals to process information. Understanding what motivates someone

to process information is important as processing is a strong predictor of attitude

change (i.e., the greater the motivation and ability to process, the greater the degree of

attitude change). The NFC scale was developed by Petty and Cacioppo (1986) to tap

into an individual’s underlying interest in thinking and problem solving (i.e.,

information processing).

Shrum et al. (2003) found that the relationship between television viewing and

NFC differed depending on the type of dependent variable. Questions related to set-

size/probability judgments are answered based on heuristic processing that happens

in ‘‘real time.’’ In other words, if a subject was asked, ‘‘What percent of the world’s

forests have been cut down?’’ the answer is not likely to be in the subject’s memory

(perhaps, but unlikely) and, therefore, the subject will heuristically construct an

answer based on information that is most readily accessible (Tversky & Kahneman,

1973). For heavy television viewers, the information that is most readily available is

more likely to be information from television (Shrum, 2001). For set-size/probability

judgments, therefore, television’s influence is post-watching because beliefs about the

world are pieced together based on television’s information at the time the question is

Environmental Cultivation 283

asked. In these situations, NFC should be negatively correlated with, or ‘‘remove,’’ the

cultivation effect. For example, Shrum’s (2001) research showed that when subjects

were encouraged to process systematically, as those higher in NFC are more likely to

do, television’s role in supplying information was lessened and the cultivation effects

were reduced or eliminated.

When questions are related to values and attitudes, however, the role of NFC is

different. In these situations television’s influence is exerted at the time television is

viewed and the values and attitudes that are stored in memory are indistinguishable

from all other values and attitudes stored in memory. In these cases, NFC is positively

correlated with, or ‘‘enhance,’’ the cultivation effect because the higher desire to

process television’s messages is manifest in a stronger internalization of television’s

messages. 2

For example, Shrum et al. (2005) found that the cultivation effect of heavier

viewing being related to greater levels of materialism was stronger for those individuals

higher in NFC. In the current study, participants were asked questions related to values

and attitudes (i.e., questions about environmental values/attitudes). As such:

H3: The environmental cultivation effect (i.e., heavier television viewers as having

less environmental concern) will be stronger for environmentalists who are

higher in NFC.

Attention

The second cognitive process that was explored was attention to television. Cultivation

researchers have traditionally held that television has a cultivation effect in part because

of the ‘‘unselective, ritualistic and habitual’’ way in which people watch television

(Rubin, Perse, & Taylor, 1988, p. 111). People’s perceptions of how much attention they

pay to television is, therefore, not particularly important; what is important is the

overarching meta-exposure. Some researchers (Hawkins & Pingree, 1980; Rubin et al.,

1988), however, have critiqued cultivation theory based on this tendency to overlook

the role of attention to television in the cultivation relationship. Rubin et al. (1988)

found mixed results when they tested the role of viewing attention on a series of social

perceptions (faith in others, life control, interpersonal connection, political efficacy,

and safety). Rubin et al. found that attention to television was unrelated to all of the

social perceptions except for political efficacy (those who paid more attention to

television felt more politically efficacious than those in the ‘‘moderate’’ attention

group). In more recent research, Shrum et al. (2005) found that there was a stronger

cultivation effect for those who pay more attention to television.

Why would attention have this effect? As has been outlined above, television exerts

its influence on attitudes and values at the time of viewing. Environmentalism can be

understood as a collection of values and attitudes, and, therefore, we would expect to

see that the more attention that is paid to television, the more television’s messages

can be incorporated into the individual’s way of understanding the world (in this

case, understanding the environment). Based on this, the following is proposed:

284 J. E. Good

H4: The environmental cultivation effect (i.e., heavier television viewers as having less environmental concern) will be stronger for environmentalists who pay more attention to television.

Methods

Population Samples

In order to explore the cultivation, mainstreaming, and cognitive processing of

environmentalists, a random sample of 1,000 names and addresses, provided free of

charge from the National Parks Conservation Association’s 500,000 member database

(members are people who had donated $35 or more in the last 18 months), was used.

