Social aspects of television
Encyclopedia
The social aspects of television
are influences this medium
has had on society since its inception. The belief that this impact has been dramatic has been largely unchallenged in media theory since its inception. However, there is much dispute as to what those effects are, how serious the ramifications are and if these effects are more or less evolutionary with human communication
.
was the medium considered the main channel to access information and knowledge.
They refer to this finding as the Social Surrogacy Hypothesis. Furthermore, when an event such as a fight or argument disrupts a personal relationship, watching a favorite TV show was able to create a cushion and prevent the individual from experiencing reduced self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy that can often accompany the perceived threat. By providing a temporary substitute for acceptance and belonging that is experienced through social relationships TV is helping to relieve feelings of depression and loneliness when those relationships are not available. This benefit is considered a positive consequence of watching television as it can counteract the psychological damage that is caused by isolation from social relationships.
has many advantages. The Media Awareness Network, explains in its article, The Good Things about Television, that television can be a very powerful and effective learning tool for children if used wisely. The article states that television can help young people discover where they fit into society, develop closer relationships with peers and family, and teach them to understand complex social aspects of communication. Dimitri Christakis cites studies in which those who watched "Sesame Street
" and other educational programs as preschoolers had higher grades, were reading more books, placed more value on achievement and were more creative. Similarly, while those exposed to negative role models suffered, those exposed to positive models behaved better.
spoke of the "vast wasteland" that was the television programming of the day in his 1961 speech
.
Complaints about the social influence of television have been heard from the U.S. justice system as investigators and prosecutors decry what they refer to as “the CSI Syndrome.” They complain that, because of the popularity and considerable viewership of CSI
and its spin-offs, juries today expect to be “dazzled,” and will acquit criminals of charges unless presented with impressive physical evidence, even when motive, testimony, and lack of alibi are presented by the prosecution.
Television
has also been credited with changing the norms of social propriety, although the direction and value of this change are disputed. Milton Shulman
, writing about television in the 1960s, wrote that “TV cartoons showed cows without udders and not even a pause was pregnant,” and noted that on-air vulgarity was highly frowned upon. Shulman suggested that, even by the 1970s, television was shaping the ideas of propriety and appropriateness in the countries the medium blanketed. He asserted that, as a particularly “pervasive and ubiquitous” medium, television could create a comfortable familiarity with and acceptance of language and behavior once deemed socially unacceptable. Television, as well as influencing its viewers, evoked an imitative response from other competing media as they struggle to keep pace and retain viewer- or readership.
According to recent research, conducted by John Robinson and Steven Martin from the University of Maryland
, people who are not satisfied with their lives spend 30% more time watching TV than satisfied people do. The research was conducted with 30,000 people during the period between 1975 and 2006. This new study slightly contradicted previous research, which concluded that watching TV was the happiest time of the day for some people. However, prof. Robinson commented that watching TV could bring a short-time happiness, which would be just a result of an overall dissatisfaction.
portion of the brain
becomes very active and dopamine
is released. Some scientists believe that release of high amounts of dopamine reduces the amount of the neurotransmitter
available for control of movement, perception of pain and pleasure and formation of feelings, although this remains a controversial conclusion. A study conducted by Herbert Krugman found that while viewers are watching television the right side of the brain is twice as active as the left which causes a state of hypnosis
.
.
A study found that watching television decreases the metabolic rate in children to below that found in children at rest. Author John Steinbeck
describes television watchers:
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children under two years of age should not watch any television and children two and older should watch one to two hours at most. Children who watch more than four hours of television a day are more likely to become overweight.
TV watching and other sedentary activities are associated with greater risk of heart attack.
Legislators, scientists and parents are debating the effects of television violence on viewers, particularly youth. Fifty years of research on the impact of television on children's emotional and social development have not ended this debate.
Bushman & Anderson among others have claimed that the evidence clearly supports a causal relationship between media violence and societal violence. However other authors note significant methodological problems with the literature and mismatch between increasing media violence and decreasing crime rates in the United States.
A 2002 article in Scientific American suggested that compulsive television watching, television addiction
, was no different from any other addiction
, a finding backed up by reports of withdrawal symptoms among families forced by circumstance to cease watching. However this view has not yet received widespread acceptance among all scholars, and "television addiction" is not a diagnoseable condition according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -IV -TR.
