Abstract
There is no consensus has been made in the previous literature of cultivation theory regarding effects of television advertisements on the social and moral behavior of viewers. This study is an effort to scrutinize the underlying mechanism effects of individual’s ethical belief in retracing the influence of the TV advertisements of cell phones and mobile networks on the social and moral behavior of youth in Lahore city of Pakistan. By adding the mediating factor of the individual’s ethical belief in a model, this study advances the application of the cultivation theory and addresses the research gap that how effects of the TV advertisements on the moral behavior of youth are routed through the individual’s ethical belief. For the said purpose, a survey of 500 respondents and a focus group of twelve youngsters were conducted. Results of survey-based structural equation modeling on AMOS show that TV advertisements bring social, moral and psychological changes in the behavior of young people. Results of focus group explored that most of the respondents believe that cell phones and mobile network advertisements on television weaken social, moral values and undesirably affect youth’s behavior.