The Message of Television

At the 1939 New York world's fair David Sarnoff introduced RCA's fully electronic television system to the public with the words, "Now we add sight to sound." The receiver cost $600, a new car could be had for $1000! World War II stopped the production of television sets. By 1946, with the post-war boom, there were 6,000 TV sets, 3 million in 1948, and 12 million in 1951.

Over the last fifty years television has had an enormous impact on American society. Television historian and critic Jeff Greenfield places television with the automobile as one of the two "transforming devices of American life." In Television: The First Fifty Years, he defines how Americans use television:

With the single exception of the workplace, television is the dominant force in American life today. It is our marketplace, our political forum, our playground, and our school; it is our theater, our recreation, our link to reality, and our escape from it. It is the device through which our assumptions are reflected and a means of assaulting those assumptions. It is the single binding thread of this country, the one experience that touches young and old, rich and poor, learned and illiterate (Cole, 1981).

Author David Halberstam finds television to be "in both overt and subliminal ways, more important and dominant in our lives than newspapers, radio, church, and often, in the rootless America of the seventies, more important than family and more influential and powerful than government itself (Cole, 1981)."

Television affects us at every stage of our lives. Children watch it before they learn to speak and the elderly rely on it for companionship. Television connects the country, setting a standard of knowledge, promoting fads, and homogenizing our tastes (Charren, 1981).

Television started as an extension of radio but rapidly established itself as an integral part of American life. It was a way to see things we couldn't normally experience. Now we go to television for everything. Peggy Charren, in Changing Channels, states that "trying to gauge the impact of television on American society is like trying to understand the nature of a tidal wave while standing in the middle of it."

Time and again in the last five decades the activities of the entire nation have come almost to a halt as we shared a common 'collective' experience by watching such televised events as: the Kennedy funeral, men landing on the moon, the United States Olympic hockey victory, Tianamnen Square, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, the Gulf War, the Challenger explosion, and the OJ Simpson verdict; to name a few.

The shared experience is one of the most important aspects of the televised event. We are able to comfort ourselves and renew our commitment to democracy (Charren, 1981). As T. S. Eliot put so well, "Television is a medium of expression which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome."

If the television lets us experience events together, it also unites us in our dependency on it for many things. In order to stay in touch with whatever is happening in our culture (because it also helps shape the culture) you have to be familiar with what is on television. TV influences the way we speak, the words we use, and the expressions that creep into our vocabulary (Seinfeld’s Yada, Yada, Yada, Bart Simpson's Doooo, and Home Improvement's Tim Oh, Oh, Oh). For anything to be legitimate it has to come through television (Postman, 1996).

Television's ability to use powerful imagery gives viewers a you-are-there feeling. This, in turn, gives the medium high credibility. People are inclined to believe what they see even if it goes against their knowledge or experience. This gives TV news an authoritative role, deeply influencing its audience. Magazine programs talk shows, and commercials are also very persuasive.

The strength of television lies in the 'way' it presents interesting topics and conversations. Unlike print and radio it has the ability to transmit pictures (images) of events&emdash;and the 'images overwhelm the words' (Postman, 1996)&emdash;to all parts of the world at the moment they are happening. It shows moving pictures which amplifies the importance of that symbolic form and tends to de-emphasize the role of language (Postman, 1996).

A great number of Americans have abandoned newspapers for television. This means that the nightly news, interrupted by commercials, is the primary source of information about national and international events. One important aspect of the content of television news is its 'visuals.' Imagery plays a significant role in memory. Memory of pictures tends to be better than memory of words. Therefore the visuals, along with the words and the announcer's tone, influence the interpretation of the story. This means that the editorial policies of a handful of people, those in control at the networks, determine which "facts" reach the consciousness of America (Lowe, 1981).

Nikos Metallinos in Cognitive Factors in the Study of Visual Images states that as a creation of a society, media strictly reflects the values and beliefs, political, cultural, economic, religious, etc. of the people of that society. However, television does not simply mirror the culture, it even dictates what the values should be.

In Television and Society, Harry Skornia, former president of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB), accused television: "Farfetched as it may seem, historians of the future may conclude that never before was there a period during which control of thinking of a nation was exercised in a more totalitarian manner, or by a smaller group, that it is now by television and radio (Cole, 1981).

In 1964 Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. His message is the "change of scale or pace or pattern that a medium introduces into human affairs and how the scale and form of human association and action " is affected by television's presence in the culture. The significance of any technology is the affect it has on habits of interaction. It is habits of behavior&emdash;scale, pace or pattern of interactions&emdash;which manifest our interactions with technology. We are living in a culture that is totally affected by the habits engendered by television (Gibson, 1996).

The most common ways Americans "see" the world around them is from television&emdash;primarily prime time network television. Those who produce TV drama are in the business of creating a fantasy world of action, humor, and adventure to sell to an audience eager to escape from the frustrations and realities of the everyday world (Charren, 1981). Television programming either acts as a dream for the spectators or fulfills the dreams spectators might have for a better life, luxury home and car, prestigious job, etc. Hence, television programs reach the individual with the ability of fulfilling their dreams and satisfying their needs and desires (Metallinos, 1992).