The response rate for the sample was 49% (485 usable surveys*five of the surveys were returned as undeliverable and those names/addresses were removed). The sample was

refined by using the statement, ‘‘I consider myself an environmentalist’’ (added at the

bottom of the New Environmental Paradigm scale*scale discussed below), and including only those respondents who either ‘‘mildly agreed’’ or ‘‘strongly agreed’’; this

left 421 usable surveys. 3

In order to explore whether there is a mainstreaming effect for environmentalists,

a general population sample was created. This ‘‘general sample,’’ a national random

sample of 1000 names and addresses, was purchased from Survey Sampling. The list

was randomly selected from a database of white page telephone directories from

across the country and supplemented with other proprietary information sources.

The response rate for the general list was 34% (295 usable surveys*45 of the surveys were returned as undeliverable and those names/addresses were removed).

The mean age for the environmentalist sample was 62 and 56 for the general sample.

Forty-eight percent of the environmentalist sample was female while the general sample

was weighted toward men, with 31% female. Ninety-eight percent of the environmen-

talist sample and 97% of the general sample had English as their first language. The

environmentalist sample had a four-year college education as the mean level of

schooling while the general sample had ‘‘some college’’ as the mean. The income for the

two lists was similar*the mean for both falling in the $36,000�55,000 range. The majority of the respondents from the environmentalist list were either

professionals (44%) or retired (45%), while the general list had a similar percent of

professionals (45%) with 22% retired and 14% in manual and clerical positions.

Respondents from both lists resided predominantly in the suburbs (54% for the

general sample and 57% for the environmentalist sample), but the general sample

resided in rural areas slightly more than urban areas (26% versus 20%) while this was

reversed for the environmentalist (urban 25% and rural 18%).

Measures and Reliabilities: Independent Variables

Television viewing. In the past, cultivation researchers have tended to rely on people’s

recollections of the number of hours of television they tend to watch for a unit of

time (yesterday, last week, etc.). Shrum and his colleagues (2003, 2005) developed

Environmental Cultivation 285

a six statement Likert scale (five points from strongly disagree to strongly agree) with

statements such as ‘‘I watch less television than most people I know’’ and ‘‘One of the

first things I do in the evening is turn on the television’’ to tap into people’s sense of

relative quantity of viewing without relying on, perhaps inaccurate, recollections of

hours. The higher the score on this scale, the greater the quantity of overall television

viewing. 4

Shrum et al. (2003) found that their scale had a high reliability (a�0.87) and a single dimension (eigenvalue of 3.7 and an average loading of 0.78). The scale

performed similarly in this study with high reliability (a�0.86) and a single dimension (eigenvalue of 3.5 and an average loading of 0.77). The environmentalists

had an average score of 20.9 on the scale. See Appendix A for the six statements that

comprised the scale.

An additive scale that measured viewing of environmental and non-fiction

programming (news and documentaries) was assembled using the following three

elements. First, as part of the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) subjects was offered

the following statement, ‘‘I never watch shows about the environment on television’’

(this was reverse coded and given a value of 1�5). Second, the open-ended request for subjects to ‘‘list any environmental or nature-themed programs that you have watched

recently’’ was coded as 0 (for no mention), 1 (for a single mention) and 2 (for more than

one mention). Third, non-fiction television programming (news or documentaries)

was given a value of 1�5 if it appeared in the ranking of the top five types of television watched most often such that five points were given if news or documentary viewing

was ranked number one, four points if ranked number two, and so on (the programs

were listed out of a total of 13 categories based on Rubin et al., 1988). The higher the

score on this scale, the greater the quantity of environmental and non-fiction television

viewing.

Need for cognition. The two cognitive processing scales were on a five-point Likert scale

(from strongly disagree to strongly agree) and were established scales that have been

developed, tested, and used in previous research. A short form of Cacioppo and Petty’s

(1982) NFC scale (developed by Epstein, Pacini, Dene-Raj, & Heier, 1996) was used to

look at how much people like to process information and wrestle with cognitive

challenges (i.e., ‘‘I don’t like to have to do a lot of thinking’’ and ‘‘I prefer to do

something that challenges my thinking than something that requires little thought’’).

The higher the score on this scale, the greater the NFC. Shrum et al. (2003) made use of

this five-item scale and found that it had a reliability of a�0.65. The NFC scale in the current study had a somewhat higher reliability of a�0.76. The scale loads on a single factor with an eigenvalue�6.5. The NFC scale is, therefore, used as a single construct. See Appendix B for the five statements that comprised this scale.

