television has two roles essay

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Television has two roles: to inform and entertain. Explain which of these roles you see as important. To what extent do you think that TV today performs these roles in an effective way? Support your point of view with observations or examples.

IELTS essay Television has two roles: to inform and entertain. Explain which of these roles you see as important. Support your point of view with observations or examples.

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Television Influence on People Essay

Interpersonal relationships depend on a variety of internal and external factors, and television remains one of the most controversial issues in human life. On the one hand, according to Martin and Jacobus (2019), social interactions offered on TV are predictable and rather slick, with no solid room for experimentation and imagination. On the other hand, access to television programs has already become a meaningful international movement (Martin & Jacobus, 2019). It means that information may be displayed on TV and provoke certain emotions and behaviors. People want to and can watch as many shows and episodes as possible to cover their personal needs and emotional satisfaction. They compare experiences, analyze environments, and develop discussions to demonstrate what they learn from the offered material. For example, high social expectations and new perspectives on obligations depicted on TV affect adolescents and adults. In this essay, analyzing the course reading and an interview with a friend allows learning that despite a common context and technical advancement, television has a great impact on people.

Despite the intention to control the impact of TV on children, it is hard for parents to ensure that proper shows and episodes are chosen for watching. During this interview, my friend recognized two shows that determined her childhood and adolescence – Friends (NBC, 1994-2004) and Beverly Hills 90210 (CBS, 1990-2000). At that moment, watching the chosen series was related to multiple positive emotions because the authors depicted the nature of teenage and adult relationships and the quality of life that American citizens could have (Martin & Jacobus, 2019). For example, in Beverly Hills , school and college education were described, with a special evaluation of current problems of drug abuse, sexual violence, bullying, and friendship. In Friends , attention was paid to the essence of friendship and situations when certain decisions should be made and preferences should be established. It was learned that even the most intelligent and careful people could make mistakes and needed to analyze their behaviors in particular contexts. Each show seriously impacted the interviewee’s behavior and acceptance of reality. Those stories prepared adolescents for their grown-up lives where racial, gender, and age inequality existed and put various restrictions on an individual’s activities.

The ways of making TV shows have changed with time, including various technological and social aspects, but their impact on people stays the same. Today, there is no need to wait for a particular time but use the Internet and watch favorite shows anytime. The interviewee shared her interest in such series as Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 2005 – ) and Gossip Girl (CW, 2007-2012). Almost every episode brought some new experiences and emotions to her life because the characters lived their lives, solved problems, and achieved their goals. Martin and Jacobus (2019) notice that many modern episodes are self-contained, and it does not take much preparation or explanation in advance. Therefore, the number of viewers changes regularly, and some people demonstrate their interest or choose other shows. My friend admires Grey’s Anatomy due to its surgical themes and how health care has been recently improved. Gossip Girl is a show about modern teenagers, their problems, and their dreams. It reveals what young people want, what steps they are ready to take, and how family business affects children’s future. Instead of inspiration or motivation, these series provoke critical thinking and evaluation.

Addressing the chosen TV shows and learning the material from the textbook, it has become evident that television’s impact cannot be ignored. Despite the year of production and distribution, the main goal of any product is to entertain people and gain commercial benefits (Martin & Jacobus, 2019). However, modern researchers and sociologists admit that new programs are characterized by biased or sensationalist judgments that discourage social engagement and misinform people (Rothwell, 2019). Therefore, it is important to be cautious and accept the offered material for advertising purposes. Marked influence continues to grow and promote the American style of life in many countries abroad. Video art has become a serious competitor to commercial television, offering experimental and radical ideas to please the audience (Martin & Jacobus, 2019). This sphere of art has not been properly examined yet, but its abilities are unpredictable and captivating. Although some people are confident in the television industry, it is wrong to neglect the possibility of improvement but gain a better meaning. Compared to the adolescent period, when viewers admire opportunities and discover new sources of inspiration, adulthood makes them more attentive to the significant details.

Communication with my friend and the evaluation of old and new TV shows and video art ideas turn out to be a valuable experience in understanding how people should treat television. Different in quality and distribution periods, most series are similar in their context and purposes. They aim to describe human lives, address social, economic, and political problems, and show how certain decisions lead to certain outcomes. However, even if the episodes vary, their impact on people is definite – watching, learning, and following the examples. Images and sounds have been improved regardless of the viewer’s readiness or knowledge levels. Still, how individuals accept these stories has nothing to do with technology but personal judgments and attitudes toward society.

Martin, F. D., & Jacobus, L. A. (2019). Humanities through arts (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Rothwell, J. (2019). You are what you watch? The social effects of TV. The New York Times . Web.

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PTE You will have 20 minutes to plan, write and revise an essay about the topic below. Your response will be judged on how well you develop a position, organize your ideas, present supporting details, and control the elements of standard written English. You should write 200-300 words.

Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people. Explain which of these roles you see as more important. To what extent do you think that TV today performs each of these roles in an effective way? Support your point of view with details from your own experiences, observations or reading.

PTE #79 - Two Roles of TV

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Essay on Television

500+ words essay on television.

Television has become a crucial part of our lives now. It not only impacts our social life but also our educational life. Just as newspapers and computers are significant modes of communication, Television also counts as one. With a television, you can connect to the world outside. Moreover, it is also important in influencing our personal and public lives. However, with the benefits, there are also some disadvantages. Thus, it must be consumed within a limit. This television essay will elaborate on the same points.

Importance of Television

Television is definitely one of the most important electronic devices with a screen. It helps us in receiving information. Further, we also get entertained by it and get rid of boredom.

Most importantly, it plays a significant role in distributing news and information. News channels are a great source of information about the current happenings in the world. Similarly, television programs also teach us a lot of things.

For instance, we learn about the rich civilizations and historical sketches via historical channels. Similarly, when we are alone, it acts as a great source of entertainment. In addition, we also get to learn about many cooking recipes.

Television helps us raise the capacity of our minds. You can learn a trick or two from it to solve your daily problems. It also instils creativity in people. Further, watching information channels equip us with facts and concepts.

There are also motivation programs on television. They serve as inspiration for many to achieve success in a number of fields. Apart from that, we also get laughter therapy from television.

Watching comedy shows and movies allow us to laugh freely. On the other hand, people who are religious and spiritual also benefit from it. They get access to spiritual and religious messages to nourish their souls.

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Television Essay- Why You Must Limit the Time

As the younger generations are growing up with electronics, it has become important to limit their time with these gadgets. You see all the time they are glued to phone screens or television.

It is no less than a nightmare for parents as it harms their brains. When you get used to watching the glowing screens constantly, nothing will interest you. Moreover, parents also allow their children to stare at the screens blankly to get entertainment.

This takes away their time of playing outside or spending time with their loved ones. When the children will play outside or mingle with others, they will be able to develop their social skills, gross motor skills and language.

Watching television only will not help them do that. Therefore, it is important to limit the time of television watching especially for children. This can help them greatly in the long run and give them a better life.

To conclude the television essay, while television has numerous benefits, it also comes with its fair share of disadvantages. Thus, we must ensure that our children create the perfect balance between watching TV and doing other things. This way, they can get the best of both worlds.

FAQ of Essay on Television

Question 1: Why is television important?

Answer 1: Television is a great source of entertainment. Moreover, it also provides us with valuable information about the world. It also helps us stay in touch with the outside world.

Question 2: Why should we limit the time of television?

Answer 2: It is essential to do that especially for children so they can develop their social skills and gross motor skills better. Watching too much television will also hamper their eyesight. Thus, it must be consumed within a limit.

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Essay on Television for Students [100, 150, 200, 350 Words]

Essay on Television: Television is one of the most influential innovations of modern times. In this article, you are going to learn to write a paragraph or essay on Television (100, 150, 200 and 350 Words). You’ll learn what are the uses and abuses of television or what are the advantages and disadvantages of television. So, let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Short Essay on Television: 100 Words

Television is based on a highly sophisticated science of vision and sound. A man can see as far the horizon. He hears as far as the sound is audible to him. But television takes his vision to a place far beyond his horizon. He sees a thing or person long beyond his actual physical reach. It brings to him also sound from a very remote place.

In fact, television brings vision and sound together from a distance which is beyond the range of human sight and hearing. It is a powerful and very useful invention of modern science. It has conquered space for human eye-sight. It has brought about a great development in the science of communication. It can well be used for entertainment and knowledge.

Television Essay: 150 Words

One of the latest wonders of science is Television. It is an effective medium of communication and entertainment. We can watch live important political, sports and other events happening at distant places. This enables us to have a direct knowledge of the things, places and events far away. TV has thus brought the whole world into the drawing room.

Television is also a powerful medium of mass education. Educational programmes on healthcare and family planning, general knowledge can be sent to millions of viewers through audio-visual presentation in the TV. It also keeps off loneliness.

But TV has its bad effects too. Watching TV sometimes becomes an addiction, People remain glued to the TV and it makes them idle- particularly the students and young people. They neglect sports and games and their studies. Too much of viewing affects our vision. Programmes, if not properly selected, cast bad effects on young minds. Social visits become very rare and people become unsocial.

Essay on the Television: 200 Words

No other thing is as familiar as Television in our present times. It was invented by John Baird in 1925. It first appeared in India in 1959. It is really a wonder of science today. It is a two-in-one. It is the radio on one side and the cinema on the other. Television is a very useful instrument in many ways. It is a powerful medium for education and recreation. It gives lessons on the subjects like science and mathematics and also on geography and history.

It shows us cinema and live telecast on games and sports. On its screen we have a delightful scenery of nature and thrilling sights of animals roaming in the jungles and in the deep waters of the seas. We can amuse the shows of serials. It is also a mighty medium of advertisement.

Sometimes it has bad effects on children. In most cases, they sit tight with it to witness their favorite items which captivate them greatly. Sometimes they neglect their bounden duties as students. They try to copy the most interesting show-style. In some cases they even face their death. Many things are very good with television but its price is very high and the poor cannot benefit by it.

