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Utah's Foremost Platform for Undergraduate Research Presentation
2021 Abstracts

What is Reality? A Critical Analysis of the TV show Law & Order: SVU using the Cultivation Theory.

Presenter: Kinzie Randall, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Languages, Philosophy and Communication Studies
Authors: KINZIE RANDALL
Faculty Advisor: Nicole Allen, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Languages, Philosophy and Communication Studies
Institution: Utah State University

This study uses cultivation theory to investigate crime in the media. Specifically, this investigation performs a qualitative analysis of Season 21 of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. This analysis encouraged the question of how first-order cultivation effect, which is how the viewer’s perspective of the frequency or number of something changes by what is presented by the media, is portrayed in Law & Order: SVU. It also asks how prominent second-order cultivation effect, which is how media can affect the viewers' attitude or belief about what is being portrayed, is in Law & Order: SVU. Each episode was scrutinized and analyzed to see how each of them can be perceived by viewers through the first-order effect or second-order effect and to find common themes across the episodes. This process was done two times to solidify the findings. Ultimately, the content analysis suggested that most of the episodes actually seemed to defy some common stereotypes and beliefs about crime and rape culture, which would potentially lead to a second-order effect in viewers of such episodes. The first-order effect can be seen in who the characters are and who is portrayed as victims and perpetrators in the show, which would influence the viewers' frequency of who the victims and perpetrators actually are.