Cultivation Effects on Quality of Life Indicators: Exploring the Effects of American Television Consumption on Feelings of Relative Deprivation in South Korea and India

Abstract

A hypothetical path model investigated how viewing U.S. television would be associated with feelings of relative deprivation among Asians. The South Korean survey data (N = 352) revealed that viewing U.S. television was associated with estimates of Americans' affluence, and the estimates were in turn associated with dissatisfaction with Korean society. The Indian survey data (N = 333) showed that viewing U.S. television was directly associated with both dissatisfaction with personal life and dissatisfaction with Indian society. The findings suggest that people in both countries may universally experience perceptions of relative deprivation associated with U.S. television consumption.

Data collection for this study was supported by a grant from Jimirro Center for Study of Media Influence, College of Communications, Penn State University.

Notes

Data collection for this study was supported by a grant from Jimirro Center for Study of Media Influence, College of Communications, Penn State University.

4.*p< .05

**p< .01

***p< .001; two-tailed.

The annual household income of the Korean sample showed a reasonable distribution (i.e., less than U.S.$15,000, 22.7%; U.S.$15,000–30,000, 52.0%; more than U.S.$30,000, 25.3%), given that the average annual household income in South Korea as of 2005 was about U.S.$20,400 (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook). However, the distribution of annual household income for the Indian sample was somewhat negatively skewed (i.e., less than U.S.$1,300, 18.9%; U.S.$1,301–2,600, 15.3%; U.S.$2,600–4,000, 15.3%; more than U.S.$4,000, 50.5%), compared to the actual income distribution of urban households in India (i.e., less than U.S.$1,000, 14.3%; U.S.$1,001–2,000, 31.7%; more than U.S.$2,000, 54%; (National Council of Applied Economic Research, www.ncaer.org).

Both program-type measure and channel measure were employed in the questionnaire for the Indian sample, and there was a strong correlation between these two measures (r = .67, p < .001). However, the channel measure was used in subsequent data analyses because it had greater face validity and was less kurtotic and positively skewed.

Experience with the United States was measured by both direct and indirect experiences. Each measure was square rooted respectively first and then the z-scores for each measure were combined.

The model estimated a residual correlation between viewing U.S. television and viewing domestic television. The proportions of unexplained variance (disturbance, 1-R ²) for each endogenous variable were as follow: Viewing U.S. TV = .93 (.96, .93); Experience with the U.S. = .88 (.93, .82); Estimates of Americans' Affluence = .94 (.95, .79); Materialism = .98 (.95, .93); Dissatisfaction with Personal Life = .89 (.91, .92); and Dissatisfaction with Society = .72 (.82, .86). The values in the parentheses represent the disturbances from the subsequent analyses of the Korean and Indian samples, respectively.

Although this study focuses on the effects of viewing U.S. television in general, some may argue that exploring the effects of viewing U.S. entertainment programs, rather than the total viewing of U.S. television programs, is appropriate to the issue of this study particularly because entertainment programs tend to depict images of materially comfortable lifestyles. Therefore, in addition to the original model, another model was analyzed, where viewing U.S. television was replaced with viewing U.S. entertainment programs. The time spent watching entertainment channels (i.e., Star World, Star Movies, Zee English, Hallmark Channel, and AXN) and entertainment genres (U.S. televised movies, U.S. drama, U.S. comedy/sitcom, and U.S. music/celebrity shows) was calculated for the Indian and Korean samples, respectively. This new model fit the whole sample data adequately, χ² (7) = 9.53 (p = .22), GFI = .997, CFI = .996, RMSEA = .023. However, the model did not produce any notable results, compared with the original model. Although the multiple group path analysis of this new model revealed significant differences in path pattern between the two samples, χ² difference (40) = 162.09, p < .001, the significance and direction of paths were almost identical with those of the previous multiple group path analysis. Only three paths that were previously significant in the original model were found insignificant or marginally significant due to reduced amount of viewing: viewing U.S. entertainment programs → estimates of Americans' affluence (p = .08) in the Korean sample; viewing U.S. entertainment programs → dissatisfaction with society (p = .17), and experience with the United States → estimates of Americans' affluence (p = .07) in the Indian sample.