Television Essay in English: 350 Words

Television is a modern invention. When television was first invented, people of the world were very happy because they had the scope to know the world around them and to entertain themselves in the best possible ways. Television is no doubt something which ushered progress of civilization. Some electronic media like BBC took over the most important role to make the people of the world aware of the society to which they were belonging and the environment by which they were being nourished. It is quite well known that, BBC produced all of the plays of Shakespeare as films. Even this world famous electronic media focused on the two World Wars so much so that people of the world came to know how horrible was war and warfare. Thus social consciousness was an important factor that was first aroused by the aid of television.

But this television is now being abused constantly by some commercially debased people. In West Bengal, television is so abused that the young generation is now misguided. The young people follow the bad culture and become oblivious of the hoary tradition of our country. Mere entertainment has been presented on the different television channels. Meaningless serials and reality shows are heart-throbbing without any moral impact. Crimes and social disorder are presented so crudely that the minds of the young people are overwhelmed with frustration, dilapidation, and despair. It seems that there is no escape from despair. The ultimate result is social alienation which brings about moral dilemma.

Yet, the concerned authority is really callous to the problems. Advertisement, sponsors, etc. are the sources of the economic structure of the different channels. Thus, the producers intend to draw the attention of the businessman by claiming the popularity of the channels. The inevitable result of this kind of commercial debasement is of Course disintegration that causes serious disbelief in the sphere of culture and education. Therefore, we must be conscious of the fact that television is not merely a media for entertainment; rather it is a source of important social and cultural messages.

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I really enjoyed reading your essay on television. It was very informative and I learned a lot. I especially liked the part about how television can be used to teach different subjects.

9.2 The Relationship Between Television and Culture

Learning objectives.

Identify ways in which American culture is reflected on television.
Identify ways in which television affects the development of American culture.

Since its inception as an integral part of American life in the 1950s, television has both reflected and nurtured cultural mores and values. From the escapist dramas of the 1960s, which consciously avoided controversial issues and glossed over life’s harsher realities in favor of an idealized portrayal, to the copious reality TV shows in recent years, on which participants discuss even the most personal and taboo issues, television has held up a mirror to society. But the relationship between social attitudes and television is reciprocal; broadcasters have often demonstrated their power to influence viewers, either consciously through slanted political commentary, or subtly, by portraying controversial relationships (such as single parenthood, same-sex marriages, or interracial couplings) as socially acceptable. The symbiotic nature of television and culture is exemplified in every broadcast, from family sitcoms to serious news reports.

Cultural Influences on Television

In the 1950s, most television entertainment programs ignored current events and political issues. Instead, the three major networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) developed prime-time shows that would appeal to a general family audience. Chief among these types of shows was the domestic comedy —a generic family comedy that was identified by its character-based humor and usually set within the home. Seminal examples included popular 1950s shows such as Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show , and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet . Presenting a standardized version of the White middle-class suburban family, domestic comedies portrayed the conservative values of an idealized American life. Studiously avoiding prevalent social issues such as racial discrimination and civil rights, the shows focused on mostly White middle-class families with traditional nuclear roles (mother in the home, father in the office) and implied that most domestic problems could be solved within a 30-minute time slot, always ending with a strong moral lesson.

Although these shows depicted an idealized version of American family life, many families in the 1950s were traditional nuclear families. Following the widespread poverty, political uncertainty, and physical separation of the war years, many Americans wanted to settle down, have children, and enjoy the peace and security that family life appeared to offer. During the booming postwar era, a period of optimism and prosperity, the traditional nuclear family flourished. However, the families and lifestyles presented in domestic comedies did not encompass the overall American experience by any stretch of the imagination. As historian Stephanie Coontz points out, “the June Cleaver or Donna Stone homemaker role was not available to the more than 40 percent of black women with small children who worked outside the home (Coontz, 1992).” Although nearly 60 percent of the U.S. population was labeled middle class by the mid-1950s, 25 percent of all families and more than 50 percent of two-parent Black families were poor. Migrant workers suffered horrific deprivations, and racial tensions were rife. None of this was reflected in the world of domestic comedies, where even the Hispanic gardener in Father Knows Best was named Frank Smith (Coontz, 1992).

Most domestic comedies in the 1950s portrayed an idealized version of family life and ignored social and political events.

Dennis S. Hurd – The Cleavers – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Not all programs in the 1950s were afraid to tackle controversial social or political issues. In March 1954, journalist Edward R. Murrow broadcast an unflattering portrait of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy on his show See It Now . McCarthy, a member of the Senate Investigation Committee, had launched inquiries regarding potential Communist infiltration in U.S. institutions. Murrow thought that McCarthy’s aggressive tactics were a potential threat to civil liberties. His portrait cast the senator from Wisconsin in an unflattering light by pointing out contradictions in his speeches. This led to such an uproar that McCarthy was formally reprimanded by the U.S. Senate (Friedman, 2008).

Entertainment programs also tackled controversial issues. The long-running television western Gunsmoke , which aired on CBS from 1955 to 1975, flourished in a Cold War society, where U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) stood up to lawlessness in defense of civilization. The characters and community in Gunsmoke faced relevant social issues, including the treatment of minority groups, the meaning of family, the legitimacy of violence, and the strength of religious belief. During the 1960s, the show adapted to the desires of its viewing audience, becoming increasingly aware of and sympathetic to ethnic minorities, in tune with the national mood during the civil rights era. This adaptability helped the show to become the longest-running western in TV history.

Violence and Escapism in the 1960s

During the 1960s, television news broadcasts brought the realities of real-world events into people’s living rooms in vivid detail. The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite , which debuted in 1962, quickly became the country’s most popular newscast, and by the end of the decade, journalist Walter Cronkite was known as the most trusted man in America. Following John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency at the beginning of the decade, the 1960s took an ominous turn. Shocked viewers tuned into Cronkite’s broadcast on November 22, 1963, to learn about the assassination of their president. During the next few days, viewers followed every aspect of the tragedy on television, from the tremor in Cronkite’s voice as he removed his glasses and announced the news of Kennedy’s death, to the frantic scenes from Dallas police headquarters where the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was gunned down by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, to the thousands of mourners lining up next to the president’s flag-draped coffin.

Television began to play a major role in U.S. politics during the presidency of John. F. Kennedy.

Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

Around the same time as Kennedy’s assassination, horrific images from Vietnam were streaming into people’s living rooms during the nation’s first televised war. With five camera crews on duty in the Saigon bureau, news crews captured vivid details of the war in progress. Although graphic images were rarely shown on network TV, several instances of violence reached the screen, including a CBS report in 1965 that showed Marines lighting the thatched roofs of the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters and an NBC news report in 1968 that aired a shot of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a captive on a Saigon street. Further images, of children being burned and scarred by napalm and prisoners being tortured, fueled the antiwar sentiments of many Americans. In addition to the devastation caused by the president’s death and the Vietnam War, Americans were also feeling the pressure of the Cold War—the clash between the United States and the Soviet Union in the years following World War II. This pressure was especially great during periods of tension throughout the 1950s and 1960s, such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a confrontation that caused many people to fear nuclear war.

As a result of the intense stress faced by many Americans during the 1960s, broadcasters and viewers turned to escapist programs such as I Dream of Jeannie , a fantasy show about a 2,000-year-old genie who marries an astronaut, and Bewitched , a supernatural-themed show about a witch who tries to live as a suburban housewife. Both shows typified the situation comedy , or sitcom, a comedy genre featuring a recurring cast of characters who resolve zany situations based on their everyday lives. Other popular sitcoms in the 1960s included The Beverly Hillbillies , a show about a poor backwoods family who move to Beverly Hills, California, after finding oil on their land, and Gilligan’s Island , the ultimate escapist comedy about seven characters shipwrecked on an uncharted island. None of the 1960s sitcoms mentioned any of the political unease that was taking place in the outside world, providing audiences with a welcome diversion from real life. Other than an occasional documentary, TV programming in the 1960s consisted of a sharp dichotomy between prime-time escapist comedy and hard news.

Figure 9.10

Escapist sitcoms like I Dream of Jeannie provided Americans with a much-needed diversion from the stressful events of the 1960s.

Diversity and Politics in the 1970s

During the 1970s, broadcasters began to diversify families on their shows to reflect changing social attitudes toward formerly controversial issues such as single parenthood and divorce. Feminist groups including the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Women’s Political Caucus, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women pushed for equality on issues such as pay and encouraged women to enter the workforce. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned women’s right to abortion, giving them control over their reproductive rights. Divorce rates skyrocketed during the 1970s, as states adopted no-fault divorce laws, and the change in family dynamics was reflected on television. Between 1972 and 1978, CBS aired the socially controversial sitcom Maude . Featuring a middle-aged feminist living with her fourth husband and divorced daughter, the show exploded the dominant values of the White middle-class domestic sitcom and its traditional gender roles. Throughout its 7-year run, Maude tackled social and political issues such as abortion, menopause, birth control, alcoholism, and depression. During its first four seasons, the show was in the top 10 in Nielsen ratings, illustrating the changing tastes of the viewing audience, who had come of age during the era of civil rights and Vietnam protests and developed a taste for socially conscious television. Other 1970s sitcoms took the same approach, including Maude ’s CBS predecessor, All in the Family , which covered issues ranging from racism and homophobia to rape and miscarriage, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show , which reflected changing attitudes toward women’s rights by featuring television’s first never-married independent career woman as the central character. Even wholesome family favorite The Brady Bunch , which ran from 1969 to 1974, featured a non-nuclear family, reflecting the rising rates of blended families in American society.

Figure 9.11

The popularity of controversial shows like Maude reflected the changing cultural and social values of the 1970s.

