America Through The Invention Of The Television example essay topic

Man lives in a world erected by the stories that he hears, sees and tells. These stories and their messages socialize people into roles of gender, age, class, vocation, and lifestyle. Stories of the American society weave the seamless web of its cultural environment, cultivating most of what people think, what they do, and how they conduct their affairs. This has become an important issue to consider when often what people think, what they do in life situations, and how they generally behave and interact with each other is disconnected from the ethical standards once freely and proudly regarded in the social world. This moral separation is becoming more and more widespread since what is being practiced and encouraged today is not harmonious to the Christian view. Through the irresistible influences of a mass-productive, policy-driven creation, known as the television set, most assumptions about human development and inter social relations are simultaneously rooted and misinterpreted through its unseemly programs and endless stream of ads 1.

America and its children are being bombarded and intentionally targeted, day in and day out, with repetitive screenings of violence and aggression, wealth and material possessions as a way of gaining happiness, and deliberate sexual exploits sneaking its way onto the stage and into young, innocent minds. These shameful influences society should strive to avoid are imprudently accepted and audaciously displayed. This is so because scattered groups of distant conglomerates want to gain profit and raise their statistic figures through such material. Television and telecast advertising is the basic source for forming stereotypical and unscrupulous portrayals of reality while shameless movie and advertising producers keep the proceeds of a society morally weakening from the unbridled fabrications of their money-spinning programs. One must first understand the sole purpose of television and advertising in order to realize how much these production companies care about the well-being of their television viewers. The overriding question within these production companies is, "Will it make money?" Their line of business is solely to sell and make money.

If an enterprise will increase profits, then all censorship matters become irrelevant, including the question of whether something is good or bad for television viewers. Their only operative question, therefore, is "Will it be profitable?" These movie producers and media partisans are selling out America and its vulnerable youth members for money. Although most of America is not consciously aware of it, maximizing profit is more important to production companies than asking whether or not something is beneficial or harmful to society and their young ones. In the meantime, while these so-called honorable businessmen are making a killing off ill-flavored broadcast innovations, society continues to absorb many misconceptions of reality into their consciousness and adopt television's unavoidable stereotypes; they become not as an individual but as an indistinguishable to a picture they glimpsed on television. Spoken shrewdly by author, Roy F. Fox, from his book Harvesting Minds, these phony representations of reality "serves as a visible reminder of something more serious that's hidden from view, an internal hemorrhaging of the spirit that seems to afflict children who are held hostage to an endless stream of ads". 2 Later evidence will overwhelm- ingly indicate that television influences often distort America's view of social reality.

In other words, the media influences what people, essentially kids, think about other types of people and even themselves - how they imagine what others are like, what roles they themselves should play in society, how they communicate with others, and how they treat others. Consensus still remains on several other issues: that media have ideological and self-assertive implications, that people usually negotiate and construct meaning from media, and that the media not only can reflect reality but also help create it. Television, irrefutably, is the chief informant of all these existing attitudes and viewpoints. In fact, television has become necessary for the formation of individual and group identities in society's new urban environment as all different classes of religion, race and sex try to live together with some degree of cooperation and harmony.

People often argue, though, that the media does not create stereotypes, that they merely reflect contemporary society. On the contrary, market researchers will find within sample populations what small numbers of certain people are doing, so that the producers can offer cutting-edge programming. The shows eventually catch on with the viewers and imitators are propagated. Soon everyone will feel as though people are living in sync with these current-day programs. This situation often makes viewers feel alienated because they know that they are not like Seinfeld or the doctors on ER.

The popular media characters create the illusion that everyone else is like them, when in fact this cannot be true. One character could not possibly represent millions. Another argument is that a single television show, film, or commercial, cannot create stereotypes because only a handful of characters are portrayed. One is forgetting that this argument does not account for the prevalence of media outlets of images, or the way people perceive those images.

