Television and its effects and importance to, children

Authors Avatar

“It’s just hard not to listen to TV: it’s spend so much more time raising us than you have.” Taken from the television show, The Simpsons, this quotes said by Bart Simpson to his father, Homer Simpson, reflects the importance of television on children’s lives. In its 15 seasons, this prime-time show has depicted, in a parodic way, the life of  working class American family. Nonetheless, as satirical as the Simpson family and the residents of Springfield might be, many of the subjects portrayed in the sitcom are “real”; such as, the influence of the media on people’s lives. In this essay, the importance of television in democracies and the influence television has on politics will be discussed. At the same time, the control of the media will be analysed, in other words, what are the positive and negative aspects of public broadcast and private broadcast.

 According to the APP (American Academy of Pediatrics), “children in the United States watch about 4 hours of TV every day.” On the other hand, according to Teen Health and the Media “the average teenager spends more time in front of the television than any other activity besides sleeping.” Finally, according to The Television Bureau of Advertising and the Nielsen Media Research, in 2003, adults spent 258.4 minutes watching television per day. Therefore, there is no doubt the media, specially television, and increasingly, the Internet, influence people’s opinions. Advertisements, television characters, music videos, documentaries, movies and more, impress the public’s beliefs in various aspects; such as, religious convictions or political views on different issues. Although “CSI”, “CSI Miami” and “Without a trace” have been the top three television shows in the United States, the last presidential debate had 51.2 millions viewers. Thus, the media has a very important role in politics; but, on people’s perceptions of the political process as well. In today’s Western society, it is difficult to remain outside the political world; considering, domestic and international political issues are present on the everyday life. One may argue the media has positive effects on the public and others may argue the media has no positive effects whatsoever or no effects at all on individuals. Yet, in democracies, television is essential in politics.

According to Dr. Claude-Jean Bertrand, a professor at the French Institute of the Press in Paris, “the can be no democracies without informed citizens. There can be no informed citizens without quality news media.” Nonetheless, before the issue of the role media in democracies is examined, the theories about newsmaking and the theories about media effects will be briefly discussed in other to be able to understand the “two-faced” place media has in today’s society. In the book, “The newsmakers, the media’s influence on Canadian politics”, the author, David Tarras, points out there are different schools of thought concerning newsmaking: the mirror model, the distorted mirror model, the ownership model, audience model, organization model, cultural model and political model. In the mirror model, journalist do not twist news and focus on the main events that are being reported; consequently, the mirror model informs the public accurately.

Join now!

On the other hand, there is the distorted mirror model; which gives distorted news to the public in order to “agree” with the journalist opinions and beliefs. The ownership model maintains that “news are dictated primarily by the interest of the huge corporate empires that own so much of the Canadian media” (Tarras: 8). In the audience model, news are given according to what the audience wants to hear or see; however, the main goal is to entertain the public. In the organizational model “the structure and purpose of the organizations within which journalist work condition how the news ...

This is a preview of the whole essay