A longitudinal study in New Zealand
involving 1000 people (from childhood to 26 years of age) demonstrated that "television viewing in childhood and adolescence is associated with poor educational achievement by 12 years of age". The same paper noted that there was a significant negative association between time spent watching television per day as a child and educational attainment by age 26: the more time a child spent watching television at ages 5 to 15, the less likely they were to have a university degree by age 26. However recent research (Schmidt et al., 2009) has indicated that, once other factors are controlled for, television viewing appears to have little to no impact on cognitive performance, contrary to previous thought. However this study was limited to cognitive performance in childhood. Numerous studies have also examined the relationship between TV viewing and school grades.
A study published in the Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy
concluded that parental television involvement was associated with greater body satisfaction among adolescent girls, less sexual experience amongst both male and female adolescents, and that parental television involvement may influence self-esteem and body image, in part by increasing parent-child closeness. However a more recent article by Christopher Ferguson, Benjamin Winegard, and Bo Winegard cautioned that the literature on media and body dissatisfaction is weaker and less consistent than often claimed and that media effects have been overemphasized. Similarly recent work by Laurence Steinbrerg and Kathryn Monahan has found that, using propensity score matching to control for other variables, television viewing of sexual media had no impact on teen sexual behavior in a longitudinal analysis.
Many studies have found little or no effect of television viewing on viewers (see Freedman, 2002). For example a recent long-term outcome study of youth found no long-term relationship between watching violent television and youth violence or bullying
On July 26, 2000 the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry stated that "prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life." However, scholars have since analyzed several statements in this release, both about the number of studies conducted, and a comparison with medical effects, and found many errors (Block & Crain, 2007; Freedman, 2002)
Television is used to promote commercial, social and political agendas. Use of public service announcements (including those paid for by governing bodies or politicians), news
and current affairs
, television advertisement
, advertorial
s and talk show
s are used to influence public opinion. The Cultivation Hypothesis suggests that some viewers may begin to repeat questionable or even blatantly fictitious information gleaned from the media as if it were factual. Considerable debate remains, however, whether the Cultivation Hypothesis is well supported by scientific literature, however, the effectiveness of television for propaganda (including commercial advertising) is unsurpassed. The US military and State Department often turn to media to broadcast into hostile territory or nation.
s depend on what is actually consumed, Neil Postman
argues that the dominance of entertaining, but not informative programming, creates a politically ignorant society, undermining democracy: "Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least-informed people in the Western world." However some broadcasters do offer Americans intelligent political narrative and argument. This offers otherwise ignorant viewers, who may not read about politics elsewhere, the opportunity to access current or historical political views, for example.
The viewership's dependence on schedule lessened with the invention of programmable video recorders, such as the Videocassette recorder
and the Digital video recorder
. Consumers could watch programs on their own schedule once they were broadcast and recorded. Television service providers also offer video on demand
, a set of programs which could be watched at any time.
Both mobile phone
networks and the Internet
can give us video streams; video sharing websites have become popular.
The Japanese manufacturer Scalar has developed a very small TV-system attached to the eyeglasses, called "Teleglass T3-F".
to consume shows about more “manly” endeavors, men’s feminine sides are tapped by the emotional nature of many television programs.
Television played a significant role in the feminist movement
. Although most of the women portrayed on television conformed to stereotypes, television also showed the lives of men as well as news and current affairs. These "other lives" portrayed on television left many women unsatisfied with their current socialization
.
The representation of males and females on the television screen has been a subject of much discussion since the television became commercially available in the late 1930s. In 1964 Betty Friedan
claimed that “television has represented the American
Woman as a “stupid, unattractive, insecure little household drudge who spends her martyred mindless, boring days dreaming of love—and plotting nasty revenge against her husband.” As women started to revolt and protest to become equals in society in the 1960s and 1970s, their portrayal on the television was an issue that they addressed. Journalist Susan Faludi
suggested, “The practices and programming of network television in the 1980s were an attempt to get back to those earlier stereotypes of women.” Through television, even the most homebound women can experience parts of our culture once considered primarily male, such as sports, war, business, medicine, law, and politics. For the last since at least the 1990s there has been a trend of showing males as insufferable and possibly spineless fools (e.g. Homer Simpson, Ray Burone).
The inherent intimacy of television makes it one of the few public arenas in our society where men routinely wear makeup and are judged as much on their personal appearance and their "style" as on their "accomplishments."
