FREE ESSAY ON TELEVISION HOW HAS IT CHANGED

TELEVISION HOW HAS IT CHANGED

TELEVISION
HOW HAS IT CHANGED SINCE ITS INVENTION?
How has television changed over the last 25-50 years? This question can be answered in a
variety of different ways ranging from the technological changes and advances it has gone
through to the question of whether it has any type of affects on the way people perceive
it, or if society is manipulated by what they see on television. This report will
hopefully uncover and discover television then and now. 
The first aspect that will be uncovered are the technological advances that television
has made over the years. Naturally to see into this, we must look to how television
originated. Television broadcasting was first introduced in 1936 when it was available in
London. It was not until 1954 when the FCC authorized the NTSC standard for color
television broadcast in the United States. The question raised at this point is what was
the television actually like? How many channels were available? Naturally the
availability of what we have today was unthought of and in most cases seemed impossible,
but most television sets were capable of providing at least up to four basic channels.
However, these channels were only received clearly in larger cities. It was very
difficult for television signals to pass through the mountains and rural areas. In order
to resolve the problem what is known as cable television was introduced in 1948. The
purpose of cable television was to be able to bring existing broadcast signals to rural
areas with community antennas placed at high elevations, usually on mountains or on top
of tall poles. Since the invention of cable television, it has grown rapidly. By 1960,
there were nearly 700 cable systems. In 1971, 2,750 systems were serving almost 6 million
homes. Now in the year 1999, the number has risen to more than 65 million. Of course, the
invention of cable television was by far if not the only major technological development
for television in the early days of television. Today, cable still continues to advance
with new developments with satellites. There are over 80 different channels available to
cable subscribers ranging from 24 hour music channels, 24 hour movie channels, and 24
hour news channels, and 24 news channels. In addition to being able to have these types
of channels, pay television services or better known as premium channels are also
associated with the advancement of cable television. These services offer a variety of
popular movies, original programming and sports without commercial interruption. Soon
after this, interactive television evolved. Interactive TV describes a range in two-way
communication services between service providers and end users. Finally, direct broadcast
satellites were introduced to further expand cable television. Direct TV and Primestar
are just a few companies associated with direct broadcast satellites. 
It is clearly easy to figure out that television has and will continue to advance. Now
that a few various technological advances and developments have been described, they must
be tied into what is most important, and that is how viewer perception and societal
influence has been changed from television changing over the past 25-50 years. 
The main change in television has become the command center of our culture. Because
television is quite different from other media such as film, theater, or music, it must
be examined carefully and more in depth. People go to movies to watch movies, they go to
the theaters to watch plays, and they buy music to listen to it, etc. However, we go to
television for almost everything. Politics, literature, music, religion, news, commerce,
you name it and television has it. Therefore, this makes us known as television people,
because for anything to be legitimate, it has to come through television. Has American
society become so dependent on television that in order to be an American, you have to
watch television in order to make contact with whatever is happening in the culture to be
familiar with what is on the television? In other words, if we didn't have television, do
you think that people wouldn't know what was going on or people wouldn't be able to
follow events that we see on television? If this is the case, then how did people get by
before television's invention? 
Television also presents us with experience in symbolic form. Is this preferable to what
we used to call reality? For example, take when Mark McGuire broke the record for the
most home runs, the people who were at the game to actually witness go down in the
history books probably wanted to see it on television because if they didn't, they
probably would feel a sense of loss and disappointment with the reality of it because
this actually did happen to them before it was on television. 
The next issue of concern is whether or not there is a consequence of image taking over
from the word in television? What essentially is the danger in images being more
important than words? The images or language of television is changing the world, because
it is changing our minds, our thinking, our feelings, and even our way of relating to
other people and to the world. When there is an image culture, politics per say, we see
this in debates, as well as in elections. People are so far concerned with what these
candidates do in their spare time rather than whether or not they will do well for our
country? However, is it the people to blame, or should what media decides to air be
blamed? Without the media, how would people really now what the candidates or president
does in his or her spare time? We would never know, and it really isn't important.
Therefore, the media manipulates the way we view political leaders. They make us form our
opinions by what they tell us and what we hear through the television medium. Society in
the same sense has relied too heavily on the media for depicting images. We are more
concerned about the way a politician looks and dresses, their personal life, rather than
how they will lead the country. Also, we are more concerned with watching our presidents
eat jelly beans in press conferences, watching our president play football on the beach,
or watching our president lie to America about his sexual affairs, instead of wondering
what type of things they have done or what they will do as president. Wars, I believe are
much more important than the personal lives of our leaders. I also believe that people
are so into television that they tend to forget that a war will affect their life, more
than a jar of jelly beans. The next question is has television changed in a sense that
news broadcasts are strictly to make money? When we look back 25 years ago, most news
departments were not expected to make money. It was not expected to make money if
anything it was expected to lose money, but to them that was never a problem or an issue.
However, that today has changed. News is one of the biggest money making divisions in any
television network. 
It really does sound like television advancement has created a lot of problems rather
than made our lives easier. And as we look in to the future, what will television be like
both through a technological sense and perception wise, as it pertains to society? Will
there be a consequence of our news being delivered in a theatrical way? It could just
possibly be that Americans would simply become the most ill informed people in the world.
There is sadly some evidence that this may already be the case. Has technological
developments in television such as cable; etc, affected the way society operates. Did
these types of problems exist before all the technology developed? Can we blame it on
technology or can we blame it on society and media? Media indeed takes a huge role in the
way society is affected by television. However, media is not going anywhere and they do
not plan on going anywhere, so how can the problem be solved? 
Finally in concluding, as time advances, so does technology, however it is up to us as a
society to make a positive use of it. Much of this talk on technology is full of
negativity, but it is only because we let it get that way. Why? Surely television has
changed in the past 25-50 years and it will change in another 25-50 years, as will all
forms of media. All and all, society in general needs to stop relying on television and
forming opinions by what they see and hear as a way of day to day living, because that is
what is seems like we are letting happen. People are relying too much on these
technological advances that they can no longer do for themselves. If we took away all the
advances and developments and went back to the way it was when it was first invented what
would it be like? We would probably have opinions based on values and not on perception.
Bibliography
http://www.ucberkeley.edu