In addition to changing family dynamics on sitcoms and other prime-time shows, variety and comedy sketch shows developed a political awareness in the 1970s that reflected audiences’ growing appetite for social and political commentary. Sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live ( SNL ) premiered on NBC in 1975 and has remained on air ever since. Featuring a different celebrity guest host every week and relatively unknown comedy regulars, the show parodies contemporary popular culture and politics, lambasting presidential candidates and pop stars alike. Earlier NBC sketch comedy show Laugh-In , which ran from 1968 to 1973, also featured politically charged material, though it lacked the satirical bite of later series such as SNL . By the end of the decade, television broadcasting reflected a far more politically conscious and socially aware viewing audience.

The Influence of Cable Television in the 1980s

Until the mid-1980s, the top three networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) dominated television broadcasting in the United States. However, as cable services gained popularity following the deregulation of the industry in 1984, viewers found themselves with a multitude of options. Services such as Cable News Network (CNN), Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN), and Music Television (MTV) profoundly altered the television landscape in the world of news, sports, and music. New markets opened up for these innovative program types, as well as for older genres such as the sitcom. During the 1980s, a revival of family sitcoms took place with two enormous hits: The Cosby Show and Family Ties . Both featured a new take on modern family life, with the mothers working outside of the home and the fathers pitching in with housework and parental duties. Despite their success on network television, sitcoms faced stiff competition from cable’s variety of choices. Between 1983 and 1994, weekly broadcast audience shares (a measure of the number of televisions in use that are tuned to a particular show) for network television dropped from 69 to 52, while cable networks’ shares rose from 9 to 26 (Newcomb, 2004).

With a growing number of households subscribing to cable TV, concern began to grow about the levels of violence to which children were becoming exposed. In addition to regularly broadcast network programs, cable offered viewers the chance to watch films and adult-themed shows during all hours, many of which had far more violent content than normal network programming. One study found that by the time an average child leaves elementary school, he or she has witnessed 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other acts of violence on television (Blakey, 2002). Although no conclusive links have been drawn between witnessing violence on television and carrying out violence in real life, the loosening boundaries regarding sexual and violent content on television is a persistent cause for concern for many parents. For more information on the social effects of violence in the media, please refer to Chapter 2 “Media Effects” .

Specialization in the 1990s and 2000s

Although TV viewership is growing, the vast number of cable channels and other, newer content delivery platforms means that audiences are thinly stretched. In recent years, broadcasters have been narrowing the focus of their programming to meet the needs and interests of an increasingly fragmented audience. Entire cable channels devoted to cooking, music, news, African American interests (see sidebar below), weather, and courtroom drama enable viewers to choose exactly what type of show they want to watch, and many news channels are further specialized according to viewers’ political opinions. This trend toward specialization reflects a more general shift within society, as companies cater increasingly to smaller, more targeted consumer bases. Business magazine editor Chris Anderson explains, “We’re leaving the watercooler era, when most of us listened, watched and read from the same relatively small pool of mostly hit content. And we’re entering the microculture era, when we are all into different things (Gunther, 2006).” Just as cable broadcasters are catering to niche markets, Internet-based companies such as Amazon.com and Netflix are taking advantage of this concept by selling large numbers of books, DVDs, and music albums with narrow appeal. Section 9.3 “Issues and Trends in the Television Industry” and Section 9.4 “Influence of New Technologies” of this chapter will cover the recent trends and issues of this era in television.

Black Entertainment Television (BET)

Launched in 1980, Black Entertainment Television (BET) was the first television network in the United States dedicated to the interests of African American viewers. The basic-cable franchise was created in Washington, DC, by media entrepreneur Robert Johnson, who initially invested $15,000 in the venture. Within a decade, he had turned the company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and in 1991 it became the first Black-controlled company on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was sold to Viacom in 2003 for $3 billion.

Pre-dating MTV by a year, BET initially focused on Black-oriented music videos but soon diversified into original urban-oriented programs and public affairs shows. Although BET compensated somewhat for the underrepresentation of Blacks on television (African Americans made up 8 percent of the prime-time characters on television in 1980 but made up 12 percent of the population), viewers complained about the portrayal of stereotypical images and inappropriate violent or sexual behavior in many of the rap videos shown by the network. In a 2004 interview with BET vice president of communications Michael Lewellen, former BET talk show host Bev Smith said, “We had videos on BET in those days that were graphic but didn’t proliferate as they seem to be doing now. That’s all you do seem to see are scantily dressed women who a lot of African American women are upset about in those videos (Fox News, 2004).” Despite the criticisms, BET remained the No. 1 cable network among Blacks 18 to 34 in 2010 and retained an average audience of 524,000 total viewers during the first quarter of the year (Forbes, 2010).

Television’s Influence on Culture

Despite entering a microculture era with a variety of niche markets, television remains the most important unifying cultural presence in the United States. During times of national crises, television news broadcasts have galvanized the country by providing real-time coverage of major events. When terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers in 2001, 24-hour TV news crews provided stunned viewers around the world with continuous updates about the attack and its aftermath. Meanwhile, network blockbusters such as Lost and 24 have united viewers in shared anticipation, launching numerous blogs, fan sites, and speculative workplace discussions about characters’ fates.

Televised coverage of the news has had several cultural effects since the 1950s. Providing viewers with footage of the most intense human experiences, televised news has been able to reach people in a way that radio and newspapers cannot. The images themselves have played an important role in influencing viewer opinion. During the coverage of the civil rights movement, for example, footage of a 1963 attack on civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Alabama, showed police blasting African American demonstrators—many of them children—with fire hoses. Coupled with images of angry White segregationist mobs squaring off against Black students, the news footage did much to sway public opinion in favor of liberal legislation such as the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Conversely, when volatile pictures of the race riots in Detroit and other cities in the late 1960s hit the airwaves, horrified viewers saw the need for a return to law and order. The footage helped create an anti-civil-rights backlash that encouraged many viewers to vote for conservative Republican Richard Nixon during the 1968 presidential election.

During the past few decades, mass-media news coverage has gone beyond swaying public opinion through mere imagery. Trusted centrist voices such as that of Walter Cronkite, who was known for his impartial reporting of some of the biggest news stories in the 1960s, have been replaced by highly politicized news coverage on cable channels such as conservative Fox News and liberal MSNBC. As broadcasters narrow their focus to cater to more specialized audiences, viewers choose to watch the networks that suit their political bias. Middle-of-the-road network CNN, which aims for nonpartisanship, frequently loses out in the ratings wars against Fox and MSNBC, both of which have fierce groups of supporters. As one reporter put it, “A small partisan base is enough for big ratings; the mildly interested middle might rather watch Grey’s Anatomy (Poniewozik, 2010).” Critics argue that partisan news networks cause viewers to have less understanding of opposing political opinions, making them more polarized.

Table 9.1 Partisan Profile of TV News Audiences in 2008

Social Controversy

The issue of whether television producers have a responsibility to promote particular social values continues to generate heated discussion. When the unmarried title character in the CBS series Murphy Brown —a comedy show about a divorced anchorwoman—got pregnant and chose to have the baby without any involvement from the father, then–Vice President Dan Quayle referenced the show as an example of degenerating family values. Linking the 1992 Los Angeles riots to a breakdown of family structure and social order, Quayle lambasted producers’ poor judgment, saying, “It doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice (Time, 1992).’” Quayle’s outburst sparked lively debate between supporters and opponents of his viewpoint, with some praising his outspoken social commentary and others dismissing him as out of touch with America and its growing number of single mothers.

Similar controversy arose with the portrayal of openly gay characters on prime-time television shows. When the lead character on the ABC sitcom Ellen came out in 1997 (2 weeks after Ellen DeGeneres, the actress who played the role, announced that she was gay), she became the first leading gay character on both broadcast and cable networks. The show proved to be a test case for the nation’s tolerance of openly gay characters on prime-time TV and became the subject of much debate. Embraced by liberal supporters and lambasted by conservative objectors (evangelical Baptist minister Jerry Falwell infamously dubbed her “Ellen DeGenerate”), both the actress and the show furthered the quest to make homosexuality acceptable to mainstream audiences. Although Ellen was canceled the following year (amid disagreements with producers about whether it should contain a parental advisory warning), DeGeneres successfully returned to television in 2003 with her own talk show. Subsequent shows with prominent gay characters were quick to follow in Ellen ’s footsteps. According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), 18 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender characters accounted for 3 percent of scripted series regulars in the 2009–2010 broadcast television schedule, up from 1.3 percent in 2006 (Mitchell, 2009).

Creating Stars via Reality Television

Emerging out of the 1948 TV series Candid Camera , in which people were secretly filmed responding to elaborate practical jokes, reality television aimed to capture real, unscripted life on camera. The genre developed in several different directions, from home-video clip shows ( America’s Funniest Home Videos , America’s Funniest People ) to true-crime reenactment shows ( America’s Most Wanted , Unsolved Mysteries ) to thematic shows based on professions of interest ( Project Runway , Police Women of Broward County , Top Chef ). Near the turn of the millennium, the genre began to lean toward more voyeuristic shows, such as MTV’s The Real World , an unscripted “documentary” that followed the lives of seven strangers selected to live together in a large house or apartment in a major city. The show drew criticisms for glamorizing bad behavior and encouraging excessive drinking and casual sex, although its ratings soared with each successive controversy (a trend that critics claim encouraged producers to actively stage rating-grabbing scenarios). During the late 1990s and 2000s, a wave of copycat reality TV shows emerged, including the voyeuristic series Big Brother , which filmed a group of strangers living together in an isolated house full of cameras in an attempt to win large amounts of cash, and Survivor , a game show in which participants competed against each other by performing endurance challenges on an uninhabited island. Survivor ’s success as the most popular show on television in the summer of 2000 ensured the continued growth of the reality television genre, and producers turned their attention to reality dating shows such as The Bachelor , Temptation Island , and Dating in the Dark . Cheap to produce, with a seemingly never-ending supply of willing contestants and eager advertising sponsors, reality TV shows continue to bring in big ratings. As of 2010, singing talent competition American Idol is television’s biggest revenue generator, pulling in $8.1 million in advertising sales every 30 minutes it is on the air (Bond, 2010).

