Media and Culture Week 6 HUM/176

HUM/176
April 21, 2013

How has visual entertainment shaped American culture and values?
The inventors of the television around the 1950’s seen an idea for the invention far before the technology was ever introduced. Most of the American’s today had a family member who had a television set in their homes by 1950 and can remember stories about the event, and media entertainment has brought its own set of challenges and benefits. Television has helped in creating our culture by the advertisements of newspapers, books, magazines by the way of content and design.
In the early stages of invention, the developers thought that if the “audio waves could be separated from the electromagnetic spectrum to create radio, so too TV waves be separated to transmit visual images” (Lule, 2012, p. 603). Most probably do not know that a civil servant of Boston named George Carney had actually saw in his mind a television that was a complete working system, and he also presented drawings of a type of camera that would allow people to see things by electricity. In the 1800’s there was technology that paved the way for the invention of the television, such as; the cathode ray tube by a German named Ferdinand Braun in 1897 and was essentially created for a scanning device but its design combined camera and electricity. Other inventors throughout the course of the early 1900’s developed different areas also leading to the invention of the television set.
When the television was first invented there were two types of programming, “magazine format and the TV spectacular-played an important role in helping the networks gain control over the content of their broadcasts” (Lule, 2012, p. 612). In early times a single sponsor developed and produced the television programs and because of this it gave the sponsor sole control over the show and its content. The network increased advertising costs for the program sponsors when it increased the programming from a 15 minute radio broadcast to a television program that lasted 30 minutes or longer. Since advertising costs were drastically increasing, the networks started selling off certain 30 or 60 second advertising spots. Game, quiz, and talk shows quickly developed making viewers tune in on a regular basis sending ratings through the top and the development of more programing was on the rise.
Community Antenna Television was developed in the 1940’s for remote mountain areas like, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas, this made the signal strength stronger and usually placed on top of people’s homes or on a high point located on top of a mountain. According to Lule (2012), “in the late 1950’s, cable operators began to experiment with microwave to bring signals from distant cities” (p. 614). This allowed the operators to receive long-distance signals and instead of providing programming to only small communities, it allowed them to bring programming to a variety of other consumers. In 1962, there were about 800 “cable systems” which served over 850,000 subscribers, the rage of television programming and the viewers was on the rise.
“Since the inception as an integral part of American life in the 1950’s, television has both reflected and nurtured culture mores and values” (Lule, 2012, p. 622). From the 1960’s dramas that strayed away from controversial issues and focused more on life’s realities to the now many reality television shows that nearly discussed anything and everything that may have held its own controversy, possibly to increase the rating by giving the people what they think they wanted, but not all viewers wanted the controversy. On today’s television sets the networks show how they can manipulate the viewers by broadcasting certain issues that may or may not hit home, for instance; same sex marriages, single parent households, divorce being morally acceptable, mixed couples and their offspring are just a few controversial issues shown on today’s boob tubes. In earlier times there were three major networks CBS, NBC, and ABC, all of which stayed away from the political aspect of our world and focused on shows related to the whole family. These shows, mainly comedies, steered clear of civil rights and racial issues because at this time they were wanting to depicted the families of American and by doing this the network increased the advertising and the viewing rates. There were certain producers in the earlier days that sought to bring up certain controversial issues like, Cold War in the CBS long-time running program of Gunsmoke with issues pertaining to family, violence, law man, outlaws, minority groups, saloon girls (prostitution), politics and religion. Then in the 1960’s the networks began to air programs that dealt with the events happening in the real world, and when the viewer’s began to see all the things that were happening around them the demand grew bigger and bigger, thus making the networks branch out into other aspects that surrounded the world events. During this time they networks did not have the capability of censoring, for example, when the Kennedy assassination, along with live streams of the Vietnam war took place on live television, making the viewers tune into certain news broadcast for the details, but in today’s society certain aspects and details of events are blocked from the viewing public, however, we still tune into the news for event details. With networks focusing on the airing of real world events the viewer’s began turning away and focusing on programming of a fantasy base such as, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligan’s Island, and Beverly Hillbillies as a break from reality and the political issues around the people of that era. As political issues, women’s movements, labor unions and other parties issues took place in America, it seemed the networks produced sitcoms that depicted these issues often in a funny manner, as though to let the American people know what was going on around them, but in a lighter and funnier way. These shows discussed rape, miscarriages, racism, women’s rights, homophobia, non-nuclear families and these popular television productions were; All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and even the Brady Bunch. In the generation we live in today there are a vast number of networks and even more programming and it seems that nothing is off limits. Anything ranging from politics, sexuality, racism, gays, and harsh reality shows implicating sex, cursing, nudity, etc., everything is fair game in today’s society.
Has the influence of visual media been a positive or negative in today’s culture? Some will argue a positive and others with yell out negative. Giving some of the programming on the television today I would have to say the most of it is negative because I feel it condones a variety of unmoral, unethical, and just simply dirty controversial issues. Cursing and every other word being used is the “F” word, nudity, porn, same sex marriages, among other issues should not be publicized as good. My children are very smart, sometimes for their own good and there are so many things that are inappropriate on regular television and I feel it sends the wrong message, for instance; Teen Moms basically let’s all the teenagers of the world think that it is alright to be a teenage mom and have sex before marriage because the moms will be there to raise them. There are many more and most seemed to be negative and send out the wrong message to not only our younger generations but to the entire world in general, so I think that a little more content censoring needs to be in place.

Reference
Lule, J. (2012) Exploring media and culture. Irvington, NY: Flat World Knowledge.