From 1930 to 2007 daytime television
hasn’t changed much. Soap operas and talk shows still dominate the daytime time slot. Prime time television since the 1950s has been aimed at and catered towards males. In 1952, 68% of characters in primetime dramas were male; in 1973, 74% of characters in these shows were male. In 1970 the National Organization for Women
(NOW) took action. They formed a task force to study and change the “derogatory stereotypes of women on television.” In 1972 they challenged the licences of two network-owned stations on the basis of their sexist programming. In the 1960s the shows I Dream of Jeannie
and Bewitched
insinuated that the only way that a woman could escape her duties was to use magic. Industry analysis Shari Anne Brill of Carat
USA states, “For years, when men were behind the camera, women were really ditsy. Now you have female leads playing superheroes, or super business women.” Current network broadcasting features a range of female portrayals. This is evident in a 1999 study by Lauzen and Dozier showing that "43% of all major characters on television are female".
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
are influences this medium
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
has had on society since its inception. The belief that this impact has been dramatic has been largely unchallenged in media theory since its inception. However, there is much dispute as to what those effects are, how serious the ramifications are and if these effects are more or less evolutionary with human communication
Human communication
Human communication, or Anthroposemiotics, is the field dedicated to understanding how people communicate:* with themselves: intrapersonal communication** expression: body language* another person: interpersonal communication...
.
Positive effects
Before TV, it can be considered that printingPrinting
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
was the medium considered the main channel to access information and knowledge.
Positive effects of television on children
Children in certain age can learn and discover many new things by Television. Many television programs are developed to open a new horizon and vision to children by teaching and showing them the places that they have never been or imagine. The important thing is to choose the right and useful channels and programs. For example Quinn Medicine helps the children to learn about the family values and also helps to develop their imagination. More, television can bring the family together that parents and their children can talk about the TV programs and discuss about new thing. They can have the opportunity to be together by the help of TV. Also, watching documentaries can build up a perspective about the worlds in kids minds and cultural programs can provide children to learn about their own culture or the other nations'.Social surrogacy hypothesis
Current research is discovering that individuals can employ television to create what is termed a parasocial or faux relationship with characters from their favorite television shows and movies as a way of deflecting feelings of loneliness and social deprivation. Just as an individual would spend time with a real person sharing opinions and thoughts, pseudo-relationships are formed with TV characters by becoming personally invested in their lives as if they were a close friend so that the individual can satiate the human desire to form meaningful relationships and establish themselves in society. Jaye Derrick and Shira Gabriel of the University of Buffalo, and Kurt Hugenberg of Miami University found that when an individual is not able to participate in interactions with real people, they are less likely to indicate feelings of loneliness when watching their favorite TV show.They refer to this finding as the Social Surrogacy Hypothesis. Furthermore, when an event such as a fight or argument disrupts a personal relationship, watching a favorite TV show was able to create a cushion and prevent the individual from experiencing reduced self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy that can often accompany the perceived threat. By providing a temporary substitute for acceptance and belonging that is experienced through social relationships TV is helping to relieve feelings of depression and loneliness when those relationships are not available. This benefit is considered a positive consequence of watching television as it can counteract the psychological damage that is caused by isolation from social relationships.
Educational advantages
Several studies have found that educational televisionEducational television
Educational television is the use of television programs in the field of distance education. It may be in the form of individual television programs or dedicated specialty channels that is often associated with cable television in the United States as Public, educational, and government access ...
has many advantages. The Media Awareness Network, explains in its article, The Good Things about Television, that television can be a very powerful and effective learning tool for children if used wisely. The article states that television can help young people discover where they fit into society, develop closer relationships with peers and family, and teach them to understand complex social aspects of communication. Dimitri Christakis cites studies in which those who watched "Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
" and other educational programs as preschoolers had higher grades, were reading more books, placed more value on achievement and were more creative. Similarly, while those exposed to negative role models suffered, those exposed to positive models behaved better.
Negative effects
There are many pejorative terms for television, including "boob tube" and "chewing gum for the mind", showing the disdain held by many people for this medium. Newton N. MinowNewton N. Minow
Newton Norman Minow is an American attorney and former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. His speech referring to television as a "vast wasteland" is cited even as the speech has passed its 50th anniversary...
spoke of the "vast wasteland" that was the television programming of the day in his 1961 speech
Wasteland Speech
The Wasteland Speech was a speech given by Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow to the convention of the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961. The speech was Minow's first major speech after he was appointed chairman of the FCC by President John F Kennedy...
.
Complaints about the social influence of television have been heard from the U.S. justice system as investigators and prosecutors decry what they refer to as “the CSI Syndrome.” They complain that, because of the popularity and considerable viewership of CSI
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
and its spin-offs, juries today expect to be “dazzled,” and will acquit criminals of charges unless presented with impressive physical evidence, even when motive, testimony, and lack of alibi are presented by the prosecution.