Television drama utilizes reality and all the importance and appeal of reality, but shares none of the responsibilities of bringing reality to a mass audience. The programs look real and sound real, but reality has been changed, subjugated, and subordinated to fit the dominant needs of entertainment (Lowe, 1981). Because so many people accept what they see on TV as reality, the problems created by differences between the real world and the TV world are sometimes hard to cope with.

In Hamlet on the Holodeck, in the chapter on "Immersion," Janet Murray reminds us of Don Quixote's difficulty with separating real from fake. The trouble with Quixote was that he read so many romances that in the end could not disentangle them from his real life.

The 'reality' of television relies on stereotypes in order to communicate images and drama quickly and effectively. Women are portrayed as passive, dominated by men, deferential, governed by emotion or overly emotional, dependent, less intelligent than men, and generally. Minorities show up in blue-collar or public service jobs, appear as children, or appear as perpetrators or victims of criminal acts. And the elderly are shown as more comical, stubborn, eccentric, and foolish than other characters (Seels et al., 1996). Most of the people on television are very handsome, and the women are beautiful, that is, they are better in some ways than people in real life.

Most dramatic shows portray policemen, doctors, lawyers, judges and law-breakers. There are practically no clerical workers, salespeople, artists, or engineers. And the largest segment of the working force, blue-collar workers, is hardly ever shown. The result is that heavy TV-watchers and children get a stereotypical view of life. If producers changed the stereotypes, millions of people who accept television as reality would have a much more realistic range of options on which to model their behavior.

Metallinos quotes Aristotle, from The Poetics, where he not only acknowledges the emotional/psychological effects that drama (in all its forms, tragedy, comedy, or satire) has on the spectators but suggests that the function of a good drama is to stimulate the spectator so deeply that the action on the stage will provide emotional release through crying or laughing, termed "emotional purgation." TV takes this idea to the extreme, by telling exciting stories in a simple, visual, action-packed way. In order to create the maximum amount of drama in the brief half-hour or hour segments allotted to them TV writers constantly put their characters into life-and-death situations. Crime and violence have always been the top subjects that will attract and hold an audience's attention. In TV's world, murders take place more frequently and crime occurs about ten times more often than in the real world (Charren, 1981).

Television is more than a business of entertaining. It is also a teacher, shaping values of our society. It teaches young people how we as a nation think about ourselves and our place in the world, and it affects the way we behave both as individuals and as a nation (Lowe, 1981).

Television has become educator, companion, babysitter, salesman, and travel guide. We watch television when we are alone and together, to laugh and to cry, and to learn and to avoid learning. And when it comes to learning, no group is more affected by TV than American children. The average American child spends between twenty-five and thirty hours of a week watching television, playing Nintendo, or using the computer. If we add up the number of hours a child spends sleeping, eating, and attending school, it leaves about five or six hours a day for other activities. And if young people are spending three to four hours each day in front of the television set (or computer) they have almost no leisure time left for doing anything else.

If children are not participants in the community and do not encounter or interact with different kinds of people, how do they find out what others' lives are like (Mirabelli, 1995)? Children will pick up cues from somewhere. Nowadays, those cues are likely to come from the television set&emdash;by default&emdash;because that is where children spend most of their free time. Television learning is limited, however. It develops familiarity with many things, but real understanding comes from experiencing things live and reflecting on the meaning of those experiences.

Children without real life experiences may take their cues from "action programming" on television. As mentioned earlier, physical violence is the predominant mode of conflict resolution. In the absence of real life experience, such models of behavior will unduly influence children. Children with broader experience, on the other hand, can recognize that certain programs belong in the realm of fantasy and that in real life they cannot behave in the same ways (Mirabelli, 1995).

Physical aggression is only one form of violence that young children encounter. There are other forms, which, because they are subtler, may present even more problems for youngsters than stabbing, mugging, and shooting. Television characters, whether in comedy or dramatic shows, continually abuse each other verbally. Wives demean husbands; bothers put down sisters; neighbors threaten neighbors; everyone, at one time or another, is insulted by someone else (Charren, 1981).

Tannis MacBeth Williams, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, did a study on the impact of television on society by comparing three towns in British Columbia. One town, she code-named Notel, could not get TV because it was situated in a remote valley. The other two towns had from one (Unitel) to four (Multitel) broadcast channels. Notel convinced the CBC to install a transmitter just for them. Williams and her team were able to survey the town before the transmitter went in and then two years later.

The findings supported research results from studies that had been done under less controlled circumstances. Introducing television made young people more aggressive, harmed the acquisition of reading skills, decreased creativity scores, and cut participation in non-TV leisure activities (Redford, 1995).

The fact that children watch so much television has had a profound impact on the classroom as well as the home. It has changed whom we learn from and how we teach. The educational process assumes that there is sequence to learning. There are some things you must know before you can learn other things. Things on television, however, are immediately accessible, though not in a logical sequence. Because a youngster receives information instantly and without effort, teachers report that the attention span for schoolwork seems to be shrinking (Charren, 1981). Because TV shows are so skillfully styled, they have the air of authenticity about them that makes them believable. The student becomes accustomed to the glitz of Hollywood, and few teachers can compete with that.