Attention while viewing. Rubin et al. (1988) developed this five-item, five-point Likert

attention to television viewing scale and found a reliability of a�0.7. More recent use of this scale found higher reliability. Shrum et al. (2003) had a reliability of a�0.85 and the current study had an even stronger reliability of a�0.87.5 The scale loads on a single factor with an eigenvalue�4.2. The attention while viewing scale is, therefore, used as a single construct where higher scores are associated with greater

286 J. E. Good

attention to television while viewing. See Appendix C for the four statements that

comprised this scale.

Measures and Reliabilities: Dependent Variable

Environmental attitudes. Dunlap, VanLiere, Mertig, and Jones’ (2000) NEP scale

consists of 15 statements that are responded to on a five-point Likert scale from strongly

disagree to strongly agree (it is a re-working of Dunlap & VanLiere’s, 1978, earlier NEP

scale). The scale taps into five facets of an ‘‘ecological worldview’’: reality of limits to

growth, anti-anthropocentrism, fragility of nature’s balance, rejection of exemption-

alism (i.e., rejection that humans are exempt from the rest of the environment) and

possibility of an eco-crisis (Dunlap et al., 2000, p. 432). 6

The higher the score on this

scale, the greater the concern for each of these facets of the natural environment. The

reliability for these 15 statements in the current study is a�0.84 (Dunlap et al. found a�0.83). Based on this strong reliability and other tests of internal consistency, Dunlap et al. (2000) suggest treating the scale as a single construct. This is what has been done in

the current study. See Appendix D for the 15 statements that comprised this scale.

Results

The first hypothesis predicted that there would be a cultivation effect for

environmentalists who are heavy viewers of television. In order to test this, a

regression analysis was run with the demographic variables of sex, age, income,

education, area where one lives, and language entered as controls in the first block.

The television viewing scale was then entered in the second block and environmental

attitudes (scores on the NEP scale) was the dependent variable. The regression

analysis revealed that television viewing is a negative predictor of environmental

attitudes for environmentalists such that the higher the score on the television

viewing scale, the lower the score on the NEP scale (��0.13, pB0.01). See Table 1 (Table 1 contains these results and all subsequent regression results discussed below).

The research question asked about the relationship between non-fiction television

programming (environmental programming, news, and documentaries) and atti-

tudes about the environment. In order to explore this, a regression analysis was run

with the demographic variables of sex, age, income, education, area where one lives,

and language entered as controls in the first block. The non-fiction viewing scale was

then entered in the second block and environmental attitudes (scores on the NEP

scale) was the dependent variable. The regression analysis revealed that non-fiction

television viewing was a positive predictor of environmental attitudes for envir-

onmentalists such that the higher the score on the non-fiction television viewing

scale, the higher the score on the NEP scale (�0.18, pB0.001). The second hypothesis predicted that there would be a mainstreaming relationship

for the environmentalists such that heavier television viewing environmentalists would

have scores on the NEP that were more similar to the heavy viewing general

population’s scores, and lower than the scores for light television viewing environ-

mentalists and the light viewing general population. In order to explore this, a

Environmental Cultivation 287

regression analysis was run with the demographic variables of sex, age, income,

education, area where one lives, and language entered as controls in the first block. An

interaction variable (television�sample) was then entered in the second block and environmental attitudes (scores on the NEP scale) was the dependent variable. The

regression analysis revealed that the interaction variable was significant (�0.13, pB 0.01). A line graph of the relationships based on NEP scores for both populations as

light, medium, and heavy television viewers can be found in Figure 1.

In order to test the influence of cognitive processing on the environmental

cultivation effect, additional regression analyses were run on the environmentalist

sample. In each regression analysis, the demographic variables of sex, age, income,

education, area where one lives, and language were entered in the first block. The

television viewing scale was entered in the second block and environmental attitudes

(scores on the NEP scale) was the dependent variable. The analyses were then run on a

‘‘high’’ and ‘‘low’’ scoring conditions of NFC and attention to television where ‘‘high’’

was the top half and the ‘‘low’’ was the bottom half of either NFC or attention to

television.

Table 1 Cultivation regression analyses: environmentalists’ scores on the NEP as they

relate to television viewing and cognitive processing.