Television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
has also been credited with changing the norms of social propriety, although the direction and value of this change are disputed. Milton Shulman
Milton Shulman
Milton Shulman was a Canadian author, film and theatre critic.-Early life:He was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of a successful shopkeeper. His parents were born in Ukraine and were driven out of the Russian Empire by poverty and the pogroms against the Jews...
, writing about television in the 1960s, wrote that “TV cartoons showed cows without udders and not even a pause was pregnant,” and noted that on-air vulgarity was highly frowned upon. Shulman suggested that, even by the 1970s, television was shaping the ideas of propriety and appropriateness in the countries the medium blanketed. He asserted that, as a particularly “pervasive and ubiquitous” medium, television could create a comfortable familiarity with and acceptance of language and behavior once deemed socially unacceptable. Television, as well as influencing its viewers, evoked an imitative response from other competing media as they struggle to keep pace and retain viewer- or readership.
According to recent research, conducted by John Robinson and Steven Martin from the University of Maryland
University of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
, people who are not satisfied with their lives spend 30% more time watching TV than satisfied people do. The research was conducted with 30,000 people during the period between 1975 and 2006. This new study slightly contradicted previous research, which concluded that watching TV was the happiest time of the day for some people. However, prof. Robinson commented that watching TV could bring a short-time happiness, which would be just a result of an overall dissatisfaction.
Psychological effects
There is a theory that when a person plays video games or watches TV, the basal gangliaBasal ganglia
The basal ganglia are a group of nuclei of varied origin in the brains of vertebrates that act as a cohesive functional unit. They are situated at the base of the forebrain and are strongly connected with the cerebral cortex, thalamus and other brain areas...
portion of the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
becomes very active and dopamine
Dopamine
Dopamine is a catecholamine neurotransmitter present in a wide variety of animals, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. In the brain, this substituted phenethylamine functions as a neurotransmitter, activating the five known types of dopamine receptors—D1, D2, D3, D4, and D5—and their...
is released. Some scientists believe that release of high amounts of dopamine reduces the amount of the neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitters are endogenous chemicals that transmit signals from a neuron to a target cell across a synapse. Neurotransmitters are packaged into synaptic vesicles clustered beneath the membrane on the presynaptic side of a synapse, and are released into the synaptic cleft, where they bind to...
available for control of movement, perception of pain and pleasure and formation of feelings, although this remains a controversial conclusion. A study conducted by Herbert Krugman found that while viewers are watching television the right side of the brain is twice as active as the left which causes a state of hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
.
Physical effects
Studies in both children and adults have found an association between the number of hours of television watched and obesityObesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
.
A study found that watching television decreases the metabolic rate in children to below that found in children at rest. Author John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
describes television watchers:
- "I have observed the physical symptoms of television-looking on children as well as on adults. The mouth grows slack and the lips hang open; the eyes take on a hypnotized or doped look; the nose runs rather more than usual; the backbone turns to water and the fingers slowly and methodically pick the designs out of brocade furniture. Such is the appearance of semiconsciousness that one wonders how much of the ‘message’ of television is getting through to the brain."
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children under two years of age should not watch any television and children two and older should watch one to two hours at most. Children who watch more than four hours of television a day are more likely to become overweight.
TV watching and other sedentary activities are associated with greater risk of heart attack.
Alleged dangers
Legislators, scientists and parents are debating the effects of television violence on viewers, particularly youth. Fifty years of research on the impact of television on children's emotional and social development have not ended this debate.
Bushman & Anderson among others have claimed that the evidence clearly supports a causal relationship between media violence and societal violence. However other authors note significant methodological problems with the literature and mismatch between increasing media violence and decreasing crime rates in the United States.
A 2002 article in Scientific American suggested that compulsive television watching, television addiction
Television addiction
Television addiction is a disorder studied in television studies where the subject has a compulsion to watch television programming. The compulsion can be extremely difficult to control in many cases. It has many parallels to other forms of behavioral addiction, such as addiction to drugs or...
, was no different from any other addiction
Behavioral addiction
Behavioral addiction is a form of addiction which does not rely on drugs or alcohol. Increasingly referred to as process addiction or non-substance-related addiction ) behavioral addiction includes a compulsion to repeatedly engage in an action until said action causes serious negative consequences...
