Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously - Essay Example

Insert Introduction Television is a telecommunication device used for transmitting and receiving moving images and sound. In a broader sense, television can also imply monochrome (black and white) or color images or images with or without accompanying sound. The television broadcast system is normally transmitted through radio transmission on assigned channels in the 54-840 MHz frequency band (Winship, 224). The 1940s saw a sharp interest and establishment of mass circulation magazines (such as Life, Look, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post amongst others) with or without emphasis on pictures. Essentially, all major brand name products did their advertisements through the magazines which were at the time circulating in their millions with research indicating magazines claimed 12.6% of the total advertising market share as at 1946. It was during this decade (the 1940s) that television had started truly penetrating into households across the world. However, it was not until 1944 that network television began (Carroll, 377). By 1956, television diffusion had reached a staggering 71.8% with close to 35 million sets within households worldwide. The resultant growth of television advertisement saw a consequent drop in radio advertising sales. To adjust to the threat of the emergence of television, radios adopted a counter strategy of focusing on local and regional advertising sales. Magazines on the other hand did not initially feel threatened partly because television did not at the time offer four-color advertisements. And true to their assessment, interest in consumer magazines continued to flourish throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s. However, with the decrease in the prices of four-color televisions, television penetration rose even further by up to 97% in 1969. Consequently, the economic ride the general interest magazine had thrived in came to an abrupt end (Winship, 311). Displacing the interest in picture magazine with an unrivalled immediacy, four-color television amassed 12.2% of the total advertising market share by 1956 while magazine advertising market share had plummeted to a meager 8%. Television not only ate away magazines’ advertising market but also snatched away the general entertainment seekers who were previously readers. The habit of nighttime television watching resulted in unread magazine pile-ups and a consequent loss of incentive to purchase magazines therefore. As a result magazines failed due to loss of national advertising and consumer time which television had so effectively snapped up (Carroll, 411) Magazines, like radio, adapted to this loss by adopting various strategies. For one, they resorted to focusing on developing more special interest magazines which were intended to gain readership due to the fact that these new magazines offered specialized or more detailed information that were unavailable in the general electronic media. In addition, advertisers wanted to spend resources on a more specific target audience and this caused an emergence of special interest magazines from the early 1970s till date. This period marked the birth of the niche publishing concept (Carroll, 418). Normally, the proliferation and widespread adoption of television as mass medium would have meant the total annihilation of reading, but this was not the case as magazines strategically used television to advertise and even advance its specialized/ niche publishing. In the end, television had unknowingly helped increase magazine sales in the consequent years by increasing the number of people interested in a specific subject or hobby and the extent to which they craved that information. At least 78% of the world’s households owned at least one television set by 2009. This was an increase of 5% compared to the statistics of 2003. In addition, signals are now often transmitted with stereo or surround sound in most countries. Before the new millennium, transmission programs were commonly transmitted as analog television signal but with recent advances, several countries have gone digital (Haerens, 312). Today, because of its ability to attract viewers from all age groups (literate and illiterate and from all classes of society), attracts the hugest number of audience than any other media audiences. On top of its universal acceptability, television uses range from one setting to another. In India, for example, television is employed for educative purposes and for the conveyance of information, where its use as a source of entertainment is more suppressed. Even presently, though commercials have infiltrated the Indian television in a significant way, it still continues to perform its function of national integration and development (Bianculli, 345). Television has gone on to influence the world and even the people living in the remotest villages and tribal packets with its outreach spreading across the globe and ushering an age of information explosion. Television helps disseminate the message of development and modernization to create awareness for general public involvement. Apart from the important function of advancing the cause of global integration, television also supports government programs and plans designed to stimulate social and economic change while also protecting national security. It opens up the prospects of educating villagers in the remotest areas in the affairs of the nation and associating them in the task of development along with creating a broader vision of the world (Bianculli, 365). Being an audio-visual medium, television brings us into touch with the happenings around the world in an exciting and much clearer fashion. A live television broadcast of an event, for example, offers meaning to the events in a way that no amount of reading, still pictures or photographic films could match. In many areas of the world today, television is regarded as a mirror of the societies’ personalities. Television can recall the past vividly, dwell on the present and even offer a glance into the future. It has the capacity to reach billions of world viewers simultaneously and so has been universally embraced. It provides masses a common experience at the same time (Bianculli, 400). In regions where illiteracy is a problem, television has provided a fantastic avenue for disseminating audio-visual information to these areas and in any language too. In addition, in areas with a multitude of cultures co-existing, television becomes handy in instilling common understanding among the people and bringing them closer. Also, a television broadcast can utilize a combination of various audio-visual materials and methods (such as objects, demonstrations, exhibits, chalkboards, models, discussions and so on) which assist in clarifying information to audiences with varied comprehension standards. This means mass communication is easier and effective, appealing to different groups. Moreover, television combines speaking, writing and showing where one not only talks to the masses at one time but also has an opportunity to show them what they mean. The television presents mass demonstrations to thousands of viewers at the same time (Schramm and Donald, 520). Television stimulates and reinforces ideas, beliefs and tendencies already possessed by the viewer. For instance, television repeats and so reinforces the information conveyed about marriage age, family planning, importance of girl-child education, environmental protection, energy conservation and so on. It thus serves a persuasive role. It is also convenient as families receive messages in their own environments. Generally therefore, television, as a mass medium, not only entertains but also informs, educates, inspires and motivates. Television can also be used for surveillance, industrial process control and guiding of weapons in areas where direct observation and penetration is difficult and dangerous. Despite these numerous benefits of the development of television as a mass medium, there are certain concerns that have arisen from television viewership. For instance, television can be used, intentionally or otherwise, to spread dangerous and damaging propaganda by those who control it, resulting in societal restlessness in the form of wars, reputation damages, lifestyle changes, mean behavior, violence, and foul language and so on (Schramm and Donald, 600). However, surveys indicate that most of the deleterious impacts of television especially affect children whose bodies and minds are still developing. Most children, young adults and some adults have developed health issues such as obesity due to the fact that they can sit around in front of their television sets all day and watch endlessly as they consume snacks while neglecting aspects of their physical health. Television has also been blamed for replacing interactions with other people for those who are addicted to it, thus hurting meaningful relationships such as parent-child relationship. A parent is no longer allowed to send their child to the mall for example, for groceries since they are following a favorite television show that is airing (Haerens, 413). Works Cited Bianculli, David. Teleliteracy: taking television seriously. New York: Continuum, 1992: 345, 365, 400. Print. Carroll, Jamuna. Television. Farmington Hills, MI.: Greenhaven Press, 2006: 377, 411, 418. Print. Haerens, Margaret. Television. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2011: 312, 413. Print. Schramm, Wilbur, and Donald F. Roberts. The process and effects of mass communication. Rev. Ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971: 520, 600. Print. Winship, Michael. Television. New York: Random House, 1988: 224, 311. Print. Read More