Independent variable Dependent variable ß t pB

H1 Television viewing (general) Environmental attitudes (NEP) �0.13 �2.7 0.01

RQ1 Television viewing (non-fiction) Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.19 3.9 0.001

H2 Television viewing/survey Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.13 3.1 0.01 Sex Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.24 6 0.001 School Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.11 0.24 0.05

H3 (High NFC)

Television viewing (general) Environmental attitudes (NEP) �0.19 �2.8 0.01 Television viewing (non-fiction) Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.16 2.4 0.05

(Low NFC) Television viewing (general) Environmental attitudes (NEP) �0.05 �0.7 ns Television viewing (non-fiction) Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.22 3.1 0.05 Sex Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.16 2.2 0.05

H4 (High attention)

Television viewing (general) Environmental attitudes (NEP) �0.21 �3.0 0.01 Television viewing (non-fiction) Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.17 2.5 0.05

(Low attention) Television viewing (general) Environmental attitudes (NEP) �0.03 �0.4 ns Television viewing (non-fiction) Environmental attitudes (NEP) 0.21 2.9 0.01

Note: Only significant betas for exogenous variables are presented. All regressions were run controlling for sex (1�male, 2�female), age, education (1�Jr. high/middle school to 6�Post- graduate work), income (1�less than $10,000 to 5�more than $76,000), language (1�English as first language, 2�other first language), and area lived in (1�urban, 2�suburban, 3�rural).

288 J. E. Good

The third hypothesis predicted that the cultivation effect (i.e., higher levels of

television viewing being associated with lower scores on the NEP scale) would be

stronger for environmentalists higher in NFC. The regression analysis revealed that

the relationship between television viewing and environmental attitudes was not

significant for the low NFC group (��0.08, ns), but the relationship was negative and significant for the high NFC group (��0.14, pB0.05). The regression analyses, therefore, provided support for the third hypothesis.

The fourth hypothesis predicted that the cultivation effect (i.e., higher levels of

television being associated with lower scores on the NEP scale) would be stronger for

those environmentalists who paid more attention to television while viewing. The

regression analysis showed a non-significant result for the low attention group (� �0.02, ns) and a significant negative relationship in the high attention sample (��0.22, pB0.01). This result, therefore, supported hypothesis four.

Given that the cultivation results for the non-fiction programming were so

different from the results for the fictional programming, a decision was made to run

the same cognitive processing regression analyses (i.e., high and low conditions for

NFC and attention to television) with non-fiction programming as the independent

variable and NEP as the dependent variable. Interestingly, the relationship that was

found with fictional programming did not exist for the non-fiction programming

and all four conditions showed significant cultivation effects. Those high in NFC

(�0.16, pB0.05) and low in NFC (�0.22, pB0.01) were both significant and those high in attention to television (�0.13, pB0.05) and low in attention to television (�0.2, pB0.01) were both significant.

Discussion

The results presented in this paper indicate that a group of people who might

reasonably be called environmentalists*people who belong to an environmental organization, consider themselves to be environmentalists and who, on average, score

45

47

49

51

53

55

57

59

61

63

low medium high

Environmentalist sample

General population sampleN

E P

S co

re

Level of television viewing

Figure 1. Scores on the new environmental paradigm scale according to sample and level

of television viewing.

Environmental Cultivation 289

a full 10 points higher on the NEP scale than the general public average*have attitudes about the environment that relate to their television viewing and their

cognitive processing of that viewing.

At a fundamental level, the more television environmentalists watch, the less

concern they have for the natural environment. This phenomenon has been found in

a variety of other studies with general population samples (Good, 2007; Good &

Shanahan, 2002; Shanahan, 1993; Shanahan & McComas, 1999; Shanahan et al.,

1997). Explanations for why this ‘‘environmental cultivation effect’’ might exist have

taken three forms. First, time displacement, or the idea that the more time spent

watching television, the less time there is to spend ‘‘in nature.’’ Second, symbolic

annihilation or the cultivation phenomenon proposing that when television does not

present a type of person, an issue, etc., heavy viewers do not have an opportunity to

learn about, think about, etc., that type of person, topic, etc. (and cultivation research

(McComas et al., 2001) has shown that fictional television does not have much

environmental programming). Third, materialism, or the idea that heavier viewers of

television are exposed to more messages about materialism than lighter viewers of

television and materialism seems to be fairly incompatible with concern for the

environment (Good, 2007).