, a finding backed up by reports of withdrawal symptoms among families forced by circumstance to cease watching. However this view has not yet received widespread acceptance among all scholars, and "television addiction" is not a diagnoseable condition according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual -IV -TR.
A longitudinal study in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
involving 1000 people (from childhood to 26 years of age) demonstrated that "television viewing in childhood and adolescence is associated with poor educational achievement by 12 years of age". The same paper noted that there was a significant negative association between time spent watching television per day as a child and educational attainment by age 26: the more time a child spent watching television at ages 5 to 15, the less likely they were to have a university degree by age 26. However recent research (Schmidt et al., 2009) has indicated that, once other factors are controlled for, television viewing appears to have little to no impact on cognitive performance, contrary to previous thought. However this study was limited to cognitive performance in childhood. Numerous studies have also examined the relationship between TV viewing and school grades.
A study published in the Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy
Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy
Sexuality Research and Social Policy is a peer-reviewed academic journal and an official journal of the National Sexuality Resource Center , published by Springer...
concluded that parental television involvement was associated with greater body satisfaction among adolescent girls, less sexual experience amongst both male and female adolescents, and that parental television involvement may influence self-esteem and body image, in part by increasing parent-child closeness. However a more recent article by Christopher Ferguson, Benjamin Winegard, and Bo Winegard cautioned that the literature on media and body dissatisfaction is weaker and less consistent than often claimed and that media effects have been overemphasized. Similarly recent work by Laurence Steinbrerg and Kathryn Monahan has found that, using propensity score matching to control for other variables, television viewing of sexual media had no impact on teen sexual behavior in a longitudinal analysis.
Many studies have found little or no effect of television viewing on viewers (see Freedman, 2002). For example a recent long-term outcome study of youth found no long-term relationship between watching violent television and youth violence or bullying
On July 26, 2000 the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry stated that "prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life." However, scholars have since analyzed several statements in this release, both about the number of studies conducted, and a comparison with medical effects, and found many errors (Block & Crain, 2007; Freedman, 2002)
Propaganda
Television is used to promote commercial, social and political agendas. Use of public service announcements (including those paid for by governing bodies or politicians), news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
and current affairs
Current affairs (news format)
Current Affairs is a genre of broadcast journalism where the emphasis is on detailed analysis and discussion of news stories that have recently occurred or are ongoing at the time of broadcast....
, television advertisement
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
, advertorial
Advertorial
An advertorial is an advertisement in the form of an editorial. The term "advertorial" is a portmanteau of "advertisement" and "editorial." Merriam-Webster dates the origin of the word to 1946....
s and talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
s are used to influence public opinion. The Cultivation Hypothesis suggests that some viewers may begin to repeat questionable or even blatantly fictitious information gleaned from the media as if it were factual. Considerable debate remains, however, whether the Cultivation Hypothesis is well supported by scientific literature, however, the effectiveness of television for propaganda (including commercial advertising) is unsurpassed. The US military and State Department often turn to media to broadcast into hostile territory or nation.
Politics
While the effects of television programTelevision program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
s depend on what is actually consumed, Neil Postman
Neil Postman
Neil Postman was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University...
argues that the dominance of entertaining, but not informative programming, creates a politically ignorant society, undermining democracy: "Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least-informed people in the Western world." However some broadcasters do offer Americans intelligent political narrative and argument. This offers otherwise ignorant viewers, who may not read about politics elsewhere, the opportunity to access current or historical political views, for example.
Technology trends
In its infancy, television was a time-dependent, fleeting medium; it acted on the schedule of the institutions that broadcast the television signal or operated the cable. Fans of regular shows planned their schedules so that they could be available to watch their shows at their time of broadcast. The term appointment television was coined by marketers to describe this kind of attachment.The viewership's dependence on schedule lessened with the invention of programmable video recorders, such as the Videocassette recorder
Videocassette recorder
The videocassette recorder , is a type of electro-mechanical device that uses removable videocassettes that contain magnetic tape for recording analog audio and analog video from broadcast television so that the images and sound can be played back at a more convenient time...
and the Digital video recorder
Digital video recorder
A digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
. Consumers could watch programs on their own schedule once they were broadcast and recorded. Television service providers also offer video on demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
, a set of programs which could be watched at any time.
Both mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
networks and the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
can give us video streams; video sharing websites have become popular.
The Japanese manufacturer Scalar has developed a very small TV-system attached to the eyeglasses, called "Teleglass T3-F".
