Application Paper #5

Cultivation Theory: #Pinktober Erika M. Saca CSUF Comm. 518 Dr. Doug Swanson October 2013

October has seen a swamping of pink ribbons across all mass media. Womens magazines announce special issues, with articles of breast cancer survivors. While you skim through page after page of products that announce their support to the cause. They claim that when you shop their products you will be contributing to end breast cancer. A percentage of every sale will go to breast cancer research. The majority of us continue to flip the pages without ever questioning what percentage goes to the actual cause?

Pinkwashing has been the target of some criticism by activists and cancer victims who question the real intentions behind the whole Pinktober movement that makes October Breast Cancer Awareness month. An LA Times opinion piece declared: pink is the new green.1 Its the color that makes corporations seem like caring institutions, the kind that care for those who suffer from breast cancer.

What exactly is #Pinktober? A concerned Breast Cancer activist describes it as: a type of marketing spin in which companies use the guise of breast cancer awareness to make a profit.2

Pink vodkas, pink pizza boxes, pink M&Ms -- theyre mostly meant to play on our sympathies and, in turn, tug on our wallets. Even that ubiquitous pink ribbon is a corporate concoction, a collaboration between Self magazine and the cosmetics firm Este Lauder Companies Inc. , which coopted the idea from a breast cancer survivor in the early 1990s. Twenty years onward, theres a reason

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-breast-cancer-awarenessmonth-pink-20131016,0,2207314.story#axzz2jA9PY7mX
1

http://www.ibtimes.com/beyond-breast-cancer-awareness-month-chemicalpinkwashing-persists-during-octobers-ribbon-ruse
2

3 the symbol is still in use all over the world: As a form of branding, it works (Zara, 2013). Pink ribbons on products have a connotation that the purchase will contribute to a grater cause. This association has been repeated time and again on television, billboards, magazines, Internet and all forms of mass media. Most people dont secondguess it, its ultimately perceived as a good thing. Mass media have played a key role in making the long running pink ribbon campaign a part of our everyday life, in equating it with goodwill. This is why I found Cultivation to be an appropriate theory to understand this phenomenon. To date, extant research on cultivation effects has focused largely on issues related to crime and violence (Morgan & Shanahan, 1996). However, researchers have also begun to examine how television may cultivate consumption-related beliefs (Shrum Et. Al, 2011). The implication that cultivation theory has for public relations practitioners is that repeated messages over time are perceived as true. If what people see on television and in the news is not an accurate representation of reality, there is the chance that some people will still perceive it as truth. Because repetition breeds truth, public relations practitioners must ensure that the messages they create and send, often through the mass media, on behalf of the organizations they represent, are the truth (Papinchak, K. M. , 2005). But what happens when the messages are not really the truth? Victims of breast cancer, activists and journalists, are questioning the true intentions behind products and forprofit organizations bearing the pink ribbons. Emma G. Keller, of The Guardian, wrote an opinion piece in which she expresses her unease with #Pinktober. She declares, If 'awareness' is spending $1,000 on a pair of pink shoes, count me out. What I care about is the actual women with cancer.3 She is referring to a pair of Manolo Blahnik http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/30/pinktoberconsumerism-breast-cancer-awareness
3

4 shoes that are part of the campaign. She points out that what should be put into perspective is the high cost of care for women who suffer from breast cancer. Then theres the NFL, who has been promoting allegiance to the cause with pink ribbons for five years. According to a piece in the LA Times, critics have been skeptical about the true intentions of this partnership. Theres those who suspect that the league going pink is at least as much about reaching the elusive female football fan demographic as about beating breast cancer.4 The products and organizations that now support the pink ribbon cause are ubiquitous. We have been influenced by the heavy push in mass media throughout the years, to perceive these partnerships as positive. There are other forms of cancer that dont have their own color, as Keller mentions on her opinion piece, and yet for some reason pink has become synonymous with goodwill for a female cause, a huge demographic, when seen in terms of marketing. There are other more common causes of death than breast cancer that dont have their own color, that dont have their own month in the commercial calendar. But seen through the Cultivation Theory lens, you can observe viewers perceptions of reality are influenced by their consumption of media messages. The more repetition of the issue, the more salience it garners, even if breast cancer is not the biggest health epidemic, its constant reappearance in the mass media can make it seem like it is for consumers of media. Pinktober is on its way out, in time for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the rest of the high-consuming holiday season. According to Shrum and associates, Cultivation theory would also assert that television will influence personal values as well as societal perceptions, as dominant program content becomes assimilated into personal value structures over time. Because content analyses have shown that materialism is

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-breast-cancer-awarenessmonth-pink-20131016,0,2207314.story#axzz2jA9PY7mX
4

5 commonly and favorably portrayed in television programing (Shrum Et Al, 2005). It will be interesting to see consumerism attached to other causes during the holiday season.

References

Harmon, M. (2001). Affluenza: Television use and cultivation of materialism. Mass Communication and Society, 4(4), 405-418.

Keller, E. (2013). Why #Pinktober consumerism makes this breast cancer survivor uneasy. Theguarduan.com

Morrison, P. (2013). Whats behind the pink of Breast Cancer Awareness Month? LAtimes.com

Papinchak, K. M. (2005). Cultivation Theory. In R. L. Heath (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Relations (Vol. 1, pp. 229-230). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference.

Shrum, L. , Lee, J. , Burroughs, J. , & Rindfleisch, A. (2011). An online process model of secondorder cultivation effects: How television cultivates materialism and its consequences for life satisfaction. Human Communication Research, 37(1), 3457.

SHRUM, L. J., BURROUGHS, J. E., & RINDFLEISCH, A. (2005). Television's Cultivation of Material Values. Journal Of Consumer Research, 32(3), 473-479.

Zara, C. (2013). Beyond Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Chemical Pinkwashing Persists During Octobers Ribbon Ruse. Ibtimes.com