Televisions Grip on the Mind of America - Essay Example

Your Your Obey Your Thirst: Television's Grip on the Mind of America Very few people can all (or many) of the following people who have considerable power over their lives: the President; the two Senators who represent their state; the Representative for their district; the governor of their state; the mayor of their city. Almost everyone knows the slogan for Sprite, which is incorporated into the title of this essay. Everyone knows that trucks are Built Ford Tough; everyone knows that Ned Flanders is an annoyingly righteous and happy man; everyone knows how critical Simon can crush the dreams of those hapless singers on American Idol.

Neil Postman rightly identifies the iron grip that the television has on minds throughout American society. Perhaps the fundamental reason for television's power is the way in which it has given "an exquisite and dangerous perfection" to the "epistemological biases of the telegraph and instancy." The telegraph brought bits of information directly to the consumer, without giving that information any sort of context, any sort of reason why that information was significant. The significance was in the novelty, or in the entertainment value.

The instancy of the photograph relieves the mind of having to imagine, or even having to pay a lot of attention. An idea can be summarized, remembered, ingrained in the form of a picture. Combining the two, making a slogan with a picture, simultaneously places an idea an image in the mind. This increases the power of the idea, and gives a visual source of memory associated with that idea for the mind to clutch tightly. Another characteristic of television concomitant to this simultaneity of thought and vision is the power of speed.

The telegraph took the "line-by-line, sequential, continuous form of the printed page" and reduced it to a "world of fragments and discontinuities." The photograph takes a reality that can present ideas to the mind and reduces them down to particular examples. One significant element of television's power is the ability to flash those images, at high speed, adding sound, into the brain. The power of this stimulus can only be said to be addictive. There are few other sources of stimuli that keep people occupied for hours at a time.

Perhaps it is this addictive nature that makes the television so ubiquitous. Postman points out that "there is no audience so young that it is barred from television. There is no poverty so abject that it must forgo television," and he also notes that there is no topic germane to society that cannot be explored on television. As a result, television influences the way in which viewers conceptualize any issue. This ubiquity has resulted in television's virtual disappearance from public discourse.

While the happenings of certain shows occupy many of our free hours of conversation, the medium itself hardly ever comes up for discussion. Its presence is understood; its power is latent, yet obvious. As attention spans shorten, and patience for forms of discourse that require concentration wanes, those who decide what programs will air will continue to consolidate their power over the viewing public. It may not be long before those who accidentally stumble upon a State of the Union address wonder why Martin Sheen is not the President anymore.