Television And The Social Psyche

"The medium is the metaphor" says communications theorist and author Neil Postman. In all cultures throughout history, the mode of interaction and communication among people has been in a state of constant transformation. Verbal language is obviously one example of this. A verbal language changes in response to the changes of the society. New words, new types of slang and manners of speaking are created to describe new ideas and emotions as well as new concepts in social phenomena and perspective. The customary mode of communication employed by a culture is the aspect which most clearly depicts the nature of the people within it. We are defined as individuals and as groups by the ways in which we interact. Many modes of communication have come to play within the realm of civilization as we have continued our exploration of the five defined human senses and how they can be engaged in the processing of ideas, environments and emotions. The modern world has come to be one in which the primary mode of communication is mass media, particularly television.

One of the most startling and important aspects of the emergence of the televisual age is the haste with which it emerged and became incorporated into our lifestyles and our consciences. Only fifty years ago, home television became a feasible purchase for the average American. Today its presence is nearly universal. It is the main source of news and information, one of the main topics of conversation among us and most importantly, the main source of our entertainment. It has been incorporated into the way we learn in school and even into our work-life. It has transformed the way we see ourselves and it has especially transformed the way we see the world in relation to ourselves. The extent to which we have embraced television, not just as a tool for connecting with and understanding the outside world but as a personal support mechanism or means of establishing identity, makes television an incredibly important but equally delicate issue.

Roger Silverstone, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Sussex, recognizes the sensitivity of this subject.

The medium of television has become deeply ingrained in the order and ordering of contemporary culture and society. To understand this we have to inquire into how television has become part of a psychological, a social as well as a cultural reality, and to recognize too both vulnerability and change as the institutions and technologies that have defined the character of television (and radio) this century are beginning to diversify, fragment and shift. (Silverstone, 1995) (1)

Such innovations as cable television and satellite receivers were just the beginning of expanded TV technology, and as they spread throughout the world we are able to encounter a wider span of input. Cable TV was invented for the purpose, not of increasing the number of channels received, but to improve reception. Now nearly 60 million households are subscribed to cable television, many carrying up to 80 channels. This speed with which television technology is being developed is an indication of the extent to which our culture is changing its mode of communication from interpersonal to technological.

The Michigan Institute for Social research conducted a landmark study covering 1500 households in 1981 and discovered that the average mother spends less that thirty minutes a day talking to her children (and in this case criticism and commands are not included as talking.) Fathers reportedly spent an average of eight minutes a day talking to their kids (Fitzpatric, 1995) (2). This is an unsettling fact considering the average child spends around thirty hours a week watching TV. This is more than four times as much as the child spends interacting with his parents. This decrease in interpersonal communication is taking place on a large scale as our world becomes more and more automated.

The attention span required to TV is significantly shorter than that required to converse with other people. Other people require some amount of participation from us. Many need to feel as though what they are saying is being received in order to go on with the conversation. Most conversation also involves a sort of linear order, telling a story or relating an idea. The images on prime time television remain on the screen for an average of 3.5 seconds and our minds tend to follow just a step behind them as they bounce from one subject to the next. As the structure of society changes, it requires us to be more efficient and faster in virtually everything we do. As a result of being immersed in that sort of an environment for most of our days, we learn to require that efficiency and speed too and therefor we have less and less patience for each other. The statistics are an indication of the fact we are feeling less and less of a need for human interaction in order to be plugged in to our society.

John Fiske, author of the book "Reading Television," identifies television not so much as the cause of decrease in interpersonal communication, but as a response to it. Fiske discusses the transition of communication from oral tradition to written tradition. "Television," he says "is ephemeral, episodic, specific, concrete and dramatic in mode. Its meanings are arrived at by contrasts and by the juxtaposition of seemingly contradictory signs and its 'logic' is oral and visual," (Fiske, 1980) (3). In ancient times all news, all knowledge and all stories were passed through oral medium. Importance was placed upon the memory and the mental application of knowledge, as well as the manners of speech and function of the language. Entire ancestral lineages and the histories of whole civilizations were held within the minds of children who in turn became grandparents and through verbal discourse, the substance of their knowledge was passed along. As civilization grew and technology began to play a bigger part in communication and education, it became written word from which we learned of history and myth.