The finding that the more television environmentalists watch, the less concern they

have for the environment, highlights that, as with studies done on general population

samples, environmentalists are not inure to these (and, no doubt other) factors when

they watch television. The finding that there is a mainstreaming effect indicates that

not only are environmentalists not inure, they may also be especially ‘‘vulnerable’’ to

television.

Mainstreaming is a concept that was developed by cultivation researchers to

account for attitudinal similarities among heavy viewers of television (similarities

that were not found among light viewers of television). The question of whether

television has a mainstreaming effect on environmentalists has not, until now, been

explored. The research presented here indicates that as environmentalists watch

fictional television, the belief system that differentiated them from the general public

is affected and eroded. In other words, as people with environmental predispositions

watch more fictional television, they become less concerned about the environment,

and, as such, their attitudes become more like the attitudes of the general public.

Members of the general population also have a decrease in environmental concern as

they watch more television, but the decrease is not as great as it is for

environmentalists (or, in the case of the sample used in this paper, the difference

in scores on the NEP between heavy viewing and light viewing members of the

general public is not significant).

Interestingly, the cultivation effect is ‘‘reversed’’ when the television content is

environmental and other non-fiction (e.g., news and documentaries) programming.

In other words, environmentalists who are heavier viewers of this kind of

programming scored significantly higher on the NEP than their lighter viewing

counterparts. This finding seems to add a piece to the puzzle of what causes the

environmental cultivation effect. As was highlighted above, there are three areas that

290 J. E. Good

have been proposed as possible contributors to the environmental cultivation effect:

time displacement, symbolic annihilation, and the mediating effect of materialism.

The research presented here works against time displacement as the explanation

because time displacement is an issue regardless of the content being watched and yet

the environmental and other non-fiction content is related to more concern for the

environment.

The research presented here also works against symbolic annihilation as the

explanation for environmental cultivation given that by definition environmental

programming talks about the environment, and research has demonstrated that news

programming is more likely than fictional programming to have environmental

content (McComas et al., 2001). Environmental and non-fiction programming

would, however, have relatively few messages about materialism (i.e., non-fiction

programming is often on channels without advertisements and the actual program

content is less likely than mainstream programming to have materialistic messages).

As such, the results presented here seem to support the idea of the mediating variable

of materialism as the most likely explanation for environmental cultivation.

The results of the tests on NFC and attention to television may help us to take this

exploration of the environmental cultivation effect even further. Shrum et al. (2003)

and Shrum et al. (2005) have proposed that the cognitive processing of the cultivation

effect is characterized by three criteria: first, whether the dependent variable pertains

to assessments of set-sizes and percentages or values and judgments; second, whether

television has its effect while viewing or when the question is being asked; third,

whether responses are constructed in real-time or drawn from memory.

The context of the findings for the current study can, therefore, be created with

reference to these three areas. The dependent variable of environmentalism was

measured with a scale that tapped into values/judgments; values/judgments are

affected by television at the time of viewing; responses to questions about values/

judgments are drawn from memory. Therefore, the expectation was that attention to

television would mean greater focus on television’s messages while viewing and,

therefore, a greater cultivation effect. Additionally, the expectation was that because

NFC means greater processing of television’s messages at the time of viewing, this

would also be related to a stronger cultivation effect.

Previous research has found that NFC and attention to television were significant

predictors of the strength of the cultivation effect. For example, Shrum et al. (2005)

found that the positive relationship between television and attitudes about

materialism were stronger for those individuals who were higher in NFC and

stronger for those individuals who paid more attention to television. Likewise, the

current study found that television viewing was related to lower scores on the NEP

scale for those environmentalists who had high NFC scores and high attention to

television scores. For environmentalists who scored low on NFC and low on attention

to television, there was no such cultivation effect.

An interesting ‘‘twist’’ on these findings was that NFC and attention to television did

not relate to the cultivation effect for non-fiction programming. The cultivation effect

was significant for those viewers who were low and high in NFC and low and high in

Environmental Cultivation 291

attention to television (unlike the fictional viewing where there was a cultivation effect

only for those viewers who were higher in NFC and higher in attention to television).

Why might this be? Petty and Cacciopo’s (1986) ELM can perhaps help to make sense of

these findings. ELM proposes that there is a central and peripheral route to our

cognitive processing and that when we are motivated, and able, to thoughtfully or

centrally process information, the greater the potential for lasting attitude, and

behavioral, change. Environmentalists who watch environmental and other non-fiction

television programming, will presumably have to, at some level, seek this programming

out (i.e., it is not as readily available as fictional programming) and will, therefore, be

that much more motivated to thoughtfully process what they are watching (even if, in

general, the person is not high in NFC or used to paying a lot of attention to television).

