Television Role in Preserving American Values During the Cold War

Before we television existed people had to depend on Radio stations to receive there little bit of entertainment and news. But in 1878, the invention of TV began. The first TV made didn’t look anything like the way TV’s look today, it was a mechanical camera with a large spinning disc attached to it (Kids Work). But as over the years, of course inventions of different TV’s progressed and by the 20th century about 90 percent of our population had a TV in their household(). Television today is mainly used for people take a break from their life by relaxing and enjoying some entertainment.

The television gave much of the country something to do. It reflected the homogenization of the United States. People began to envision a futuristic nuclear world after the start of the Space Race between the United States and Russia to land on the moon. The United States launched Alan Shepard into space after the Soviets launched “Sputnik” in 1957 as we launched our first man in 1961. Meanwhile, computers were developed into large room size machines to do simple computations and made things portable. One of the characteristics of the mass media during the 1950’s, as the T.V., was that the sitcoms was directed to make viewers think about the idea of the perfect family living the American dream. The only problem with those T.V sitcoms was that not every American family fitted into that mold. For example, Jews, Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and other minorities were not portrayed as part of that image that most people wanted to imitate because these T.V. families were white-collar, middle class, and Caucasian.

Television during this time greatly shaped American culture. Televisions were affordable and middle class America began to invest in them. The technology developed which allowed the networks- NBC, CBS and ABC, to broadcast TV in real time. The moment was realized during the 1952 presidential election. Broadcasters were able to show the Democratic and Republican conventions live. This was important because rural America was able to see in real time Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson running against each other.

The introduction of television casted a wave of change in the lives of the American public. In Gary Edgerton’s The Columbia History of American Television, he described the uprising of television, “involved the most extensive and ballyhooed series of public relations events ever staged around any mass medium in American history. “ (Edgerton, p.1) The first presentation of television played a pivotal role on how the American public adopted the new medium of technology and communication. I will explore the grand manner of how television was presented to the American public during the early years by the direction of David Sarnoff, and televised special of the 1939 World’s fair. In addition, how this presentation of television generated the acceptation

After the end of World War II, the culture of the world underwent a drastic change. In the United States, the postwar era brought many social and political crises including the Second Red Scare, the Cold War, a rise in television as a “determinant in the culture industry”, and a means for “a spread in advertisement” (Zipes 4). The 1950s brought an intense fear of communism to the American people due to the conflict with the Soviet Union that led to the Cold War. During the Second Red Scare, the United States government, driven by the fear of communism, repressed those who were suspected to be communists, even if there was little evidence against them. The rise of television and advertising allowed for the spread of these fears, and the fear of communism along with the pressure of the 1950s to conform

Television. Such a simple nine letter word but this word alone is most likely to be one of the most well known words in the universe. According to the latest Nielson report, on the consumption of television, the average American watches a minimum of five hours of television per day. If we were to estimate that the average American does get at least the recommended 9 hours of sleep then we can conclude that it is about 1/3 of their day being spent glued to the tube. Also if we continue to estimate that the average American lives to be 78. Then that is about 142,350 hours of television or tallied up to

Four million babies were born each year, the introduction to rock and roll music took place, and more schools and homes were constructed in its cities (History), having a great impact on America and its people at this time. But nothing had as big of an impact on American society and its peoples ideas, as the grand emersion of the television. “Television was not merely entertainment. It was a teacher, offering lessons in what was acceptable in society.” (Stereotypes, page 3) Television and it’s forms of entertainment itself, changed the way people saw gender, class, and moral values

The television was becoming a window to the world, sitcom dramas and the nightly news were stark contrasts, seeing your favorite characters live their lives was nice but when the news told of warfare and hidden communist threats.

     What role does television play in society? For decades we have seen many parts of our world rapidly going through changes in technology. Today’s society has been transformed by means of communication and the available information through mass media. Most Americans rely on television for news, sports, and entertainment. Television is just one of the many examples of how technology has changed our lives. Since the invention of the television in the early 1900’s, it has played a very important role in our lives. Having a television set in the home has become very essential in today’s society. We depend on it to entertain us with its sitcoms and to inform us about current world issues. The

The ‘Golden Age of Television’ is what many refer to as the period between the 1950s and 60s when the television began to establish itself as a prevalent medium in the United States. In 1947, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and the Du Mont Network were the four main television networks that ran stations with regular programming taking place. (Television, 2003) While regular television programming was a new innovation, the television itself had been commercially available for over twenty years prior to the 50s. It was conceived by many worldly innovators and went through several testing stages before it was finally completed in the late twenties. The

Television is one of the most popular ways to consume media. However, television wasn’t always the way it is today. Many changes took place in the television industry during the 1980s. Some of the important changes that took place in the 1980s were the new types of programming, the increase in the popularity of cable television, and new technology that was invented such as the remote control. Television had a huge effect on society through the way if affected the ways children could be educated and what people watched. It impacted technology through changes in how people watched television and what people could record and watch on television. It also had an enormous effect on the economy through changes in competition in the television industry and how musicians and their music could be made popular. Television in America in the 1980s affected society, technology, and the economy.

Television sets were commercially available since the late 1920s but in very small quantities. Since then television had become a bit more common in houses or business institutions because of it’s purposes. Which are entertainment, and news. In the 1950s, television shaped public opinion among citizens. After the

Before Television, Americans followed simple laws, believed heavily in God, were honest, and never locked their doors because they felt safe and were happy to help someone in need. TV gradually turned us into

Can T.V. shows be the reflection of our society or influence the behavior of the members of our community? Since 1936 when television broadcasting begin, it priority was to inform and to entertain our society; subsequently, a massive amount of rules and regulations were created to control the material presented in TV, which principal goal was to safeguard the moral and ethical standards of it time. Nevertheless, from its beginning to the present home entertainment television standards contents have change; likewise, the moral an ethics values of our society have change and continuing changing from generation to generation. TV shows from the 50’s, 80’s, and the present exposed many changes in the way human role are exposed, the language

The television is also a very important aspect of popular culture that affects the American Identity. Watching television is such a common part of contemporary society, that most Americans adopted it as a part of their daily routine and watch television for at least an hour a day. Stanley Crouch, a poet, music and cultural critic, writes that whenever people pretentiously and proudly announce, “I don’t watch television,” they should follow it up with “I don’t look at America either” (Masciotra 79). Television has become a part of many people’s lives. When the mass population watches the same TV shows, movies, etc. they can all relate to each other, and thus unite them as an American. We look to TV shows to see how other people like us act