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<TITLE>Jay's World of Abstracts 00036: Four Arguements for the Elimination of Television</TITLE>
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<H2 ALIGN=RIGHT>Jay's World of Abstracts 00036</H2>
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<H1 ALIGN=CENTER>Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television</H1>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Copyright 1977, Jerry
Mander</P>
<HR>
<P><I>[Standard disclaimer: The nature of abstracts are that they are
pieces of something larger. Not everyone is going to be happy with my
choice of abstracts from any larger work, so if you are dissatisfied,
I would refer you to the original document, which should be able to
be found on the Internet. I encourage others to make their own
abstracts to satisfy their needs. I would be happy to publish them
here.</I>
</P>
<H3>Jay's Introduction</H3>
<P>I first read this book in the early 1980's as a rebellious,
somewhat typical high school kid. This book was definitely not in my
school library and I had to search the public libraries for the full
text after I read excerpts in the<U> Mother Earth News.</U><SPAN STYLE="text-decoration: none">
I guess Jerry's ideas lay dormant for years until our old TV finally
gave up the ghost. Though I often say that the only reason that we
have no broadcast television in our home is because I was too cheap
to buy a new one, I think Jerry Mander's writings on the subject gave
me a bit more incentive to avoid the TV salesperson.</SPAN></P>
<P STYLE="text-decoration: none">Media influence comes up again and
again in our committees when we are working to prevent substance
abuse, teen pregnancy, or other troubling behavior. Media literacy
is the current intervention now, hoping that more savvy people can be
less affected by things like television. Jerry hearkens back to an
older idea: getting television out of your life. I suppose you
could equate it to the current fights about abstaining from
substances or sex or teaching people to use substances and sex more
intelligently. This is not a very new battle, just the cast has
changed (to use a TV term).</P>
<P STYLE="text-decoration: none">I am not a purist on this “no-TV”
business. I have a TV that show videos and such, but no broadcasts.
I hope I am controlling what is seen better that way, but Jerry makes
a compelling case that it isn't just the content that hurts us: TV
itself is troublesome. I can say that my experiences have taught me
that there are many sorts of addiction in our lives and TV is just
one of the more socially acceptable ones.</P>
<P><SPAN STYLE="text-decoration: none">The book is pleasantly dated
now, making reference to such seemingly timeless television as “The
Six-Million-Dollar Man” and the “Roots” miniseries.
We thought these were the best things 25 years ago, didn't we?</SPAN>
Do you think “Roots” will ever come to DVD? If Jerry
Mander had his way, “Roots” would have remained a very
engaging book rather than a forgettable “network television
event.”</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><I>I produced this abstract using time
paid for by the Quay County Maternal Child and Community Health
Council with funds from the New Mexico Department of Health.</I>
</P>
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<H3>Abstracts</H3>
<H3 STYLE="font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>The overriding bias of
television, then, the bias which contains all other biases, is that
it offers preselected material, which excludes whatever is not
selected. Now, of course, this is utterly obvious. And, yes, it is
true of all experiences. When you are doing one thing, you exclude
everything else that you might be doing.</FONT></H3>
<P STYLE="font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>This only becomes
significant concerning television when we forget that: 1) someone
selected our experience for us, and 2) we have given up awareness,
information and experience that is not part of television.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>In the years I was
researching and working on this book, I only ran into one person who
works in television and was speaking publicly on points similar to
this one. He was Robert Keeshan, the actor who plays Captain
Kangaroo. At the 1974 Communications Seminar at San Francisco State
College he said:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>“When you are
spending time in front of the television, you are not doing other
things. The young child of three or four years old is in the stage
of the greatest emotional development that humans begin to undergo.
And we only develop when we experience things, real-life things: a
conversation with Mother, touching Father, going places, doing
things, relating to others. This kind of experience is critical to a
young child, and when the child spends thirty-five hours per week in
front of the TV set, it is impossible to have a full range of
experience that a young child must have. Even if we had an
overabundance of good television programs, it wouldn't solve the
problem.”</FONT></P>
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