As well, environmental and non-fiction programming perhaps ‘‘demand’’ a certain level

of cognitive engagement to be enjoyed.

Throughout this paper the issue of causality has been implied raising the question

of whether causality can be inferred in research such as has been presented here. Does

television affect individuals’ environmental attitudes, or do people with relatively less

concern for the environment watch more fictional television? Cultivation researchers

have always been cautious in their claims of causality and have often turned to non-

cross-sectional data to help make the causality case. For example, Shrum and his

colleagues (2005) ran an experiment in order to demonstrate that it was unlikely that

the explanation for television’s cultivation of attitudes about materialism was due to

materialistic individuals turning to television. In the case of the current study, an

experiment seems unnecessary.

Given that the sample used in this research was comprised of a random sample of

environmentalists, it would make little sense to assume that there is any ‘‘environmen-

tally relevant’’ reason to explain why the heavy viewers watch more than the light

viewers (i.e., all of the subjects had a strong enough interest in the environment that

they joined an environmental organization, consider themselves environmentalists

and, on average, score higher on the NEP than members of the general public*and, as such, degree of environmentalism as a way of explaining quantity of television viewing

would not make much sense). In other words, the strength of using a sample comprised

of environmentalists is that the notion of those with less concern for the environment

watching more television is reasonably addressed. The logical direction, therefore, is

from television to the environmentalist viewer. The research, therefore, seems to

indicate that those who are most likely to make a difference in the environmental

movement (i.e., those who are concerned enough, and active enough, to join an

environmental organization, who consider themselves environmentalists and are

thoughtful about the environment, as evidenced by their NEP scores) are the ones who

stand the most to lose by watching a lot of fictional television.

Limitations

In today’s world of declining survey response rates (Groves, 2006), the response rates

for the current study, 49% for the environmentalist sample (and 34% for the general

292 J. E. Good

public sample used in the mainstreaming analysis), are very respectable. That said,

when there are more potential respondents not returning the survey than returning it,

the specter of nonresponse bias must be raised. In his recent paper, Groves (2006)

points out that ‘‘there is little empirical support for the notion that low response rates

surveys de facto produce estimates with high nonresponse bias’’ (p. 670). Additionally,

Groves notes that recent research (Curtin, Presser, & Singer, 2000; Keeter, Miller,

Kohut, Groves, & Presser, 2000) has found that ‘‘changes in nonresponse rates do not

necessarily alter survey estimates’’ (Groves, 2006). Therefore, given the reality that

resources were not available to increase the response rate with such ‘‘known’’ strategies

as number of contacts (Schaefer & Dillman, 1998) and incentives (Church, 1993), and

given the very real possibility that such increases in response rates would not have

changed the results (although, of course, there is always the possibility that additional

responses could change the results), the case is made that the current response rates

provide adequate information for the study that was undertaken.

Another potential limitation of this study, and, arguably, cultivation studies in

general, are the small effect sizes. In their meta-analysis of cultivation research

Morgan and Shanahan (1997) offer the following timely analogies: ‘‘. . . many

elections are won or lost by a few percentage points, and a global temperature change

of a few degrees can lead to profound climatic upheavals’’ (p. 34). Another important

point that cultivation researchers like Morgan and Shanahan (1997) offer is that given

the many ways in which we receive information about the world in which we live, the

surprising part of cultivation findings should not be that the effect sizes are small but

the fact that there has been, over the years and with a multitude of topics, a

cultivation effect at all.

Future Research

While the research presented here adds to what Shrum (2001) refers to as cultivation’s

‘‘second generation of research,’’ there are clearly many questions that this paper invites

one to answer with further research. One question is why, how and what

environmentalists, as distinct from other groups of people, watch on television (and

especially why/how/what heavy viewing environmentalists watch). Additionally, it

would be interesting to investigate the implications for media literacy training on such

a group.