Figure 9.12

The stress of appearing on reality television shows has proved detrimental to some contestants’ health. Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle suffered a nervous breakdown in 2009.

Banalities – SuBo Dreamed a Dream – CC BY 2.0.

Reality TV has created the cultural phenomenon of the instant celebrity. Famous for simply being on the air, reality show contestants are extending their 15 minutes in the spotlight. Kate Gosselin, star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 , a cable TV show about a couple who have eight children, has since appeared in numerous magazine articles, and in 2010 she starred on celebrity reality dance show Dancing with the Stars . Survivor contestant Elisabeth Hasselbeck became a co-host on TV talk show The View , and several American Idol contestants (including Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood) have become household names. The genre has drawn criticism for creating a generation that expects to achieve instant wealth without having to try very hard and also for preying on vulnerable people whom critics call “disposable.” When Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle suffered a public meltdown in 2009 after the stress of transitioning from obscurity to stardom in an extremely short time period, the media began to point out the dangers of reality television. In 2009, TheWrap.com investigated the current lives of former stars of reality shows such as The Contender , Paradise Hotel , Wife Swap , and Extreme Makeover , and found that at least 11 participants had committed suicide as an apparent result of their appearances on screen (Adams, 2009; Feldlinger).

Key Takeaways

Television has been reflecting changing cultural values since it first gained popularity after World War II. During the 1950s, most programs ignored current events and political issues in favor of family-friendly domestic comedies, which featured White suburban middle-class families. Extreme stress during the 1960s, caused by political events such as the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, led people to turn to escapist television offered by fantasy sitcoms. These provided a sharp dichotomy with the hard-news shows of the era. Social consciousness during the 1970s prompted television producers to reflect changing social attitudes regarding single parenthood, women’s roles, and divorce, and sitcom families began to reflect the increasing number of non-nuclear families in society. The increasing popularity of cable TV in the 1980s led to an explosion of news and entertainment channels, some of which raised concerns about the levels of violence on television. During the 1990s and 2000s, TV networks became more specialized, catering to niche markets in order to meet the needs of an increasingly fragmented audience.
Television reflects cultural values, and it also influences culture. One example of this is the polarization of cable TV news, which is no longer centrist but caters to individual political tastes. Critics argue that this influences cable news viewers’ opinions and makes them less open to opposing political viewpoints. Entertainment programs also play an influential role within society. By portraying controversial relationships such as single parents or gay couples as acceptable, TV shows have the power to shape viewers’ attitudes. In recent years, broadcasters have created the concept of the instant celebrity through the genre of reality television. Contestants on reality TV shows now permeate every aspect of culture and the media, from the music charts to popular magazines and newspapers.

Please respond to the following short-answer writing prompts. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.

Choose a popular sitcom from the past 50 years you are familiar with (you can view episodes on Hulu.com to refamiliarize yourself if necessary). Using the ideas in this section as a starting point, identify three ways in which your chosen sitcom reflects or reflected American culture.
Spend a few days reviewing news coverage on Fox News and MSNBC. How is coverage of similar news stories different? Do you think partisan news networks can affect public opinion? Why or why not?

Adams, Guy. “Lessons From America on the Dangers of Reality Television,” Independent (London), June 6, 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lessons-from-america-on-the-dangers-of-reality-television-1698165.html .

Blakey, Rea. “Study Links TV Viewing Among Kids to Later Violence,” CNN Health , March 28, 2002, http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/parenting/03/28/kids.tv.violence/index.html .

Bond, Paul. “‘Idol’ Listed as TV’s Biggest Revenue Generator,” Hollywood Reporter , May 5, 2010, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8f1f42046a622bda2d602430b16d3ed9 .

Coontz, Stephanie. “‘Leave It to Beaver’ and ‘Ozzie and Harriet’: American Families in the 1950s,” in The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trip (New York: BasicBooks, 1992), 28.

Forbes, “BET Networks Unveils New African American Consumer Market Research and New Programming at 2010 Upfront Presentation,” April 14, 2010, http://www.forbes.com/feeds/prnewswire/2010/04/14/prnewswire201004141601PR_NEWS_USPR_____NE86679.html .

Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, “Is Black Entertainment Television Taking a Disturbing Turn?” Fox News , May 26, 2004, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120993,00.html .

Frank Feldlinger, “TheWrap Investigates: 11 Players Have Committed Suicide,” TheWrap, http://www.thewrap.com/television/article/thewrap-investigates-11-players-have-committed-suicide-3409 .

Friedman, Michael J. “‘See It Now’: Murrow vs. McCarthy,” in Edward R. Murrow: Journalism at Its Best , publication of U.S. Department of State, June 1, 2008, http://www.america.gov/st/democracyhr-english/2008/June/20080601110244eaifas8.602542e-02.html .

Gunther, Marc. “The Extinction of Mass Culture, CNN Money , July 12, 2006, http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/11/news/economy/pluggedin_gunther.fortune/index.htm .

Mitchell, Wendy. “GLAAD Report: Gay Characters on Network TV Still on the Rise,” Entertainment Weekly , September 30, 2009, http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/09/30/glaad-report-gay-characters-on-rise/ .

Newcomb, Horace. ed., Encyclopedia of Television (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004), 389.

Poniewozik, James. “CNN: Can a Mainstream News Outlet Survive?” Time , May 3, 2010, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1983901,00.html .

Time, “Dan Quayle vs. Murphy Brown,” June 1, 1992, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975627,00.html .

Understanding Media and Culture Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Ielts essay # 88 - television has had a significant influence on the culture, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, television has had a significant influence on the culture of many societies., to what extent would you say that television has positively or negatively affected the cultural development of society.

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8.2: The Relationship Between Television and Culture

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Learning Objectives

Identify ways in which American culture is reflected on television.
Identify ways in which television affects the development of American culture.

Since its inception as an integral part of American life in the 1950s, television has both reflected and nurtured cultural mores and values. From the escapist dramas of the 1960s, which consciously avoided controversial issues and glossed over life’s harsher realities in favor of an idealized portrayal, to the copious reality television shows in recent years, on which participants discuss even the most personal and taboo issues, television has held up a mirror to society. But the relationship between social attitudes and television is reciprocal; broadcasters have often demonstrated their power to influence viewers, either consciously through slanted political commentary, or subtly, by portraying controversial relationships (such as single parenthood, same-sex marriages, or interracial couplings) as socially acceptable. The symbiotic nature of television and culture is exemplified in every broadcast, from family sitcoms to serious news reports.

Cultural Influences on Television

In the 1950s, most television entertainment programs ignored current events and political issues. Instead, the three major networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) developed prime-time shows that would appeal to a general family audience. Chief among these types of shows was the domestic comedy—a generic family comedy that was identified by its character-based humor and usually set within the home. Seminal examples included popular 1950s shows such as Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show , and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet . Presenting a standardized version of the white middle-class suburban family, domestic comedies portrayed the conservative values of an idealized American life. Studiously avoiding prevalent social issues such as racial discrimination and civil rights, the shows focused on mostly white middle-class families with traditional nuclear roles (mother in the home, father in the office) and implied that most domestic problems could be solved within a 30-minute time slot, always ending with a strong moral lesson.

Although these shows depicted an idealized version of American family life, many families in the 1950s were traditional nuclear families. Following the widespread poverty, political uncertainty, and physical separation of the war years, many Americans wanted to settle down, have children, and enjoy the peace and security that family life appeared to offer. During the booming postwar era, a period of optimism and prosperity, the traditional nuclear family flourished. However, the families and lifestyles presented in domestic comedies did not encompass the overall American experience by any stretch of the imagination. As historian Stephanie Coontz points out, “the June Cleaver or Donna Stone homemaker role was not available to the more than 40 percent of black women with small children who worked outside the home.”Stephanie Coontz, “‘Leave It to Beaver’ and ‘Ozzie and Harriet’: American Families in the 1950s,” in The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trip (New York: BasicBooks, 1992), 28. Although nearly 60 percent of the U.S. population was labeled middle class by the mid-1950s, 25 percent of all families and more than 50 percent of two-parent black families were poor. Migrant workers suffered horrific deprivations, and racial tensions were rife. None of this was reflected in the world of domestic comedies, where even the Hispanic gardener in Father Knows Best was named Frank Smith.Stephanie Coontz, “‘Leave It to Beaver’ and ‘Ozzie and Harriet’: American Families in the 1950s,” in The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trip (New York: BasicBooks, 1992), 28.

Violence and Escapism in the 1960s

During the 1960s, television news broadcasts brought the realities of real-world events into people’s living rooms in vivid detail. The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite , which debuted in 1962, quickly became the country’s most popular newscast, and by the end of the decade, journalist Walter Cronkite was known as the most trusted man in America. Following John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency at the beginning of the decade, the 1960s took an ominous turn. Shocked viewers tuned into Cronkite’s broadcast on November 22, 1963, to learn about the assassination of their president. During the next few days, viewers followed every aspect of the tragedy on television, from the tremor in Cronkite’s voice as he removed his glasses and announced the news of Kennedy’s death, to the frantic scenes from Dallas police headquarters where the assassin, Lee Harvery Oswald, was gunned down by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, to the thousands of mourners lining up next to the president’s flag-draped coffin.

