Presents a study of the effects, on Australian children, of viewing American television programs. Concludes that the cultivation of beliefs about the world, at least in cases of violence and crime, does occur even when the messages are imported from another country. (PD)

Elaborates on the cultivation hypothesis: that heavy television viewers incorporate biases present in television content into their own constructions of reality. Suggests that the integration of discrete television events into social reality beliefs requires cognitive skills not available to or unused by younger children. (JMF)

Challenges two assumptions of the Gerbner cultivation analysis: that commercial television content is uniform in its symbolic messages about society's values, and that television viewing is habitual (ritual) rather than selective. Overall, both assumptions are found flawed; discarding them, however, serves to strengthen rather than weaken the…