Conclusion

In 2001, the then United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, initiated the

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Over 1300 experts from around the world came

together and in 2005, the Board concluded that ‘‘Human activity is putting such a

strain on the natural function of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to

sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted’’ (Millennium

Ecosystem Assessment, 2005, Preface, p. 5). Seemingly, if there was ever a time

Environmental Cultivation 293

when we needed individuals who are concerned about, and willing to take action for,

the planet, that time is now.

What the research presented here highlights, unfortunately, is that television

viewing may be acting to erode concern that individuals otherwise have for the

environment. So, while we might think that television’s offer of an escape, a little time

out, from the world’s travails could not be harmful*and besides, smart people are able to ‘‘resist’’ television’s charms*the research presented here tells us otherwise. Arguably the brightest of television’s viewers (i.e., those high in NFC) are also most

likely to suspend disbelief, or be ‘‘transported’’ by television (Shrum et al., 2005), and

these are also the individuals who are also most likely to be cultivated by television to

have less concern about the environment.

In the age of climate change, environmentalists have begun talking a lot about

consumption*of fossil fuels, of excess material goods, of the earth’s resources in general. Perhaps it is time to add consumption of television into the discussion.

Notes

[1] The criteria for using the term ‘‘environmentalist’’ for this group of people is explored in the

Methods section of this paper.

[2] The question of whether viewers who are high in NFC ‘‘critique’’ what they are watching or

‘‘suspend disbelief ’’ was addressed by Shrum et al. (2005). Their research found that for high

NFC individuals television was positively related to ‘‘degree of transportation’’ (p. 477).

Their findings make intuitive sense as watching television would not be much fun, and

therefore not worthy of much time, if one sat constantly deconstructing the content.

[3] Implications for these response rates are explored below in the Limitations section of the

paper.

[4] Research has shown that the majority of television that people watch is fictional, prime-time,

programming and because of this, measures of overall television viewing have often been

used by cultivation researchers as measures of prime-time fictional viewing (see Shanahan &

Morgan, 1999). This is what has been done in the current paper.

[5] Rubin et al.’s (1988) attention to television while viewing scale has five items. The current

study makes use of four of the five items having left out ‘‘I often miss what is happening on

the program when I watch television.’’

[6] Note that the average score on the NEP for the environmentalist sample was 60 (of a possible

75 points) and 50.5 (of a possible 75 points) for the general sample.

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Appendix A: Television viewing (Shrum, Burroughs, & Rindfleisch, 2003)

1. I watch less television than most people I know.

2. I often watch television on weekends.

3. I spend time watching television almost every day.

4. One of the first things I do in the evening is turn on the television.

5. I hardly ever watch television.

6. I have to admit, I watch a lot of television.

Appendix B: Need for cognition (A short form of Cacioppo and Petty’s, 1982, scale

developed by Epstein, Pacini, Dene-Raj, & Heier, 1996)

1. I don’t like to have to do a lot of thinking.

2. I try to avoid situations that require thinking in depth about something.

3. I prefer to do something that challenges my thinking than something that requires little thought.

4. I prefer complex to simple problems.

5. Thinking hard and for a long time about something gives me little satisfaction.

Appendix C: Attention to television (Rubin, Perse, & Taylor, 1988)

1. I’m often thinking about something else when I’m watching television.

2. My mind often wanders when I watch television.

3. I pay close attention to the program when I watch television.

4. I listen carefully when I watch television.

Appendix D: New Environmental Paradigm Scale (Dunlap, VanLiere, Mertig, &

Jones, 2000)

1. We are approaching the limit of the number of people the earth can support.

2. Humans have the right to modify the natural environment to suit their needs.

3. When humans interfere with nature, it often produces disastrous consequences.

4. Human ingenuity will ensure that we do NOT make the earth unlivable.

5. Humans are severely abusing the environment.

6. The earth has plenty of natural resources if we just learn how to develop them.

7. Plants and animals have as much right as humans to exist.

8. The balance of nature is strong enough to cope with the impacts of modern industrial nations.

296 J. E. Good

9. Despite our special abilities, humans are still subject to the laws of nature.

10. The so-called ‘‘ecological crisis’’ facing humankind has been greatly exaggerated.

11. The earth is like a spaceship with very limited room and resources.

12. Humans were meant to rule over the rest of nature.

13. The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset.

14. Humans will eventually learn enough about how nature works to be able to control it.

15. If things continue on their present course, we will soon experience a major ecological catastrophe.

16. I consider myself an environmentalist.

Environmental Cultivation 297