Nor does it account for the power of symbols or icons. But the image and persona is realistic to most viewers and if a single character or symbol gains enough popularity, that character or symbol soon represents not only all other instances of that type but also the best qualities of that type. Michael Jordan, for example, symbolizes all basketball players and the game of basketball. He embodies the best qualities of the game: sportsmanship and skill. When a single character or single symbol represents so much, they cannot escape from becoming a stereotype. These continual creations of typecasts and venerated icons lead to a much more serious risk at hand.

The way in which the media portrays, as mentioned earlier, a way to think and act for almost every state of affairs, a possible solution for that state, and how to deal with environmental relations, including social and personal, can, most definitely, affect viewers' attitudes toward their everyday living habits and even distort them. "All television is educational. The question is what does it teach?" 3 This statement by Nicholas Johnson, the former head of the Federal Communications Commission, points to the enormous influence television has on society. He says that any discussion of society's values and the transmission of those values must include an examination of television, which is one of the most powerful, if not, the most powerful voice in America.

Expected ly, television producers will try to arouse powerful emotions in people to get attention to increase popularity, and ultimately make money. Certain things arouse emotions more reliably than others. Among the most reliable, and biggest moneymakers, are violence, sex and humor. Violence stimulates the adrenal gland and arouses viewers.

Sexually oriented material stimulates and arouses viewers too. Humor, as well, arouses people with changes in brain chemistry, yet to be deciphered. It is not surprising these are the major themes of television, rather than information or education. For the most part television sticks to themes that sell because selling things is what television is all about. Every moment of television has to be arousing; the goal of television is rarely to educate or to shape values.

Therefore, values that are good for America, are not guiding principles for television. America, through the invention of the television, has developed an extremely powerful teacher but the values of the marketplace are driving it into a ditch of muddled priorities and cluttered views. The messages of values from the marketers are increasingly at odds with those values which are important for healthy children and a healthy society. Establishing that television is, indeed, very powerful, here are some of the values it is promoting to children, adolescents, and adults of all ages.

Violence is an animate issue to discuss. Despite what the public says about the evil of violence, though, it is promoted as exciting and glamorous on television. It is often portrayed as the solution to fictional characters' problems. Media violence tends to breed more media violence, fostering an atmosphere of violence and violent attitudes. In fact, the average American child will witness two hundred thousand acts of violence on television before he or she is eighteen years of age. The Godfather produced twelve corpses, Godfather II put away eighteen, and Godfather killed no less than fifty-three.

The children's movie glorification of martial arts Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the most violent movie film that has ever been marketed to children, with one hundred thirty-three acts of mayhem per hour. The international edition of Variety featured one hundred twenty-three pages of ads for new movies, with pictures of shooting, killing, or corpses on every other page and a verbal appeal to violence. Leading the verbal procession was kill, murder, death, deadly, dead, terror, fatal, lethal and so on. Bringing up the rear were rage, revenge, gun crazy, maniac, warrior, battle, war, shoot, fight, slaughter and blood.

The documented correlation between violent entertainment and violent behavior is undeniable. By targeting violent entertainment at young adolescents, society is promoting their violent behavior - the very behavior that America fears. Media provides the language, pictures, sounds, and role models that make it easier for viewers to think and act violently in real life. The contradictions of society are severely painful: as the nation's concern about violence escalates, the rate of reported crime in the United States is the highest in the industrialized world. As fear of violent crime worsens, educators, politicians, physicians, clergy and parents all decry the violence. Yet while society says they hate it, film and show producers surround their children with it in their daily lives.

As individuals, people condemn it; as members of the larger, anonymous society, people love it. Again, back to the operative question of the industry, "Will it make money?" Television producers are paid to create and broadcast shows which make money. They are encouraged to develop programs which raise viewership. If violence and aggression raises viewership, then they will test the bounds of the Federal Communication Commission's Standards and Practices guidelines to deliver it. It would be a mistake to think though, that violence is the only problem. Violence grabs the headlines, but violence itself is a result of a society that promotes selfishness, greed, and instant gratification.

Consider one fact: the average child will receive about forty-five thousand messages about sex from television during their formative years. For example, sexual encounters on soap operas take place between unmarried people ninety-four percent of the time. On prime television, references to sexual activity are generally between unmarried people as well. Forensic psychiatrist, Park Dietz, believes that, with the help of violent activity, "A vulnerable youngster may watch a sexy slasher movie and become conditioned to sexual arousal through such images.