Fiske believes the importance of television is a result of a distinct and powerful longing for our oral tradition. Later in the book he goes on to quote Claude Levi-Strauss when he says:

We are no longer linked to our past by an oral tradition which implies direct contact with others (storytellers, priests, wise men, or elders), but by books amassed in libraries, books from which we endeavor - with extreme difficulty - to form a picture of their authors ... The international organizations ... have so far entirely failed to appreciate the loss of personal autonomy that has resulted from the expansion of the indirect forms of communication (books, photographs, press etc.) (Levi-Strauss, 1968) (4)

This notion of a loss of autonomy is an important factor as we consider the drastic change in culture that we are undergoing. As the substance and activity of the world is interpreted by screenwriters, news reporters, politicians, artists, actors, comedians and the like and presented to us in our houses through the glowing and flickering screen of the TV, we are identifying with those characters and applying them to our own opinions and experiences.

One is entirely justified in saying that the major educational enterprise now being undertaken in the United States is not happening in its classrooms but in the home, in front of the television set, and under the jurisdiction not of school administrators and teachers but of network executives and entertainers.......I mean only to say that, like the alphabet or the printing press, television has by its power to control the time, attention and cognitive habits of our youth, gained the power to control their education (Postman, 1985) (5).

Frightening as it may be, these news reporters and Hollywood entertainers are functioning as the storytellers of our time.

The difference is of course that these people are not really here with us, they are broadcasting from many miles away. The viewer is not really interacting with the actual person and the interaction is therefor mostly internalized. The nature of the values communicated through television is also quite different than the nature of values communicated through oral education. Because TV programs are paid for by advertisements which make up about half of total broadcasting time, a good portion of the subject matter we encounter on television has a commercial agenda.

Since television images move more quickly than a viewer can react, one has to chase after them with the mind, every advertiser, for example, knows that before you can convince anyone of anything, you shatter their existing mental set and then restructure an awareness along lines which are useful to you. You do this with a few very simple techniques like fast-moving images, jumping among attention focuses, and switching moods. (Mander, 1977) (6)

The concepts of privatization and manipulation of the senses are as much a result of social values and social structure as it is a cause. This is after all a capitalist economy. Privatization and manipulation are the tricks of the trade. It is disturbing however to see the extent to which the substance of a culture's communication can be dominated by greed and egotism.

Even if for the moment one does not take into account the fact that most of what we see on TV is blatantly endorsing a product or a lifestyle brought about by the ownership of products, the concept of sitting back for hours internalizing the interaction inspired by the programs and advertisements is the concept which is becoming a central ideal within the contemporary world. This is the age of privatism. Everywhere you look evidence of the privatism movement can be seen. "Home Theater" is advertised on the side of the city bus, there sits the nuclear family content in the safety of their own living room and yet fully entertained by theater quality cinema. "When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility" (5). The way in which television is currently being used in our society is in effect alienating us more than fulfilling the fundamental human need for social attachment.

Fortunately, it seems we may be realizing more and more the extent to which our approach and our response to television and mass media affects our approach to social interaction. More and more we are connecting our sense of detachment and our lack of meaning as individuals and as a community, to a failure to maintain open communication among us. In France this year more than 1.28 million people this year decided to turn off their television sets and get rid of them. Surveys reported that people were tired of programs on TV which seemed to lack any meaningful substance. It was also reported that most people found that by turning off their televisions they were much more able to connect with family members and members of their community (Gaouette, 1977) (7). A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll from June 27, 1997 reports that 65 percent of TV households are watching less than they were five years ago, and that 79 percent of those polled wanted more programming about history, documentaries and the arts. 59 percent believed that TV has changed for the worst within the past ten years. Perhaps we are stepping back and beginning to ask ourselves how we might change our approach to the use of television. If we can step back and take a closer look at mass media, we may be able to make use of the possibilities offered by the expanse of our ability to communicate over large distances with large numbers of people and still maintain the direct interpersonal contact that we need to survive. Television does offer great prospect, but we must be very careful and keep a close eye on the intentions and the emotional reaction to the way it is used.

References   (1) Silverstone, Roger Professorial Lecture, University of Sussex May 25th 1995   (2) Fitzpatrick, Jean Grasso Make Time To Talk, Parents Magazine, Vol. #70, Issue #11 Bergenfield Publishing Nov. 1995   (3) Fiske, John Reading Television Methuen & Co. London 1980 (p.15)   (4) Levi-Strauss, C. Structural Anthropology Penguin Publishing, Harmondsworth 1968 (p. 366)   (5) Postman, Neil Amusing Ourselves To Death Penguin Books 1985   (6) Mander, Jerry Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television Quill, New York 1977   (7) Gaouette, Nicole The Oregonian French TV viewers tune out, turn off Christian Science Magazine November, 1997