Television Culture

You had a long day at work and can’t wait to get home. You walk in the door, kick off your shoes; grab a bite to eat, and what the first thing you do? More likely if you live in America you tune into the television. Television has become more and more of a daily routine in our lives. It is far more than a social habit or social gathering.  For the guys, you are more likely to turn on the sports just to stay in tune with the guy at work.  As for the women, you know you have to watch the most talked about show with your girlfriends to stay in the social loop.

There are at least one billion televisions set worldwide, watched by more than 2.5 billion people per day in over 160 countries. 99 % of Americans households at least own one television or more (Barker, 335)

Television is a powerful source of knowledge of the world and continues to connect people. It has a way of constructing “social knowledge, social imagery, through which we perceive the worlds” (Barker, 315).

Television today remains the most widely accessible media.The world is increasing influences by products of the media. Media can be seen as a way of manipulating the audience and is a constant source of advertisements.

Television can be broken down into four terms or concepts. First, the text, relationship of text and audience, the political economy, and patterns of cultural meanings.  For instance, the text we can find in a local news programs.  The news is run primarily on text and stories. News is often heavily influencing fear onto the public life. 70 % of news programs surround violence, shootings, or convictions.

Television messages carry several meaning and not two people withdrawal the same message. Each culture and individuals can interpret it in different.  However, the text from the media comes for a structured dominant class.  Audiences do not reproduce or create textual meaning, but they produce meaning.

According, to Schlesinger, television news doesn’t reflect reality, but rather putting reality together. The news is a select program in which the agenda setter have selected and constructed their representation of reality. Agenda setter is those that have dominant power and control media. Media is often viewed from the eyes (perspective) of the dominant class.

For instance, during the Gulf War, journalists were not able to report freely. This goes against America’s freedom of speech.  The news coverage of that time was limited on what they could show. “Only 1 percent of the visual images of television were of death an injury” (Barker, 320).  Television was indeed offering inadequate information of the war.  Television is primary an informational source but it doesn’t always supply the whole truth.

Television is pretty much nothing without its audience. The viewer’s control to some extent of what is shown on television. According to Barker, the active audiences are the producers of meaning from within their own cultural context.  Audience need to understand the context in which they withdrawal form TV in order to watch it.

Television has become more localized. When television was introduced in china by a government, it was placed in hope to form social control over the citizens. However, television has increased diversity of the culture and political sentiments in china. It offered alternate views of life of cultures.  “Television has become a cultural forum of competing ideas” (Barker, 332).

Meyrowitz believes televisions in many ways have enforced identity amongst people. The mass media has given people are source of identity to identify with.  Whether that is displayed gender roles or what is in style for fashion.