When that boy becomes a man in his twenties or thirties, society runs the risk that he will seek sexual gratification through actual, not fantasized, brutality". 4 In addition, sexual activity is often presented in a light, humorous context. Advertising has traditionally emphasized sexuality and physical appearance to sell products from soft drinks and deodorant to cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. Younger kids are now associating sexuality with such products. Even fifth - and sixth-graders remember commercials for beers and kids may watch more than two thousand beer and wine ads each year.

Today, young kids are linking the drinking of beer to romance, sociality and relaxation. Author, Carol Moog, tells how advertising communicates immature attitudes about sexuality to young people; consequently their definitions and perceptions of sexuality and gender identity become stunted. This prevents both men and women from developing humane and mature gender identities and relationships. Social scientist, Forman, (1933) paid great attention to how sex in the movies affected adolescent sexual behavior.

Adolescents reported imitation of sex as they had seen in movies. Girls reported that they adopted the flirtatious postures of starlets and that after seeing a sexy movie, they were driven to find men to sleep with, and boys, likewise, claimed that they learned how to kiss and make love from cinema, and some claimed to have been driven to rape 5. Another primary goal of producers of consumer goods and services is to create desires. If a manufacturer or service company can create a new desire, then, before long society may come to think of it as a need.

As they try to fill more and more "needs" the market keeps expanding. Hence, according to what kids see on television, the key to happiness is money and the material possessions it buys. They not only get this message in commercials, but in the content of programs themselves. It was touched on earlier that the labeled status of most television characters is significantly above that of most viewers.

A hero of a sitcom or local news anchor have things that reflect financial success whether it is the car they drive, the house they live in, or the clothes they wear. As it is with sports heroes too, the best athletes are constantly in the news or advertising something because of their demands for more money. These sports heroes drive the fanciest cars, wear the most expensive clothes, and generally model the life of the wealthy. Of course, kids would want to emulate these top athletes. Wealth is valued on television because it elicits a response of desire or longing on part of the viewer, so children can easily develop the idea that becoming rich is extremely important to their future happiness.

Advertisers try to link products with feelings of happiness. On a subconscious level, the audience is meant to associate happiness with the article or service being sold. These images are a great reinforcement for the commercial messages which teach that happiness is equated with having things. But behind all the thinking, language, attitudes, and behaviors, one may sense an overall materialistic world view - a global conception or internal map that defines and describes the world as a place where goals are achieved and problems are solved through buying and selling, a world that crowds out the life of the body, the mind, and the spirit. 5 After all the facts presented, it is not alarmist rhetoric to say that the future is at stake, and this is reality.

It has been made clear through numerous examples that the media is a great and powerful influence to millions of lives as it has gradually brought America to a moral collapse in their standards. In this ethical investigation of telecast propaganda and its distorted definition of quality viewing, the infusion of countless typecasts and vulgar activities, seeped day after day into susceptible minds, has caused society to shift not only in taste and propriety but in virtue and civility. The survival of the American society and of its fundamental values depends on responsible, productive, and generous citizens. Those types of citizens do not just happen - they are guided, nurtured, and raised. The qualities and mannerisms of humanity did not originate from a television tube and the rudiments of human development should not be relied upon television today. Society needs to get reacquainted with its bedrock values and shun the imprudent sermons of telecast marketers.

There was a time in human history when life lessons and story-telling was handcrafted, homemade and community inspired. By observation, imitation, and trial and error interactions, mankind, through their fragile years of childhood, gradually learned what was important in life and what was unimportant, what was valued and what was not. If America wishes to preserve the foundations of their society, they have to exercise integrity and virtue by promoting integrity and virtue in their advertising messages. If the future of America is to endure as a free and peaceful democratic society, morality and publicizing sensitivity needs to take precedence over all fruitful objectives and it must be the solid boulder this country situates its feet upon for all generations; society and their children are depending on it.