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Mericlaire Willliams

Professor Griffin Rowe

R C 2001 - 109

06 May 2019

When Television Becomes a Dangerous Medium

In 1989, Gorilla Biscuits singer, Anthony Civarelli, shouts, “our lives our led by

TV shows, you know it’s true,” in the song “Stand Still.” In 2019, these lyrics ring true

but even more so with the expansion of technology. The more consumed we become

with television shows, the less connected we are to the world around us. In a job field,

like communications, that is driven by technology, is the prominence of television

negatively impacting the politics and culture of America? Many who rely on social media

for their jobs may argue no, but media theorist and culture critics believe that television

is trivializing American culture and politics.

Mediums are platforms to convey messages, and television has become a heavily

prevalent medium in American society. A message given out to a large population holds

a lot of weight and has power to be damaging. It enters in the side of danger when its

effect becomes unnoticed and uncontrolled. Television is seen as harmless when

entertaining, but the entertainment itself is what can be harmful, overlapping into

politics and is shaping the American lifestyle. When things are viewed as harmless, they

can easily manipulate the reality of the world around us without much question. Many

social critics have started putting blame on television for lessening the importance of
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serious topics. Americans look towards television to tell them the truths of the world,

but it simply cannot provide that resource.

When addressing the world, it is important to not take some things seriously, but

television starts to become a problem when every message is showcased for

entertainment as we become desensitized to them. Looking at the 2016 election and the

term of Trump’s presidency, the close relationship between television and politics is very

prevalent. In the academic journal by Outi J. Hakola, ‘Political Impersonations on

Saturday Night Live​ during the 2016 election U.S. Presidential Election,’ Hakola

explores the impact comedy sketches have on the election. She says, “In this way,

comedy serves as a pressure valve for the viewing public”(2017). By releasing the

seriousness of politics, important matters and the people affected by policy change lose

significance. Entertainment value becomes more important than the people.

When looking at how politics has an outward impact on the public, it is helpful to

be aware of how television impacts political candidates. Neil Postman’s ​Amusing

Ourselves to Death ​criticizes the media for it’s interference with public discourse. In

chapter 9, “Reach Out and Elect Someone,” Postman raises issues by comparing how TV

sells a candidate in a political campaigns to how it sells products in commercials. A

candidate is able to look good by following the rules of advertisement, raising a problem

and making it seem easily solvable. Things need to look good to grab attention, so they

show how they want to fix problems and that hey are capable of doing so but never

explain how. This situation is a prime example of how television is able to desensitize
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politics and make a presidential candidate seem sellable like a product. A candidate is

able to sell themselves toward their target audience, but most of their promises fall

empty when in the office because the premises are simply marketing strategies.

Politicians dance around talking about deep rooted issues to appeal to masses and

instead discuss surface level issues with no talks of solution. For example, the

documentary ​13th​ discusses the presidential campaign and term of Ronald Reagan.

Reagan created the War on Drugs by promising in his campaign to clean up the

inner-city streets. The drug crisis was not as big as Regan made it out to be, but it made

for a great campaign promise. Therefore, Regan instilled fear in Americans to believe an

issue was worse than it was and sold an idea of safe streets to win the election. This

campaign desensitized a society to view drug users as simply dirt on the street, instead

of people in need of rehabilitation.

Television has now impacted the way we rationalize and think about concepts.

It is able to over-simplify topics to make them understandable by a large audience, but

now, we don’t analyze important issues. We are overfilling ourselves on entertainment

and are leaving no room for logical thinking. The main purpose of television is to

entertain, so to depend on television to provide platforms for critical thinking can be

conflicting. We are thrown many different ideas and images throughout short spans of

time on the television. It is impossible to critically think about every image and idea,

therefore we become passive thinkers.

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Television programs have gotten political and invoked real thought, but the

damage of this is that they depict a one sided depiction of an issue. They are not

addressing issues with full knowledge, but instead using stereotypes to educate. Most

war movies have a rooted propaganda, including a “hero” for cinematic effect. In

America, movies like ​Top Gun,​ ​Red Dawn,​ ​Rocky IV,​ ​Casablanca,​ and TV shows like

24​, have all depicted a pro-American agenda. An American hero facing against villians

from other countries for the sake of nationalism. To support nationalism, producers are

creating a one sided view of other countries. American propaganda provides skewed

narratives with the favor being in the American heroes. The film, ​Birth of a Nation,​

depicts a stereotype widely believed at the time of black men being “cannibalistic

rapists.” The American heroes in the film being the Ku Klux Klan, which gave a

depiction of the KKK as being good guys. Television has the power to shape the minds of

masses, so it easily portrays stereotypes in the form of propaganda. Showing certain

people in good and bad lights will shape how the society views those people.

