The Extraordinary Appeal of Screen Media

This past week I was given an assignment to read over a thirty-six page packet. The title was "The Extraordinary Appeal of Screen Media." After reading through it and highlighting certain things that seemed to me as if they were important and would be worth going back to for this blog, I realized that I'm not even completely clear on what the author(s) were trying to accomplish by writing this. For one, it was very hard to read because of all the citing they were doing. It felt as if every sentence was shorter in length than the source that was cited at the end of it. Second, and this is a problem I have with most reading I am given in the classroom, the author(s) would use bigger words when they were unnecessary. For example, one sentence reads, "...however passingly, ameliorates this noxious circumstance." Why? Why do they need to use these words? It's just one of those things that really chaps my ass that I had to get off my chest before moving forward with this entry.

For the most part, at least from what I could understand, this packet was describing the role that television plays in people’s lives, how people watch it, and what they would do if they weren’t watching. For example, they explain that there are two ways to watch television; Ritualistic and Instrumental. Ritualistic viewing refers to the exposure of television whereas instrumental viewing refers to the content. They argue that children’s viewing is considered ritualistic until about the age of 6 which is when they begin noticing the narrative in television shows such as the Teletubbies. They go on to claim that there are three motives for viewing television: escape, surveying characters in order to evaluate personal attributes, and keeping abreast of the world.

Later in the packet they describe what happens when television is introduced into a community and what changes occur. There were three towns, creatively referred to as “No-TV Town, Low-TV Town, and High-TV Town.” The No-TV Town was not given the opportunity to watch any television. The Low-TV town was given one channel to watch with a third of the programming being educational to be shown in schools. The High-TV town was given two channels; the educational channel and a channel that offered entertainment, sports, and news. The findings in this study showed that there was a significant decline for spectator and participant sports along with other outdoor activities and for certain media such as comic books and radio listening in the two towns with television as opposed to the community without television.

Basically, what this packet is trying to explain to the readers is that television is similar to one of the robots from I, Robot. It is taking over our lives and soon enough we will be prisoners in our own homes handcuffed (figuratively speaking) to our couches parked in front of the television sets. We must destroy all televisions and go back to the time when radio was the main form of entertainment. Yikes. Screw that. BOOM SON!