Around the same time as Kennedy’s assassination, horrific images from Vietnam were streaming into people’s living rooms during the nation’s first televised war. With five camera crews on duty in the Saigon bureau, news crews captured vivid details of the war in progress. Although graphic images were rarely shown on network television, several instances of violence reached the screen, including a CBS report in 1965 that showed Marines lighting the thatched roofs of the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters and an NBC news report in 1968 that aired a shot of South Vietnamese General Nyuyen Ngoc Loan executing a captive on a Saigon street. Further images, of children being burned and scarred by napalm and prisoners being tortured, fueled the antiwar sentiments of many Americans. In addition to the devastation caused by the president’s death and the Vietnam War, Americans were also feeling the pressure of the Cold War—the clash between the United States and the Soviet Union in the years following World War II. This pressure was especially great during periods of tension throughout the 1950s and 1960s, such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a confrontation that caused many people to fear nuclear war.

As a result of the intense stress faced by many Americans during the 1960s, broadcasters and viewers turned to escapist programs such as I Dream of Jeannie , a fantasy show about a 2,000-year-old genie who marries an astronaut, and Bewitched , a supernatural-themed show about a witch who tries to live as a surburban housewife. Both shows typified the situation comedy, or sitcom, a comedy genre featuring a recurring cast of characters who resolve zany situations based on their everyday lives. Other popular sitcoms in the 1960s included The Beverly Hillbillies , a show about a poor backwoods family who move to Beverly Hills, California, after finding oil on their land, and Gilligan’s Island , the ultimate escapist comedy about seven characters shipwrecked on an uncharted island. None of the 1960s sitcoms mentioned any of the political unease that was taking place in the outside world, providing audiences with a welcome diversion from real life. Other than an occasional documentary, television programming in the 1960s consisted of a sharp dichotomy between prime-time escapist comedy and hard news.

Diversity and Politics in the 1970s

During the 1970s, broadcasters began to diversify families on their shows to reflect changing social attitudes toward formerly controversial issues such as single parenthood and divorce. Feminist groups including the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Women’s Political Caucus, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women pushed for equality on issues such as pay and encouraged women to enter the workforce. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned women’s right to abortion, giving them control over their reproductive rights. Divorce rates skyrocketed during the 1970s, as states adopted no-fault divorce laws, and the change in family dynamics was reflected on television. Between 1972 and 1978, CBS aired the socially controversial sitcom Maude . Featuring a middle-aged feminist living with her fourth husband and divorced daughter, the show exploded the dominant values of the white middle-class domestic sitcom and its traditional gender roles. Throughout its 7-year run, Maude tackled social and political issues such as abortion, menopause, birth control, alcoholism, and depression. During its first four seasons, the show was in the top 10 in Nielsen ratings, illustrating the changing tastes of the viewing audience, who had come of age during the era of civil rights and Vietnam protests and developed a taste for socially conscious television. Other 1970s sitcoms took the same approach, including Maude ’s CBS predecessor, All in the Family , which covered issues ranging from racism and homophobia to rape and miscarriage, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show , which reflected changing attitudes toward women’s rights by featuring television’s first never-married independent career woman as the central character. Even wholesome family favorite The Brady Bunch , which ran from 1969 to 1974, featured a non-nuclear family, reflecting the rising rates of blended families in American society.

The Influence of Cable Television in the 1980s

With a growing number of households subscribing to cable television, concern began to grow about the levels of violence to which children were becoming exposed. In addition to regularly broadcast network programs, cable offered viewers the chance to watch films and adult-themed shows during all hours, many of which had far more violent content than normal network programming. One study found that by the time an average child leaves elementary school, he or she has witnessed 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other acts of violence on television.Rea Blakey, “Study Links TV Viewing Among Kids to Later Violence,” CNN Health , March 28, 2002, http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/parenting/03/28/kids.tv.violence/index.html . Although no conclusive links have been drawn between witnessing violence on television and carrying out violence in real life, the loosening boundaries regarding sexual and violent content on television is a persistent cause for concern for many parents. For more information on the social effects of violence in the media, please refer to Chapter 2.

Specialization in the 1990s and 2000s

Although television viewership is growing, the vast number of cable channels and other, newer content delivery platforms means that audiences are thinly stretched. In recent years, broadcasters have been narrowing the focus of their programming to meet the needs and interests of an increasingly fragmented audience. Entire cable channels devoted to cooking, music, news, African American interests (see sidebar below), weather, and courtroom drama enable viewers to choose exactly what type of show they want to watch, and many news channels are further specialized according to viewers’ political opinions. This trend toward specialization reflects a more general shift within society, as companies cater increasingly to smaller, more targeted consumer bases. Business magazine editor Chris Anderson explains, “We’re leaving the watercooler era, when most of us listened, watched and read from the same relatively small pool of mostly hit content. And we’re entering the microculture era, when we are all into different things.”Marc Gunther, “The Extinction of Mass Culture, CNN Money , July 12, 2006, http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/11/news/economy/pluggedin_gunther.fortune/index.htm . Just as cable broadcasters are catering to niche markets, Internet-based companies such as Amazon.com and Netflix are taking advantage of this concept by selling large numbers of books, DVDs, and music albums with narrow appeal. Section 9.3 and Section 9.4 of this chapter will cover the recent trends and issues of this era in television.

Black Entertainment Television (BET)

Launched in 1980, Black Entertainment Television (BET) was the first television network in the United States dedicated to the interests of African American viewers. The basic-cable franchise was created in Washington, DC, by media entrepreneur Robert Johnson, who initially invested $15,000 in the venture. Within a decade, he had turned the company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and in 1991 it became the first black-controlled company on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was sold to Viacom in 2003 for $3 billion.

Predating MTV by a year, BET initially focused on black-oriented music videos but soon diversified into original urban-oriented programs and public affairs shows. Although BET compensated somewhat for the underrepresentation of blacks on television (African Americans made up 8 percent of the prime-time characters on television in 1980 but made up 12 percent of the population), viewers complained about the portrayal of stereotypical images and inappropriate violent or sexual behavior in many of the rap videos shown by the network. In a 2004 interview with BET vice president of communications Michael Lewellen, former BET talk show host Bev Smith said, “We had videos on BET in those days that were graphic but didn’t proliferate as they seem to be doing now. That’s all you do seem to see are scantily dressed women who a lot of African American women are upset about in those videos.”The O’Reilly Factor, “Is Black Entertainment Television Taking a Disturbing Turn?” Fox News , May 26, 2004, www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120993,00.html. Despite the criticisms, BET remained the No. 1 cable network among blacks 18 to 34 in 2010 and retained an average audience of 524,000 total viewers during the first quarter of the year. Forbes , “BET Networks Unveils New African American Consumer Market Research and New Programming at 2010 Upfront Presentation,” April 14, 2010, www.forbes.com/feeds/prnewswire/2010/04/14/prnewswire201004141601PR_NEWS_USPR_____NE86679.html.

Television’s Influence on Culture

Despite entering a microculture era with a variety of niche markets, television remains the most important unifying cultural presence in the United States. During times of national crises, television news broadcasts have galvanized the country by providing real-time coverage of major events. When terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers in 2001, 24-hour television news crews provided stunned viewers around the world with continuous updates about the attack and its aftermath. Meanwhile, network blockbusters such as Lost and 24 have united viewers in shared anticipation, launching numerous blogs, fan sites, and speculative workplace discussions about characters’ fates.

Televised coverage of the news has had several cultural effects since the 1950s. Providing viewers with footage of the most intense human experiences, televised news has been able to reach people in a way that radio and newspapers cannot. The images themselves have played an important role in influencing viewer opinion. During the coverage of the civil rights movement, for example, footage of a 1963 attack on civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Alabama, showed police blasting African American demonstrators—many of them children—with fire hoses. Coupled with images of angry white segregationist mobs squaring off against black students, the news footage did much to sway public opinion in favor of liberal legislation such as the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Conversely, when volatile pictures of the race riots in Detroit and other cities in the late 1960s hit the airwaves, horrified viewers saw the need for a return to law and order. The footage helped create an anti-civil-rights backlash that encouraged many viewers to vote for conservative Republican Richard Nixon during the 1968 presidential election.

During the past few decades, mass-media news coverage has gone beyond swaying public opinion through mere imagery. Trusted centrist voices such as that of Walter Cronkite, who was known for his impartial reporting of some of the biggest news stories in the 1960s, have been replaced by highly politicized news coverage on cable channels such as conservative Fox News and liberal MSNBC. As broadcasters narrow their focus to cater to more specialized audiences, viewers choose to watch the networks that suit their political bias. Middle-of-the-road network CNN, which aims for nonpartisanship, frequently loses out in the ratings wars against Fox and MSNBC, both of which have fierce groups of supporters. As one reporter put it, “A small partisan base is enough for big ratings; the mildly interested middle might rather watch Grey’s Anatomy .”James Poniewozik, “CNN: Can a Mainstream News Outlet Survive?” Time , May 3, 2010, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1983901,00.html. Critics argue that partisan news networks cause viewers to have less understanding of opposing political opinions, making them more polarized.

Source: “Partisanship and Cable News Audiences,” Oct. 30, 2009, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, a project of the Pew Research Center.

Social Controversy

The issue of whether television producers have a responsibility to promote particular social values continues to generate heated discussion. When the unmarried title character in the CBS series Murphy Brown —a comedy show about a divorced anchorwoman—got pregnant and chose to have the baby without any involvement from the father, then–Vice President Dan Quayle referenced the show as an example of degenerating family values. Linking the 1992 Los Angeles riots to a breakdown of family structure and social order, Quayle lambasted producers’ poor judgment, saying, “It doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice.’” Time , “Dan Quayle vs. Murphy Brown,” June 1, 1992, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975627,00.html. Quayle’s outburst sparked lively debate between supporters and opponents of his viewpoint, with some praising his outspoken social commentary and others dismissing him as out of touch with America and its growing number of single mothers.

