In the year of 1941, television was first licensed for commercial broadcasting. Since then, a broad array of new ways to entertain have been introduced to ordinary Americans’ lives (Gentzkow, 2006). Criticizers and researchers condemned that it fashions an entertaining culture which ruins public discourse.
As Postman(1985) argued in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, the Age of Television has “dramatically and irreversibly shifted the content and meaning of public discourse”, rendering “entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience”. Even serious subject matters like politics, religion, education, have been presented as entertaining. He fears that technologies that melt critical thinking will be adored by people as Aldous Huxley pictured in the book brave new world.
Besides, with all the entertaining programs in TV, Gentzkow(2006) reveals that audiences are less likely to be exposed to political information. Admittedly, political information is way more accessible thanks to the prevalence of television, while the price of entertainment has a much larger drop. Consumers tend to substitute away from information and toward entertainment. Moreover, electoral polling is affected as well. He illustrates that reduction of voters are caused by television, especially in the areas that the drop in information was found to be the largest. Audience no longer cares about political issues as they were, and therefore participate less in political discussion.
At present, television still plays a significant role in American daily life and domains American leisure time, however, the way people watch is gradually changing with the diffusion of the Internet. “Geographically indeterminate consumption of streaming television programming through internet-connected computing devices” is taking place of “home-based consumption of broadcast or cable programming on standard television set”(Jones, 2009). Audiences are able to select what they want actively rather than simply watch programs on TV passively.
According to Matrix(2014), streaming TV which contains “fictional melodrama, banality, and televisual representations of sex and violence” has similar negative impacts as traditional TV. Besides, he also believes that “video on demand is ushering in a mediated culture of instant gratification, infinite entertainment choices, and immersive experiences in televisual fantasies”. It spurs and exacerbates entertainment culture, amusing audience and undo their capability of thinking. Furthermore, streaming TV can be customized and personalized on individual’s behalf. It means if certain individuals are only interested in entertainment, it’s highly possible that all the contents recommended to them or they watch will not contain other types of topic. Naturally, they may not able to contribute meaningful thoughts to public discussion.
And Scholars Stoycheff, Nisbet and Epstein (2016) also believe that recreational Internet use like streaming Netflix “was associated with satisfactory evaluations of non-democratic regimes and more entrenched authoritarian worldviews”.
While some media researchers hold an opposite opinion. Groshek and Krongard(2016) state that human interaction is actually facilitated by streaming television, which “ benefits from a social media logic in a media ecosystem where recommendations, popularity, and sharing determine user experiences. ” And specifically, people who stream more TV, no matter what they watch, are more engaged in both online and offline politics, including talking politics, writing letters to the editor or blog posts, or attending organized political activities.
Television, both cable TV and streaming TV, as a representative of entertaining culture, has a huge influence on public discourse. With a rapid diffusion of the Internet, streaming TV, which contains much more complex functionalities than cable TV, has changed audiences’ watching modality. However, towards the question that whether television ruins public discourse or not, general agreement hasn’t been made yet. It is actually an interesting topic that needs to be further investigated.
By Yuting Le, Emerging Media Studies, Boston University
Reference:
Gentzkow, M. (2006). Television and voter turnout. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(3), 931-972.
Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of television. New York: Viking.
Jones, E. (2009). Network television streaming technologies and the shifting television social sphere. Media in Transition, 6.
Matrix, S. (2014). The Netflix effect: Teens, binge watching, and on-demand digital media trends. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 6(1), 119-138.
Stoycheff, E., Nisbet, E. C., & Epstein, D. (2016). Differential effects of capital-enhancing and recreational internet use on citizens’ demand for democracy. Communication Research, 0093650216644645.
Groshek, J., & Krongard, S. (2016, October 30). Are we streaming into political participation through a personalized, on-demand TV diet? Retrieved December 02, 2017, from http://theconversation.com/are-we-streaming-into-political-participation-through-a-personalized-on-demand-tv-diet-67430