In Douglas Kellner’s book,​ Media culture: Cultural studies, identity and politics

between the modern and the postmodern,​ Kellner analyzes how, “ Critical theories

attempt to contribute to practice and a critical cultural studies seeks to empower

individuals, by giving them tools to criticize dominant cultural forms, images,

narratives, and genres” (pg 60). Television’s representation is giving power to the ideas,

people, and messages represented in high regard. Television holds a strong power in

who it represents, and makes it more dangerous when used to display something
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inaccurately. It has glamorized serious events and topics, like in the case of the show

Thirteen Reasons Why.​ The shows producers reached out to mental health specialist,

who decided showing a young girl committing suicide on screen would be dangerous

and they should not air it. It was said that, “Psychiatrists have expressed grave concerns,

because the show ignores the World Health organization’s validated media guidelines

for preventing suicides (Vinopal). It was also said that following the shows release there

was a marked spike in suicide related searches (Vinopal). Showing serious matters on a

medium that is driven by entertainment cannot carry the full discussion on mental

health and suicide.

Mark Bresnan, in “Try to Stay Awake”: David Foster Wallace, the Political

Media, and John McCain, argues that the media causes Americans to overlook political

issues and engage more in political scandals. For example, Mark Bresnan says, “Bill

Clinton’s lies about his affair with Monica Lewinsky are treated as the root cause of voter

cynicism rather than, say, Clinton’s embrace of racially discriminatory “welfare reform”

or his reregulation of the telecommunication and financial industries.” American society

values scandals surrounding politics, which news channels feed into. Most news

channels today do not clearly distinguish opinion sections from news, including Fox

News, the most watched news channel. They have started to lean towards entertainment

and the viewers buy into it. Television will give more air time to discuss political

scandals than the actual candidates views. Political scandal commentary comes in more

areas of television than just news, entering reality shows and cartoons for
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entertainment. It has become easier to sell fun and entertainment and networks gladly

contribute to that industry. It also has become easier to discuss scandals than have

commentary of policies in politics. America has become more independent on

technology, therefore most things have moved online or on television. Therefore if

Americans are relying on television for its critically analysis of politics it will miss the

mark.

The goal of television is to entertain, and that’s simply all it does. It has become

so closely intertwined into our politics and American culture that everything has to be a

source of entertainment to attract attention. Some authors like Walter Lippmann, in

Public Opinion,​ believe that the solution to our desensitization is through oral debate,

while other authors like Neil Postman believe the only solution is through written word.

Television has gained the same, or even excelled, the respect oral debate and written

word once held, but does less of the job. There is a strong consensus that television

cannot provide us the content for strong critical thinking and Americans should look

elsewhere for such. The lack of critical thinking has created submission and a lack of

seriousness for important issues affecting the work.

 Work Cited

​ irected by Ava DuVernay. Kandoo Films, 2016.

13th. D

Bresnan, Mark. “ ‘Try to Stay Awake’: David Foster Wallace, the Political Media, and

John McCain.” ​DFW Society. ​Posted September 5.

https://www.dfwsociety.org/2018/09/05/try-to-stay-awake-david-foster-wallace

-the-political-media-and-john-mccain/

Hakola, Outi. Political Impersonations on ​Saturday Night Live ​during the 2016 U.S.

Presidential Election. ​European journal of American studies. ​Online since 10

August 2017. ​https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12153#tocto1n1

Kellner,Douglas. Media Culture, Cultural studies, identity and politics between the

modern and the postmodern. Routledge, 1995.

https://www.academia.edu/2194220/Media_culture_Cultural_studies_identity

_and_politics_between_the_modern_and_the_postmodern

Lippmann, Walter. ​“Public Opinion.”​ New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1922. Print.

Postman, Neil. ​“Amusing Ourselves to Death.” ​London: Methuen, 2007. Print.

Vinopal, Lauren. “Netflix’s ‘13 Reasons Why’ May Cause A Suicide Spike, Scientists

​ osted July 31 2017.

Caution.” ​Fatherly. P

https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/psychology/netflix-13-reasons-why-su

icidal-thoughts/