Similar controversy arose with the portrayal of openly gay characters on prime-time television shows. When the lead character on the ABC sitcom Ellen came out in 1997 (2 weeks after Ellen DeGeneres, the actress who played the role, announced that she was gay), she became the first leading gay character on both broadcast and cable networks. The show proved to be a test case for the nation’s tolerance of openly gay characters on prime-time television and became the subject of much debate. Embraced by liberal supporters and lambasted by conservative objectors (evangelical Baptist minister Jerry Falwell infamously dubbed her “Ellen DeGenerate”), both the actress and the show furthered the quest to make homosexuality acceptable to mainstream audiences. Although Ellen was canceled the following year (amid disagreements with producers about whether it should contain a parental advisory warning), DeGeneres successfully returned to television in 2003 with her own talk show. Subsequent shows with prominent gay characters were quick to follow in Ellen ’s footsteps. According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), 18 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender characters accounted for 3 percent of scripted series regulars in the 2009–2010 broadcast television schedule, up from 1.3 percent in 2006.Wendy Mitchell, “GLAAD Report: Gay Characters on Network TV Still on the Rise,” Entertainment Weekly , September 30, 2009, hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/09/30/glaad-report-gay-characters-on-rise/.

Creating Stars via Reality Television

Emerging out of the 1948 television series Candid Camera , in which people were secretly filmed responding to elaborate practical jokes, reality television aimed to capture real, unscripted life on camera. The genre developed in several different directions, from home-video clip shows ( America’s Funniest Home Videos , America’s Funniest People ) to true-crime reenactment shows ( America’s Most Wanted , Unsolved Mysteries ) to thematic shows based on professions of interest ( Project Runway , Police Women of Broward County , Top Chef ). Near the turn of the millennium, the genre began to lean toward more voyeuristic shows, such as MTV’s The Real World , an unscripted “documentary” that followed the lives of seven strangers selected to live together in a large house or apartment in a major city. The show drew criticisms for glamorizing bad behavior and encouraging excessive drinking and casual sex, although its ratings soared with each successive controversy (a trend that critics claim encouraged producers to actively stage rating-grabbing scenarios). During the late 1990s and 2000s, a wave of copycat reality television shows emerged, including the voyeuristic series Big Brother , which filmed a group of strangers living together in an isolated house full of cameras in an attempt to win large amounts of cash, and Survivor , a game show in which participants competed against each other by performing endurance challenges on an uninhabited island. Survivor ’s success as the most popular show on television in the summer of 2000 ensured the continued growth of the reality television genre, and producers turned their attention to reality dating shows such as The Bachelor , Temptation Island , and Dating in the Dark . Cheap to produce, with a seemingly never-ending supply of willing contestants and eager advertising sponsors, reality television shows continue to bring in big ratings. As of 2010, singing talent competition American Idol is television’s biggest revenue generator, pulling in $8.1 million in advertising sales every 30 minutes it is on the air.Paul Bond, “‘Idol’ Listed as TV’s Biggest Revenue Generator,” Hollywood Reporter , May 5, 2010, www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8f1f42046a622bda2d602430b16d3ed9.

Reality television has created the cultural phenomenon of the instant celebrity. Famous for simply being on the air, reality show contestants are extending their 15 minutes in the spotlight. Kate Gosselin, star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 , a cable television show about a couple who have eight children, has since appeared in numerous magazine articles, and in 2010 she starred on celebrity reality dance show Dancing with the Stars . Survivor contestant Elisabeth Hasselbeck became a co-host on television talk show The View , and several American Idol contestants (including Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood) have become household names. The genre has drawn criticism for creating a generation that expects to achieve instant wealth without having to try very hard and also for preying on vulnerable people whom critics call “disposable.” When Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle suffered a public meltdown in 2009 after the stress of transitioning from obscurity to stardom in an extremely short time period, the media began to point out the dangers of reality television. In 2009, TheWrap.com investigated the current lives of former stars of reality shows such as The Contender , Paradise Hotel , Wife Swap , and Extreme Makeover and found that at least 11 participants had committed suicide as an apparent result of their appearances on screen.Guy Adams, “Lessons From America on the Dangers of Reality Television,” Independent (London), June 6, 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lessons-from-america-on-the-dangers-of-reality-television-1698165.html ; Frank Feldlinger, “TheWrap Investigates: 11 Players Have Committed Suicide,” TheWrap, www.thewrap.com/television/article/thewrap-investigates-11-players-have-committed-suicide-3409.

Key Takeaways

Television has been reflecting changing cultural values since it first gained popularity after World War II. During the 1950s, most programs ignored current events and political issues in favor of family-friendly domestic comedies, which featured white suburban middle-class families. Extreme stress during the 1960s, caused by political events such as the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, led people to turn to escapist television offered by fantasy sitcoms. These provided a sharp dichotomy with the hard-news shows of the era. Social consciousness during the 1970s prompted television producers to reflect changing social attitudes regarding single parenthood, women’s roles, and divorce, and sitcom families began to reflect the increasing number of non-nuclear families in society. The increasing popularity of cable television in the 1980s led to an explosion of news and entertainment channels, some of which raised concerns about the levels of violence on television. During the 1990s and 2000s, television networks became more specialized, catering to niche markets in order to meet the needs of an increasingly fragmented audience.
Television reflects cultural values, and it also influences culture. One example of this is the polarization of cable television news, which is no longer centrist but caters to individual political tastes. Critics argue that this influences cable news viewers’ opinions and makes them less open to opposing political viewpoints. Entertainment programs also play an influential role within society. By portraying controversial relationships such as single parents or gay couples as acceptable, television shows have the power to shape viewers’ attitudes. In recent years, broadcasters have created the concept of the instant celebrity through the genre of reality television. Contestants on reality television shows now permeate every aspect of culture and the media, from the music charts to popular magazines and newspapers.

Exercise $\PageIndex{1}$

Please respond to the following short-answer writing prompts. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.

Choose a popular sitcom from the past 50 years you are familiar with (you can view episodes on Hulu.com to refamiliarize yourself if necessary). Using the ideas in this section as a starting point, identify three ways in which your chosen sitcom reflects or reflected American culture.
Spend a few days reviewing news coverage on Fox News and MSNBC. How is coverage of similar news stories different? Do you think partisan news networks can affect public opinion? Why or why not?

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Impact of Television in The 1950s

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Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people. Explain which of these roles you see as more important. To what extent do you think that TV today performs each of these roles in an effective way? Support your point of view with details from your own experiences, observations or reading.

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Sauron Is Building His Strength in New 'Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Season 2 Sneak Peek

Sauron walks among us beginning in August.

The Big Picture

In The Rings of Power Season 2, Galadriel faces a new purpose and threat, building anticipation for the return to Middle-earth.
Sauron's strength grows in the upcoming season, promising a darker and edgier tone with familiar characters facing new dangers.
Showrunners are already working on Season 3, and the new season will explore darker themes with a focus on character development.

It has been an exciting couple of days for fans of the world built by J.R.R. Tolkien in the critically acclaimed The Lord of the Rings . The famous Peter Jackson trilogy is getting extra days in a re-release in theaters , and Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is turning the attention of audiences back to Middle-earth with the release of a new trailer and new poster which featured the menacing Sauron ( Charlie Vickers ). In a new promotional video released by Prime Video teasing what is coming in the second season, cast members of the show reveal what is coming for their characters as Middle-earth faces a new, menacing evil.

The clip kicks off with Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) revealing that in the coming season, Galadriel is "driven more by a bigger purpose" adding that the elven princess is getting more connected with Middle-earth and its peoples. Galadriel highlights that "Sauron is building his strength" in the coming season with Vickers who plays the menacing villain adding we're "going to see Sauron, out in the open making everything happen." Owain Arthur who plays Prince Durin IV says the character's relationship with his father, King Durin III ( Peter Mullan ) "has gone." Benjamin Walker who portrays High King Gil-Galad suggests that the "gloves come off" in the second season with Isildur (Maxim Baldry) adding, "there's alot of danger and excitement. But we're back in Middle-earth."

During the season finale of the first season of Rings of Power , audiences saw Galadriel realize she had been allied with Sauron all along, who had styled himself as a mortal, Halbrand . The season also saw the forging of the three rings gifted to the Elves by elven mastersmith, Celebrimbor ( Charles Edwards ). Sauron should, at some point in the coming season, meet with Celebrimbor and coarce him into forging the One Ring. Vickers' Sauron should sport a different look this season, leaning more into his elven nature .

The Creative Team For 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power'

While season two is yet to arrive, showrunners, writers and creators Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne are already working on a Season 3 . The coming season will see directors Charlotte Brändström , Louise Hooper , and Sanaa Hamri returning, with Brändström saying in an interview , that the new season is "going to be darker, and it's going to be edgier and more character-driven." Asides the aforementioned cast members, Rings of Power season 2 will see Markella Kavenagh , who portrays the lovable young elf Nori Brandyfoot returning, alongside Robert Aramoyo , Daniel Weyman, Sophia Nomvete , Lloyd Owen, and Cynthia Addai-Robinson . Joseph Mawl 's role of Adar has been recast with Peaky Blinders star Sam Hazeldine . New cast members include Ciarán Hindes , Tonya Moddie , and Rory Kinnear .

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 premieres on August 29, and Season 1 is available to stream on Prime Video. Watch the clip above.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

Television has two roles to inform and to entertain people Explain which of these roles you see as more important To what extent do you think that TV today performs each of these roles in an effective way Support your point of view with details from your

Recently, the phenomenon of Television and its corresponding impact has sparked a heated debate. Although contested by many that the matter of watching TV is highly beneficial. Such issue is regarded thoroughly both constructive and positive by a substantial number of individuals. I am inclined to believe that different programs can be a plus, and I will analyze that throughout this essay.

From a social standpoint, getting effective information via TV can provide the society with some noticeable effects which are rooted in the fact that merits of movies, as well as series, are inextricably bound up. According to my experience, when I was a university student, I performed an academic experiment which discovered people tastes. Thus, beneficial ramifications of both children and adults apparently can be seen.