In "How Television Has Changed Us In the Last 25 Years," Neil Postman talks about what Americans know about different events and situations and people throughout the world.

They know of Iran but they don't necessarily know where it is. They don't necessarily know what Ayatollah means. They don't know the Iranians practice religion. So that news is transformed, it is redefined, it is a kind of commodity, information as a commodity where you can identify things, you've heard of things. But it may be the effect is simply that Americans will become the most ill informed people in the world. There's some evidence that that may already be the case.

Television is the only programmed instruction a child receives without parent, teacher, or peer involvement. If children have questions about what they see, there is rarely anyone around to answer. Nor is there anyone to contradict TV's harmful or inappropriate messages (Charren, 1981).

One of the biggest influences upon what a child watches on television is what his parents watch. The children of educated parents watch television less than other children do, just as their parents use television less frequently than parents with a modest education do. In homes where parents take the time to offer other things to do, the children watch less TV (Cole, 1981).

Below is a hypothesized model for understanding television's socializing impact. (Stroman, 1991 as cited by Seels et al., 1996).

The impact becomes even greater as the activities of watching television and using the computer merge. According to the May 6^th edition of the London Financial Times,

We are in the midst of a digital maelstrom, which is reshaping the traditional computing, communications and consumer electronics industries. Digital TV represents an opportunity to push television into the online world, as well as hasten the development of multimedia into a mass-market medium. …TV will go beyond the bounds of entertainment into providing personally relevant information and opportunities. Post 2000, it will change the face of TV and the ways in which users interact with their TV sets.

Knowing why we watch television&emdash;and understanding its effects on us&emdash;are essential tools in becoming better television viewers. As television matures and grows in the twenty-first century, it will be even more important for us to be better viewers. That means being conscious of what we choose to watch and critical of what we see (Charren, 1981).

In 1996, the Mediascope National Television Violence Study (NTVS) made some recommendations:

• Produce more programs that avoid violence.
• When violence does occur, keep the number of incidents low.
• Show more negative consequences of violence.
• Provide non-violent alternatives to solving problems.
• Consider emphasizing anti-violence themes.
• Schedule programs with high levels of violence, including reality programs, in late-evening time periods.
• Watch TV with your children. Children whose parents took more control over their TV viewing were more likely to avoid inappropriate material.
• Encourage critical evaluation of TV content.
• Consider a child's developmental level when making decisions about what to watch.
• Be aware of the potential risks associated with viewing TV violence. These include learning aggressive attitudes and behaviors, fear, and desensitization or loss of sympathy towards victims of violence.
• Recognize that different kinds of programs pose different risks.

As television "drama" becomes computer "cyberdrama," it is crucial for society to be conscientious users of the medium. We have the technology at our fingertips for everyone to talk to everyone else and to obtain instant information and total knowledge about all things, everywhere on earth. But we need to establish the right viewing habits and use the technology effectively.

As Janet Murray stated so well in Hamlet on the Holodeck, "when the virtual world takes on increasing expressiveness, we will slowly get used to living in a fantasy environment that now strikes us as frighteningly real. Then we will no longer be interested in whether the characters we are interacting with are scripted actors, fellow improvisers, or computer-based chatterbots, not will we continue to think about whether the place we are occupying exists as a photograph of a theatrical set or as a computer-generated graphic, or about whether it is delivered to us by radio waves or telephone wires. At that point, when the medium itself melts away into transparency, we will be lost in the make-believe and care only about the story. We will find ourselves at home on the Holodeck."

Charren, P. & Sandler, M. (1983). Changing channels. Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.

Cole, B. (Ed.). (1981). Television today. New York: Triangle Publications.

David Cherniack Films Transcripts. Neil Postman Interview. How Television Has Changed Us in the Last 25 Years. http://www.myna.com/~davidck/postman.htm

Davis, D. (1993). The five myths of television power, or, Why the medium is not the message. NY: Simon & Schuster.

Gibson, S. Understanding Media? http://raven.ubalt.edu/features/media_ecology/unm/96/gibson1/gibson_1.html

Lowe, C. (Ed.). (1981). Television and American Culture. The Reference Shelf, 53, 2.

Media Awareness Network. Mediascope National Television Study. http://cii2.cochran.com/mnet/eng/med/home/resource/ntvs.htm

Metallinos, N. (1992). Cognitive Factors in the Study of Visual Images: Moving Image Recognition Standards. Canada, Quebec. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED352936)

Mirabelli, A. (1995). Virtual unreality: Television, families and communities in the nineties. Transition, 25(1), 4-6. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED382350)

Murray, J. (1997). Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace. New York: The Free Press.

Seels, B., Berry, L., Fullerton, K., & Horn, L. (1996). Research on learning from television. In D. Johassen (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology: A Project of the Association for Education Communications and Technology (pp. 299-377). UK: MacMillan.

Suburban Community Channels. History of Television. http://www.visi.com/accesstv/history.html

Williams, T. The Impact of Television: A Natural Experiment in Three Communities. http://www.world.std.com/~jlr/comment/tv_impact.htm