Frontiers | The Relationship Between Crime-Related Television Viewing and Perceptions of the Death Penalty: Results of a Large Cross-Sectional Survey Study
1,2 1Unit Suicide Research & Mental Health Promotion, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 2Wiener Werkstaette for Suicide Research, Vienna, Austria 3Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Background: According to cultivation theory, distorted representations of social reality on television can lead to distorted perceptions of reality among viewers. For example, the death penalty has been abolished in most Western countries a long time ago, but is often portrayed or mentioned in US cri...