Gender and television
While women, who were “traditionally more isolated than men” were given equal opportunityEqual opportunity
Equal opportunity, or equality of opportunity, is a controversial political concept; and an important informal decision-making standard without a precise definition involving fair choices within the public sphere...
to consume shows about more “manly” endeavors, men’s feminine sides are tapped by the emotional nature of many television programs.
Television played a significant role in the feminist movement
Feminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
. Although most of the women portrayed on television conformed to stereotypes, television also showed the lives of men as well as news and current affairs. These "other lives" portrayed on television left many women unsatisfied with their current socialization
Socialization
Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies...
.
The representation of males and females on the television screen has been a subject of much discussion since the television became commercially available in the late 1930s. In 1964 Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
claimed that “television has represented the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Woman as a “stupid, unattractive, insecure little household drudge who spends her martyred mindless, boring days dreaming of love—and plotting nasty revenge against her husband.” As women started to revolt and protest to become equals in society in the 1960s and 1970s, their portrayal on the television was an issue that they addressed. Journalist Susan Faludi
Susan Faludi
Susan C. Faludi is an American feminist, journalist and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the Pulitzer Prize committee thought showed the "human costs of high finance".-Biographical...
suggested, “The practices and programming of network television in the 1980s were an attempt to get back to those earlier stereotypes of women.” Through television, even the most homebound women can experience parts of our culture once considered primarily male, such as sports, war, business, medicine, law, and politics. For the last since at least the 1990s there has been a trend of showing males as insufferable and possibly spineless fools (e.g. Homer Simpson, Ray Burone).
The inherent intimacy of television makes it one of the few public arenas in our society where men routinely wear makeup and are judged as much on their personal appearance and their "style" as on their "accomplishments."
From 1930 to 2007 daytime television
Daytime television
Daytime television is the general term for television shows produced that are intended to air during the daytime hours on weekdays. This article is about American daytime television, for information about international daytime television see Daytime television....
hasn’t changed much. Soap operas and talk shows still dominate the daytime time slot. Prime time television since the 1950s has been aimed at and catered towards males. In 1952, 68% of characters in primetime dramas were male; in 1973, 74% of characters in these shows were male. In 1970 the National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
(NOW) took action. They formed a task force to study and change the “derogatory stereotypes of women on television.” In 1972 they challenged the licences of two network-owned stations on the basis of their sexist programming. In the 1960s the shows I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
and Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
insinuated that the only way that a woman could escape her duties was to use magic. Industry analysis Shari Anne Brill of Carat
Carat
Carat or karat may refer to:In the gem business:* Carat , a unit of mass for gemstones, equal to 0.2 gram* Carat or karat, a unit of purity for goldIn Judaism:...
USA states, “For years, when men were behind the camera, women were really ditsy. Now you have female leads playing superheroes, or super business women.” Current network broadcasting features a range of female portrayals. This is evident in a 1999 study by Lauzen and Dozier showing that "43% of all major characters on television are female".
See also
- Anthropology of media
- Four Arguments for the Elimination of TelevisionFour Arguments for the Elimination of TelevisionFour Arguments for the Elimination of Television is a book written by Jerry Mander which argues that there are a number of problems with the medium of television...
- Mediatization (media)Mediatization (media)In communication studies or media studies, ‘mediatization’ or ‘mediatisation’ is a term used to describe a process in which modernity is shaped. . It is a process which begins with a change in communication media and proceeds to subordination of the power of prevailing influential institutions...
- Social televisionSocial televisionSocial Television is a general term for technology that supports communication and social interaction in either the context of watching television, or related to TV content. It also includes the study of television-related social behavior, devices and networks...
- Television addictionTelevision addictionTelevision addiction is a disorder studied in television studies where the subject has a compulsion to watch television programming. The compulsion can be extremely difficult to control in many cases. It has many parallels to other forms of behavioral addiction, such as addiction to drugs or...
- Television studiesTelevision studiesTelevision studies is an academic discipline that deals with critical approaches to television. Usually, it is distinguished from mass-communication research, which tends to approach the topic from an empirical perspective...
- TV turnoffTV turnoffScreen-Free Week is an annual event where children, families, schools and communities are encouraged to turn off screens and "turn on life"...
, an advertising campaignAdvertising campaignAn advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...
against watching television
External links
- Mary Desjardins, Gender and Television, The Museum of Broadcast Communications (2007), http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/G/htmlG/genderandte/genderandte.htm,
- Meyrowitz, Joshua (1995) "Mediating Communication: What Happens?" in John Downing, Ali Mohammadi and Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi (eds) Questioning the Media, Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp. 39–53.