Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Junk on Television
Throughout Neil Postman's book he stresses that the media, mainly television, greatly diminishes the seriousness of public discourse. He stated that he does not mind the "junk" found on television. He says, "I raise no objection to television's junk. The best things on television are its junk and no one and nothing is seriously threatened by it." (16) I do not necessarily agree with this statement. In the beginning television was created partly for educational purposes but now it is meant to solely to entertain not to teach. There is hardly any programs that are not meant to either entertain or sell you something, and when there is these occasional educational programs, they are never widely seen becasue they are thought of as boring or dry. Postman seems to be saying that serious public discourse should not be on television because "television is at its most trivial and, therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high, when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations."(16) I disagree because I think television can be used as a carrier of important cultural conversations as long as it isn't trivialized. For example, PBS has many good programs on religion, politics, and education and does not trivialze these important aspects of our culture, but seriously discusses it. I think television can be used for both serious discourse and entertainment(I love to watch TV, don't get me wrong). What do you guys think? Don't you think that television can be used for serious discussion as well as entertainment?
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I think that television programs are capable of having serious discussion. But the thing is entertainment is more appealing and will always win frst place over those shows used for educational purposes. The irony here is that the intellectuals running these so called educational programs go along with television's entertainment and don't do anything about it. They also find it more appealing to be an entertainer rather than a teacher, preacher, or politician.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, like Postman says, "the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment" (3) shows how our culture enjoys having all this entertainment.
Therefore, it is possible for television to be used for serious discussion but it probably will always have some bit of entertainment embedded in the programs.
That is exactly my point: that television can be used for serious discussion, it will always have some aspect of entertainment in order to keep people interested in the program, but the trick is to entertain while not detracting from the seriousness of the subject. I think some programs have been able to do this, for example I enjoy watching the programs on the history channel. They do a good job with telling you something you didn't know about history while keeping you interested.
ReplyDeleteTrue, there are TV shows that help you learn but also keep it entertaining. Shows like Animal Planet, the History channel, as you already mentioned Christina, and the programs “How It Is Made” or “Myth Busters” are interesting plus you can learn something new every time you watch. But it is a tedious job to engage the viewers to stay on the subject matter of the program and not to be entertained just for the sake of being entertained. Many sitcoms are unrealistic caricatures of us in ridiculous situations just to have a laugh line thrown in once in a while. Other programs bring a time in history alive for us with re-enactments and documentaries. I think it is up to us to choose what we decide to watch and what we choose not to watch.
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