The Role of Television in Today's Society
Has this technical box indoctrinated our minds with useless facts and
images or has it given us a sensation of enjoyment, education and pure
entertainment? Television has become ubiquitous across the globe.
Nearly every household in Britain owns at least one television if not
more. In my house we have three. For the past 80 years, this piece of
technology has become more popular, cheaper and becoming more
advanced. In London, 27th January 1926, John Logie Baird demonstrated
the first fully working television. Two years later, the colour
television was shown to the world. Though it was not until December
1953, that the colour system was adopted for broadcast in the USA. The
first high-definition television service in the world was the BBC in
November 1936.
Television images started off with fuzzy, distorted black and white
pictures. We now live in an era, where there's digital surround sound
television systems. It was only after about twenty years after the
first demonstration of the television, that television actually became
popular. Before then, it was a great luxury to own one, as it was so
expensive, not many people could afford it. It has now become a
necessity, nearly every home now owns one. When flicking through
holiday brochures, you check if the hotel has a television. You can
buy a television from as low as £50. In 1956, the first video player
was invented in California. People could now record programmes and
watch them later or buy videos to watch. This meant people now could
watch more by being able to watch one programme while recording
another to watch later. In 1973, tele...
... middle of paper ...
... moneymaking scheme, but not everyone can afford it, which is a problem
if the government plans to turn everyone into a digital user someday,
though it is becoming increasingly popular. I overall think television
can be good for you. We can learn a lot from it, quicker and more
enjoyable. We can be updated with around the world news coverage and
be warned of any arousing dangers. Other programmes we watch purely
for our own entertainment, but it doesn't mean that television has to
take over our lives, that all depends on the person's own will power
or if you're a child, the parent's restrictions. I think that we still
have much to expect from the development of the world's most powerful
'mind controller' I think there is much to come yet and we'll continue
to watch more of it, see more of it and demand more from it.
will be much more successful at our goals in life. Marginal paces are very valuable in our life
conflicts will likely arise, it is important to remember we can learn and grow from these
Television has played a major role in the death of the American nuclear family. According to Dictionary.com, a nuclear family is defined as a primary social unit consisting of parents and their offspring. Television has become commonplace in American culture, and most watch oblivious to the effect it has on them and their families. “2009’s Nielsen’s Television Audience Report shows that 54% of homes in the U.S. had three or more television sets, 28% had two television sets and only 18% had one television set” (“More”). Over the past seven decades’ television has had a progressive impact on the American family unit by showing family can be diverse in race, gender, and parenting styles.
than the times of today. Back then, the most important aspect of life for a
... be extremely beneficial for me. I would develop a continuing source of professional enhancement; advancement of accountability, and visibility.
Along with large sums of money, whether old or new, came lots spending, amusement, fun, pleasure and big, fancy and elaborate parties.
I chose the first episode of the very popular television program The Event. I viewed the first episode on Netflix, October 20, 2011. This program originally aired on NBC, September 10, 2010, and is titled “I Haven’t Told You Everything”. This program has a total of twenty two series to date and is classified as an action-adventure drama. After viewing a picture of the main characters with the synopsis of this program, I noticed immediately that this was a male dominated show. The picture shows seven people standing together and merely two of the seven are female. The premise of the story is about a man searching for his missing fiancé. The story line was a prime example of the gender male role of the fearless and virile man and the gender female role of the damsel in distress needing a man to save her.
The Effect of Television In The Age of Missing Information Bill McKibben, in his book The Age of Missing Information, explores the impact of television on modern cultures both in America and around the world. In the book McKibben carries out an experiment; he watches the entire television broadcast of 93 separate cable channels for one entire day. In all McKibben viewed 24 hours of programming from 93 separate cable stations, that is more than 2,200 hours of television. His purpose in this formidable undertaking was to determine how much actual information that was relevant to real life he could glean from a day of television broadcasting. McKibben also spent a day camping alone on a mountain near his home.
Emergence of Television as a Mass Medium and Leisure Time Early in the twentieth Century the advent of public radio broadcasting brought cheap and effortless entertainment into the homes of millions of people. The invention and use of television as a means of channelling information on a wide scale was revolutionary. The world had recognised how influential and useful a tool the radio was in disseminating information and entertainment to the masses. The inventors and founders of this communication revolution could not have foreseen the effect that audio-visual broadcasting would have.
The Effects of Television on Society The question whether or not television has had a decisive influence on everyday life and has helped change society, has been questioned by sociologists and psychologists for many years now. “T.V. determines what people think and what they do and thus controls them psychologically and socially. It can make people think things they would not otherwise think, and do things they would not otherwise do. “(Srinati, 2000: 179) This quote is an interesting one as it takes a skeptical view of the effect of television on society, although it may not be completly true, the invention of television and the mass media has become a unique feature of modern society.
escape from the pressures and stress of day to day life. The television, to them,
Can T.V. shows be the reflection of our society or influence the behavior of the members of our community? Since 1936, when television broadcasting begin, it priority was to inform and to entertain our society; subsequently, a massive amount of rules and regulations were created to control the material presented in TV, which principal goal was to safeguard the moral and ethical standards of it time. Nevertheless, from its beginning to the present home entertainment television standards contents have change; likewise, the moral an ethics values of our society have change and continuing changing from generation to generation. TV shows from the 50’s, 80’s, and the present exposed many changes in the way human role are exposed, the language tone is utilized, the sexual content is displayed, and the multicultural influences are incorporated on TV.
television; one or two for Friends, one for Party of Five, one for the CBC, etc.
The Influence of Television There is a lot of discussion about whether television is good or bad. influence on family life. There are many positive points and also many negative ones. Now I will run through some of each. The main complaint about TV is that there is too much violence and sexual references that can be accessed easily by children.
a large role in socialization. On many sitcoms and talk shows one can learn of