TV - The falling star.
From time to time I get across articles that talk about the state of the once beloved lead medium TV. All of the articles that talk about TV in general forecast a dark shadowy future. So does todays article on telepolis (german). It tries to de-sect the mythos that TV is the guidance media of our times and compares it to the other medias that have had a much deeper impact on society and still have (printed word). The article fails on one major point: it argues that TV might not be heavily infulencing society. I think that everyone who knows someone who watches TV will say this is simply not true. The attention grabbing medium has wasted so much time of so many individuals that its impact on society can not be downplayed for that reason alone. Also the "slim trendy beautiful" generation that is now in its mid 20s to mid 30s was influenced by TV - because the TV was portraying this culture of all things must be beautiful trendy and chic. Without a TV picture most girls wouldn´t know that they have to be slim to be accepted or boys know how to move to the latest hihop dance rythms. The good thing about all this is that I see more and more people hating TV leaving it off most of the time mostly because of VERY shitty content that gets worse by the day. The heise article states that the bad quality is because that quotas are the only way to messure the "quality" of a TV program and to crank out high numbers of people you have to be as broad as possible. Now if I follow that thought I think the mass population is doing anything to make TV as relevant as any other medium and loose its leadership status among print and radio and internet. So people continue watch stupid soaps and when you are bored throw away the TV all together - then you have contributed to the media revolution and have helped future generations not becoming corporate influenced couch potatoes ....