Television

I don’t think that television has contributed much to our lives; in fact it gives us by its own nature a wrong slant. Perhaps the cardinal weakness in its development arose from its concern with entertainment rather than with information. Pictures on the screen have been used more to affect than to instruct. Even the news programmes set out to encourage more reaction and less reflection. Pictures shown briefly do not make you think, they merely invite you to look for the sequel, the next picture. The more you see the less you remember; you see too much to remember anything specific. The process of viewing is passive and the result of viewing is passive, too. One of the most effective documentaries shown on TV was a programme
about the plight of a homeless family. The papers and radio programmes were full of it but it didn’t change anything. Today the problem of homelessness is worse; things have not got better. TV transmits vicarious feelings. I mean, you are persuaded to react to experiences which are unfamiliar to you in your everyday life. And persuasion is an important word here because you are persuaded also to react in certain ways and to a degree that will not disturb you or your expectations too much. Words are also used for their affective rather than informative properties, witness terms like chaos, confusion, fundamental, this moment in time, profile. However, words have more chance of forcing thought upon us than pictures have, and
more so if they are not illustrated by pictures.