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  Category: Articles » Society & News » Social » Article
 

The Awful Truth About Television: TV Corrodes Community and Democracy




By Katherine Westphal

Americans are watching more TV and doing less in their communities

Americans watch TV 4.5 hours per day on average. TV takes up so much time that citizens are becoming less active socially and politically. They are more informed about the TV show "The Simpsons," than they are about the First Amendment. They also trust the government and each other significantly less. Researcher Dr. Robert Putnam in a study found that the more TV people watched, the less they were involved in public activities.

"TV viewing is strongly and negatively related to social trust and group membership," the study found. Newspaper reading, on the other hand, had a strong positive relationship. Newspaper readers were involved in larger numbers of political organizations. The study controlled for education, income, age, race, place of residence, work status, and gender.

The study also found that "heavy TV watching is one important reason why less educated people are less engaged in the life of their communities."

TV: How the few can control the many

Television, because of the expense involved in production and distribution, inherently favors large corporations. Usually, the only other social entity able to afford the expense of TV is government.

It is inherently a one-to-many technology. The networks transmit one message over the airwaves or through the cable network to thousands or millions or, in the case of events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics, billions of minds. This is different from the internet where many people can interact and discuss as a group.

Furthermore, because of the tendency of the television set to shut down people's ability to think critically, as discussed in the "TV's hypnotic effect" article, the message that is blasted out over the airwaves enters viewers' minds unfiltered. Whether you agree with the message or not, that is simply too much power.

Five companies control the media

Looking at the amount of programming available, one might think that there is a wide variety of choice. There are literally hundreds of TV stations with options to choose from sports to news to cartoons to history to painting and more. The amount of options is staggering. However, only five major corporations control the majority of the media. Those companies get access to nearly every American for 4˝ hours per day. The consequences to democracy are frightening. Millions of minds linked to five corporations for 4˝ hours per day.

These five huge corporations—Disney, Time Warner, Bertelsmann of Germany, Murdoch's News Corporation, and Viacom (formerly CBS)—own not only most of the television stations, but most of the newspapers, magazines, books, and radio stations of the United States as well.

Politicians chase money for commercials

TV affects both the voters and the public servants they elect. In a recent speech, former Vice President Albert Gore noted that politicians spend so much time and money to purchase TV time for election ads that they do not have time to do the jobs voters elected them to do.

Politicians spent $515 million on television spots in the 2005 elections, the highest in a year with no Congressional or Presidential seats contested. This was up from the $300 million spent in the 2003 elections, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG. In New York alone, the mayoral candidates spent more than $44 million saturating the airwaves.

Imagine politics without TV

To understand the impact, try to imagine an election and politics without TV. Imagine no television attack ads. Imagine politicians no longer begging for money to cover the escalating costs of TV ads. Imagine reading about the debates, instead of watching the TV debate spectacle. Imagine engaged citizens, who instead of watching TV 4˝ hours per day (1.33 billion hours per day for the US), spend a fraction of that time debating issues with their neighbors and participating actively in politics and the community. Nothing would be the same.

About 'The Awful Truth About Television' Series:
What happens when the average American spends 4 hours 32 minutes every day watching television? Trash Your TV's 'The Awful Truth About Television' Series explores the multifaceted problems with TV in eleven hard-hitting articles. Read the full series and you will never look at your television set the same way again.

Sources: http://www.prospect.org/print/V7/24/putnam-r.html
http://www.benbagdikian.com/
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/01/16/al_gores_speech_january_16_2006.php
http://www.tns-mi.com/news/11102005.htm


 
 
About the Author
Katherine Westphal is the guru of TV control. Learn the the awful truth about what your TV time is doing to your life, your family, and your community. Then get in control with The TV-free System

Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/29522.html
 
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  Some other articles by Katherine Westphal
Are loud commercials bugging you? Four solutions to give you peace and quiet
"Every night, I battle my TV. Just as I'm settling in to a nice, relaxing half-slumber while listening to Sarah-Jessica-Parker-as-Carrie-Bradshaw rant about men, I find myself rudely awakened ...

Why you can't count on the FCC to control the smut on TV
Many want FCC to clean up TV Many people look to the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, to keep smut off of their TV's, to stop "wardrobe malfunctions," to force the cable companies to offer a ...

"The Secret" and TV: How Watching TV May Help Manifest Violence, Poverty, and General Negativity
Recently, I had the chance to see "The Secret" at http://thesecret.tv/, which proposed a startling idea: we create our experiences with our thoughts through ...

The Awful Truth About Television: Fake News and other reasons not to watch TV news
DO touch that dial to avoid fake news Government agencies, corporations, industry groups, and other large organizations contaminate the airwaves with fake news. These organizations produce pre-packaged news segments called VNRs, or Video ...

The Awful Truth About Television: Why kids NAG
Viewers log in 50,000 commercials per year Commercials are another significant problem with TV watching. Viewer's pocketbooks are the primary victim. The average person who logs in 4˝ hours ...

The Awful Truth About Television: "Heavy" TV watchers are twice as likely to be obese
Studies show: TV makes you fat This large amount of time spent motionlessly staring at a screen is also hazardous to your health and girth. Numerous studies show a relationship between TV ...

  
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