Cultivation theory is a sociological and communications framework to examine the lasting effects of media, primarily television. The central hypothesis of cultivation analysis is that people who spend more time watching television are more likely to perceive the real world in a way as more commonly depicted in television messages, as compared to those who watch less television, but are otherwise comparable in major demographic features.

Founded by George Gerbner, cultivation theory was developed to seek out the influence that television media may have on the viewers. In later years, the founding of Gerbner were expanded on and developed by an American screenwriter Larry Gross. Gerbner formulated his paradigm for mass communication in 1973 that included three types of analysis: The first type of analysis is institutional process analysis, which looks at what institutions are supporting and distributing the content in question. The second type of analysis is message system analysis. Message system analysis aims to identify the content of message patterns in television and media. The third type of analysis is the cultivation analysis that is defined as the longitudinal surveys of people’s opinions on certain subjects with the key variable being levels of media reception such as television viewing. This analysis is known as the Cultivation Theory.

Cultivation theory began as a way to test the impact of television on viewers, especially how exposure to violence through television affects human beings. The theory's key proposition is that "the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality aligns with reality portrayed on television." Gerbner believed that audience members used television to "fill the gaps" of their knowledge about certain experiences that they had not had for themselves. Because cultivation theory assumes the existence of objective reality and value-neutral research, it can be categorized as part of positivistic philosophy.

The more media that people consume, the more their perceptions change. Such images and messages, especially when repeated, help bring about the culture that they portray. Cultivation Theory aims to understand how long-term exposure to television programming, with its recurrent patterns of messages and images, can contribute to individuals' shared assumptions about the world around them.

In a 2004 study, surveying almost 2,000 articles published in the top three mass communication journals since 1956, Jennings Bryant and Dorina Miron found that cultivation theory was the third most frequently utilized cultural theory.