In-A-Gadda-Da-TV

I found both readings to be different in that they presented the chronology of radio and TV history from separate angles. Barnouw's history recap was filled with the "wonder boys" theme that Epley pointed out in class. I find this type of history to be grueling and filled with too many names, dates, and congratulatory tales about the men behind the machines. People still use this angle today when talking about TV, but I personally find it more helpful to relate a technology with those who use it as well as the people that created it. I actually found Marvin's to be the more easier history to relate to current media conditions. The anecdotes represented how new forms of media technology incite shock and awe or fear in the public. I like this particular view of technology, because it gives a presence to the machine. In this case, TV is viewed as a non-static creation that has the ability to interact with those viewing--for good or evil.

If you look at a lot of the fears of telephone and radio people developed almost all of them resemble the fears people had or have about TV. People thought these things would make life too easy, and idle hands as we know are the devil's playground. They also thought this would destroy the family unit. Remember all those PSAs about taking a break from the TV to eat dinner with your family at an actual dining table instead circled around the tube with TV trays? Class structure was also threatened with each invention. In this sense class structure is threatened by television because lower classes would now have the availability to be informed by news broadcast. There were no premium channels for the upper class. Also programming began to reflect the lower class's preferences with shows aimed at entertaining the lowest common denominator instead of catering to higher, more educated classes.

This mentality has never stopped. We all still have fears about TV taking over in similar ways. We all grown when we think of the mind-numbing programming being put on air, entertaining masses who actually enjoy Tilla Tequilla--and her antics and lifestyle promote values that many fear will infect the audience like a hypodermic needle. I think it is safe to say that this cycle of looking at technology will continue.