Within the realm of science, the entertainment might increase the consequences of cartoons. Moreover, fundamental aspects of effective way could relate to this reality that the demerits of important roles pertain to the performance. As a tangible example, some scientific research undertaken by a prestigious university has asserted that the downside of having fun is correlated negatively with wasting the time. Hence, it is correct to presume the preconceived notion of TV shows.

To conclude, while there are several compelling arguments on both sides, I profoundly believe that the benefits of entertaining human for outweigh its drawbacks. Not only do the advantages of funny time prove the significance of gathering together, but also pinpoint families’ implications.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors: Line 2, column 98, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1] Message: “Although” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence. ...ing impact has sparked a heated debate. Although contested by many that the matter of wa... ^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used: also, apparently, but, hence, if, moreover, so, thus, well, while, as well as

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech: To be verbs : 10.0 10.5418719212 95% => OK Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 6.10837438424 98% => OK Conjunction : 5.0 8.36945812808 60% => More conjunction wanted. Relative clauses : 10.0 5.94088669951 168% => OK Pronoun: 18.0 20.9802955665 86% => OK Preposition: 32.0 31.9359605911 100% => OK Nominalization: 7.0 5.75862068966 122% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words: No of characters: 1367.0 1207.87684729 113% => OK No of words: 244.0 242.827586207 100% => OK Chars per words: 5.60245901639 5.00649968141 112% => OK Fourth root words length: 3.95227774224 3.92707691288 101% => OK Word Length SD: 3.25475640619 2.71678728327 120% => OK Unique words: 168.0 139.433497537 120% => OK Unique words percentage: 0.688524590164 0.580463131201 119% => OK syllable_count: 429.3 379.143842365 113% => OK avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.57093596059 115% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by: Pronoun: 4.0 4.6157635468 87% => OK Article: 2.0 1.56157635468 128% => OK Subordination: 5.0 1.71428571429 292% => Less adverbial clause wanted. Conjunction: 2.0 0.931034482759 215% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning. Preposition: 4.0 3.65517241379 109% => OK

Performance on sentences: How many sentences: 13.0 12.6551724138 103% => OK Sentence length: 18.0 20.5024630542 88% => OK Sentence length SD: 41.0733216514 50.4703680194 81% => OK Chars per sentence: 105.153846154 104.977214359 100% => OK Words per sentence: 18.7692307692 20.9669160288 90% => OK Discourse Markers: 5.92307692308 7.25397266985 82% => OK Paragraphs: 4.0 4.12807881773 97% => OK Language errors: 1.0 5.33497536946 19% => OK Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 6.9802955665 115% => OK Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 2.75862068966 36% => More negative sentences wanted. Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 2.91625615764 137% => OK What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion: Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.14589966805 0.242375264174 60% => OK Sentence topic coherence: 0.0380017297379 0.0925447433944 41% => OK Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0417597242195 0.071462118173 58% => OK Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0705552833214 0.151781067708 46% => OK Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0449906440459 0.0609392437508 74% => OK

Essay readability: automated_readability_index: 14.3 12.6369458128 113% => OK flesch_reading_ease: 36.28 53.1260098522 68% => OK smog_index: 11.2 6.54236453202 171% => OK flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 10.9458128079 116% => OK coleman_liau_index: 15.2 11.5310837438 132% => OK dale_chall_readability_score: 10.68 8.32886699507 128% => OK difficult_words: 95.0 55.0591133005 173% => OK linsear_write_formula: 8.5 9.94827586207 85% => OK gunning_fog: 9.2 10.3980295567 88% => OK text_standard: 11.0 10.5123152709 105% => OK What are above readability scores?

--------------------- Rates: 85.0 out of 100 Scores by essay e-grader: 76.5 Out of 90 --------------------- Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.

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How the Language of TV is Influencing How We See Ourselves

TikTok has spawned a curious new way of understanding ordinary life: villain arcs, main character energy and seasons.

An illustrated collage of a script with someone’s hands framing it.

By Kim Hew-Low

Last summer, I was struck by a video I came across on TikTok. In it, a 20-something flops faceup onto her bed. Her roots are grown out, her eyeliner is heavy and her gaze, vaguely forlorn, is intensified by a key light tinted blue. Her hand gropes around the adjacent night stand to silence her vibrating phone. Then the Netflix logo flashes, followed by a credit line: “A life written and directed by Beatrice Harrods.” A stop-motion sequence follows the passage of time: a vase of chrysanthemums, then roses; one candle, then another; an unfurling rug and the text “Season 2.” Cut back to Harrods: Her roots are touched up, and her gaze, now pointed at the camera, seems to relish being watched.

You see a lot of this on TikTok now: videos that describe ordinary life using the language of television. Scroll through, and you’ll find users charting the different “seasons” of their lives or highlighting the emergence of plot “arcs.” You may find users referring to the people in their lives as “casts” — including both passing encounters with “paid extras” and recurring appearances by “guest stars.” A friend’s unexpected appearance might be tagged “NOO! Ur not in this episode” or described, as one user had it, as the moment “when someone from Season 2 of my life somehow crosses over into Season 4.”

There is a certain permeability between art and life, and pleasure in perceiving it: We take satisfaction in recognizing our lives in onscreen plot lines, as we thrill to real-life moments that feel “just like a movie.” But TikTok’s video-based format has wildly amplified the impulse to collapse the distance between the two and imagine yourself as an onscreen character. The app’s tools make it easy for people to film and edit footage of themselves, narrating their own stories in breezy narrative beats — making life look like an episode of television. The result is a perfect ecosystem for watching and being watched, where once-passive audiences are encouraged to see themselves as the writers, directors and stars of their own motion pictures.

Perhaps there is therapeutic value in conceptualizing your life as a coherent story — one you can not only analyze but direct. One key piece of televisual jargon that has thrived online feels especially suited to this purpose. The “canon event” describes a crucial, sometimes traumatic occurrence that activates or shapes a person’s character. This kind of thinking may be related to therapy, but it has since been extrapolated wholesale into Hollywood tropes. Last year, the popularity of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” — with its talk of critical “canon events” shaping the lives of heroes — inspired TikTok users to embrace the term. But in the transition from big to palm-size screen, the idea became a deadpan punchline, identifying not superheroic origin stories but the formative trials of ordinary youth. One video applied the term to “every teenage girl getting into her first situationship with a medium ugly guy that bears a striking resemblance to the rat from Flushed Away.”

The challenge, for a narcissist, is to realize that we are all our own protagonists.

There’s a related genre of video that encourages viewers to use the visual language of TV to romanticize their lives. This often involves footage of quotidian activities — waiting for the subway, restocking a fridge, pouring a beverage — elevated through production techniques: flattering close-ups, curated props, the amateur’s equivalent of dedicated hair, wardrobe and makeup departments. By reframing mundane activities as the well-lit choreography of a story’s protagonist, these videos render the everyday with a kind of glamour and gravity. If all the world is now a set, “main characters” like these are rewarded by the attention economy — a fact that has inspired some users to turn “main-character energy” into something like a life philosophy. One woman, in the first of 22 “episodes” dedicated to proselytizing her “seasons theory” on TikTok, described how she improved “Season 3” of her life by asking herself what Serena van der Woodsen and Carrie Bradshaw would do. (Those main characters, of “Gossip Girl” and “Sex and the City,” narrativized their own lives for a blog and a newspaper column.)

It’s one thing to “romanticize” a day of remote work, as one TikTok user did, in an attempt to “become the main character” of her life. (She sought out a cafe that called to mind Central Perk and Luke’s Diner, fictional settings from “Friends” and “Gilmore Girls.”) But in other videos, users have expressed how certain types of narcissistic, self-dramatizing behavior — habits that were eventually branded “main-character syndrome” — have impoverished their friendships. Even the remedies people suggested for this pathology were formulated within the same televisual framework. In a conversation with the comedian Catherine Cohen, who described the fixation on “main-character energy” as “deranged,” the podcaster Hannah Berner proposed: “Let’s normalize sometimes being like, This season I’m in the back.”

The challenge, for a narcissist, is to realize that we are all our own protagonists — that any delusions we harbor about being the center of the story must be squared with a shared reality in which no one is. This is, broadly speaking, one of the core developmental processes that mark maturation into adulthood. There was a time when conventional wisdom defined an ideal state of adulthood as one of having shed all illusions of one’s centrality. But the psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott challenged this notion in his 1971 book, “Playing and Reality”: People needn’t shed their illusions, he argued, only learn how to hold them in coexistence with wider reality, recognizing their own subjectivity for what it is. He suggested that, for children, playing with “transitional objects” could facilitate this process, by mediating inner and outer realities — a teddy bear, for instance, can be inanimate but simultaneously alive, a sewn-together object that also thinks and feels.

Scrolling past TikTok videos of “main characters” scrutinizing their “casts” for upcoming “seasons,” I often wonder if I am looking at a kind of transitional object. Life in the offscreen world rarely supplies its own narrative meaning; its messiness and mundanity don’t conform to the neat arcs produced by writers’ rooms. But the younger users coming of age on social media have encountered the world through an astonishing deluge of content in which life, mediated by narrative tropes, produces meaning that is legible by design. If maturation requires bridging these illusions with the formlessness of reality, then self-narrativization may be a kind of intermediary. In the same way that a child, playing with a teddy bear, learns how her imagination relates to the external world, users reconcile similar incongruities by telling the stories of their lives on TikTok. They combine the cinematic with the everyday, their centrality with their marginality, meaning with a lack thereof.

At some point I came across a video that opened, predictably, with a close-up of its young creator’s face. Seated in a mall food court, she raised a piece of sushi to her mouth but was suddenly struck by the scene around her. The camera, cast outward, flashed clips of strangers — one staring at a laptop, another pushing a shopping cart — under the text: “when ur out in public and you remember that everyone is their own main character.” In the caption, the user added: “like damn, my frontal lobe feels developed.”

