Television's Negative Impact On American Culture

The origins of television can also be traced to science. Television was a visual extension of a radio. The first attempts at commercial television emerged in 1925 in both the United States and England. By 1946, synthesis of four different designs led to a much better receiver. Televisions could be found in eight-thousand American homes in 1946, one million by 1949, ten million by 1951, and forty-five million- 90 percent of all homes- by 1960. In 1967, 95 percent of American homes consumed an average of five hours of television a day. It was evitable that the television would change the meaning of arts and entertainment. However, many critic’s argue that TV has a negative impact on American culture.
In 1961, Newton Minnow, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, declared television to be a “vast wasteland.” Critics argue that television has failed to educate Americans or uplift their culture. In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan insisted that TV was a “cool” medium unlike the “hot” media of radio and print. He meant by this that TV images allowed viewers to give meaning to what was seen, whereas printed language and radio speech imposed thoughts on audiences. In 1960, Paul Lazarsfeld argued that the sheer quantity of news and information offered on TV desensitized viewers to the shock of poverty, oppression, and violence. Neil …show more content…
Some observers of the content of American television find it to be an electronics throwback to the nineteenth-century tradition of popular commercial entertainment with its curious combinations of burlesque and violence, but also self-improvement and self-important seriousness. Despite the frustration of reformers, American television probably has tended more to homogenize popular culture than to debase it. And people that use TV understand its programming in very different ways that reflect age, ethnicity, gender, and