Source photographs for illustration above: Grant Faint/Getty Images; Aleksandra Pikalova/Getty Images; Oliver Rossi/Getty Images; Guzel/Getty Images.

Kim Hew-Low is an Australian writer living in Brooklyn.

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‘Dune: Prophecy’ Trailer Reveals Fall Premiere, Epic First Footage of Bene Gesserit Origin Story

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The six-episode series will debut this fall, but no official premiere date has been set at this time. The series was originally commissioned in 2019 under the title “Dune: The Sisterhood.” It is inspired by the novel “Sisterhood of Dune” written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Popular on Variety

In the teaser, we see the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit as they start wielding their incredible influence throughout the Imperium

The full video can be seen below.

“Dune: Prophecy” will star: Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Johdi May, Mark Strong, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Josh Heuston, Chloe Lea, Jade Anouka, Faoileann Cunningham, Edward Davis, Aoife Hinds, Chris Mason, and Shalom Brune-Franklin. Variety exclusively reported that both Tabu and Jihae will appear in the series as well. The series has had a long road to the screen, including multiple showrunner changes and a creative reset in 2023 .

Alison Schapker serves as showrunner and executive producer. Diane Ademu-John co-developed the series and serves as executive producer. Anna Foerster executive produced and directed multiple episodes including the first. Jordan Goldberg, Mark Tobey, John Cameron, Matthew King, Scott Z. Burns, and Jon Spaihts executive produce with Brian Herbert, along with Byron Merritt and Kim Herbert as executive producers for the Frank Herbert estate. Anderson serves as co-producer. The series is co-produced by Max and Legendary Television with Legendary also producing the film franchise.

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Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people
Therefore. , the issue of television role, inform and entertain people is no exception. I firmly believe that to inform is more important than others. The essay will discuss both views and form a reasoned opinion. First. , it is quite a reason for me to believe that the idea of promoting entertaining performs on television provides several merits.
Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people
Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people - IELTS Writing Essay Sample. IELTS Writing Correction Service /. Writing Samples /. Band 8. Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people. Explain which of these roles you see as more important. To what extent do you think that TV today performs each of these roles in an ...
Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people
Price is one of the important thing we cosider when we buy product or services. In terms of the role of television in every household, I definitely believe it is much more important to inform than to entertain people. Firstly, information can help us make better life decisions ; secondly, society should follow national regulations | Band: 6.5.
IELTS essay Television has two roles: to inform and entertain. Explain
Nowadays, it is increasingly acknowledged that the television is playing a more and more important role in our daily life. While some people believe that the importance of TV news is to inform people the things which happening in the world, but others advocate that TV programs only provide the entertainment.
IELTS Writing Task 2 Sample Answer: Television (Real IELTS Test)
Your first sentence should simply restate the topic for the essay - write it quickly and simply. For the second sentence, answer the two questions clearly. You will repeat this again in the conclusion. 1. The main reason that many children today spend an outsized amount of time watching television is that it is widely available on streaming ...
Television Influence on People
For example, high social expectations and new perspectives on obligations depicted on TV affect adolescents and adults. In this essay, analyzing the course reading and an interview with a friend allows learning that despite a common context and technical advancement, television has a great impact on people. We will write a custom essay on your ...
Essay on Television for Students and Children
500+ Words Essay on Television. Television is one of the most popular devices that are used for entertainment all over the world. It has become quite common nowadays and almost every household has one television set at their place. In the beginning, we see how it was referred to as the 'idiot box.'
Essay: #79
Essay: #79 - Two Roles of TV | PTE King. You will have 20 minutes to plan, write and revise an essay about the topic below. Your response will be judged on how well you develop a position, organize your ideas, present supporting details, and control the elements of standard written English. You should write 200-300 words.
Television Essay for Students and Children
500+ Words Essay on Television. Television has become a crucial part of our lives now. It not only impacts our social life but also our educational life. Just as newspapers and computers are significant modes of communication, Television also counts as one. With a television, you can connect to the world outside.
Essay on Television for Students [100, 150, 200, 350 Words]
Essay on the Television: 200 Words. No other thing is as familiar as Television in our present times. It was invented by John Baird in 1925. It first appeared in India in 1959. It is really a wonder of science today. It is a two-in-one. It is the radio on one side and the cinema on the other. Television is a very useful instrument in many ways.
9.2 The Relationship Between Television and Culture
Identify ways in which television affects the development of American culture. Since its inception as an integral part of American life in the 1950s, television has both reflected and nurtured cultural mores and values. From the escapist dramas of the 1960s, which consciously avoided controversial issues and glossed over life's harsher ...
Television's Impact on American Society and Culture
10. Television's Impact on American Society and Culture. TV is a constant presence in most Americans' lives. With its fast-moving, visually interesting, highly entertaining style, it commands many people's attention for several hours each day. Studies have shown that television competes with other sources of human interaction—such as family ...
IELTS Essay # 88
Model Answer 1: Television has been a ubiquitous presence in societies around the world for several decades now. It has played a significant role in shaping the culture of various societies, including mine. In this essay, I will explore the positive and negative impacts of television on the cultural development of society.
Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people
Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people. Explain which of these roles you see as more important. ... Writing9 was developed to check essays from the IELTS Writing Task 2 and Letters/Charts from Task 1. The service helps students practice writing for IELTS and improve their writing skills. By using this site, you agree to ...
8.2: The Relationship Between Television and Culture
Identify ways in which television affects the development of American culture. Since its inception as an integral part of American life in the 1950s, television has both reflected and nurtured cultural mores and values. From the escapist dramas of the 1960s, which consciously avoided controversial issues and glossed over life's harsher ...
Television has two roles: to inform and entertain. Explain ...
Recently, the phenomenon of television has two roles: to inform and entertain and its corresponding impacts have sparked a heated debate. Although contested by many that the matter of complex procedures is highly beneficial, such issue is regarded thoroughly both constructive and consequently positive by a substantial number of individuals. I am inclined to believe that effective informing ...
Impact Of Television In The 1950s: [Essay Example], 735 words
In conclusion, television in the 1950s was a transformative force that revolutionized American culture and society in numerous ways. From shaping societal norms and political discourse to influencing popular culture and consumer habits, television played a pivotal role in the collective consciousness of the American people during this era. The idealized visions of family life presented in ...
You Are What You Watch? The Social Effects of TV
The Social Effects of TV. There's new evidence that viewing habits can affect your thinking, political preferences, even cognitive ability. Share full article. 209. The best of TV can be ...
Television has two roles to inform and to entertain Explain ...
The substantial influences of TV roles have sparked a controversy amongst the public all around the globe. Although specific arguments claimed that broadcasting information such as breaking news and hard-talk is more important, a group of intellectuals debate otherwise and hold an opponent's view. I am highly inclined to believe that entertainment programs are more vital than the news programs.
Television has two roles to inform and to entertain Explain ...
Television has become an indispensable part of our life. It has been popular on society since it was developed in the 1940s. Television has become an important part of people's live as a source of information and entertainment and a great tool for learning and communication. However, it has also promoted negative aspects such as violence, fear, time consuming, especially in children.
Television has two roles: to inform and to entertain people
televisions. set, to a significant extent, the purpose of. this. device has been met, useful and critically effective in society. For instance. , its role in families cannot be underplayed. From my experience, my children are now able. learn. school information on youtube, while some other parents.
Opinion
Washington veterans often react with puzzlement to the idea that Mr. Trump has a foreign policy vision at all. His approach confused people like Mr. Bolton, who criticized Mr. Trump for looking at ...
'The Rings of Power' Season 2 Sneak Peek
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. TV-14. Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' follows an ensemble cast of ...
Television has two roles to inform and to entertain people ...
Television has two roles to inform and to entertain people Explain which of these roles you see as more important To what extent do you think that TV today performs each of these roles in an effective way Support your point of view with details from your ... Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.14589966805 0.242375264174 60% => OK Sentence ...
How the Language of TV is Influencing How We See Ourselves
You see a lot of this on TikTok now: videos that describe ordinary life using the language of television. Scroll through, and you'll find users charting the different "seasons" of their ...
'Dune: Prophecy' to Premiere on Max This Fall, Drops First Trailer
Courtesy of Max. " Dune: Prophecy ," the long-gestating prequel series at Max, has released its first teaser trailer. The six-episode series will debut this fall, but no official premiere date ...

Television has two roles: to inform and entertain. Explain which of these roles you see as important. To what extent do you think that TV today performs these roles in an effective way? Support your point of view with observations or examples.

IELTS essay Television has two roles: to inform and entertain. Explain which of these roles you see as important. Support your point of view with observations or examples.

Television Influence on People Essay

PTE You will have 20 minutes to plan, write and revise an essay about the topic below. Your response will be judged on how well you develop a position, organize your ideas, present supporting details, and control the elements of standard written English. You should write 200-300 words.

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9.2 The Relationship Between Television and Culture

Cultural Influences on Television

Violence and Escapism in the 1960s

Diversity and Politics in the 1970s

The Influence of Cable Television in the 1980s

Specialization in the 1990s and 2000s

Black Entertainment Television (BET)

Television’s Influence on Culture

Social Controversy

Creating Stars via Reality Television

Key Takeaways

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8.2: The Relationship Between Television and Culture

Learning Objectives

Cultural Influences on Television

Violence and Escapism in the 1960s

Diversity and Politics in the 1970s

The Influence of Cable Television in the 1980s

Specialization in the 1990s and 2000s

Black Entertainment Television (BET)

Television’s Influence on Culture

Social Controversy

Creating Stars via Reality Television

Key Takeaways

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Impact of Television in The 1950s

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Television has two roles to inform and to entertain people Explain which of these roles you see as more important To what extent do you think that TV today performs each of these roles in an effective way Support your point of view with details from your

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