In what ways do you think television can be rightly regarded as a medium in its own right
In what ways do you think television can be rightly regarded as a medium in its own right?
The television has honourably earned the right to be regarded as a stand alone medium within the mass communication global network of which the nations of the world are now reliant upon. We as a society use its medium on an everyday basis without realising the provocations it has on our lives. It is with regards to these societal influences that I will discuss the importance of the television as its own medium.
“Television is not only a technology but a social institution with
varied relationships to the countries in which is produced and/or
consumed, and to the economic, religious and ideological
frameworks of those countries”(D’Acci p. 91 1994).
The growth of the mass media has had a significant impact on our everyday lives and the television has been at the forefront of this upsurge in technology. It is a medium that uses both ‘Social and Technological Determinism’; ‘technological’ being the using of technology to create social effects and ‘social’ where society has a direct link with the technological outcomes that have always been intertwined throughout history.
With the public mass-viewing broadcast of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II broadcasters could see the true transmission potential that they had in their grasp and I believe that this event could have also been dubbed ‘the coronation of the television’ because “public appetite is insatiable and our activities must be extended and the standard of programmes continually improved at all costs” (Briggs; 1995, p. 209).
The essence of the television began in the early nineteenth century with the development of the telephone and the radio; then came cinema and now the convergence of all of these have created innovative new technologies such as digital/interactive forms of television and the internet on computers as quoted by Seiter, “The technologies of broadcast television and of computers are becoming increasingly intertwined…television sets and computer terminals will certainly merge”(Seiter, 1999).
The role of television can be seen as a recreational medium whereas its user can switch on and then they ‘switch off’ and wind down after a long day of work and this can create the image of the television being a passive form of technology; this is true to an extent for it is used as a form of relaxation but this is by far the boundary of its capabilities. This is in direct comparison to the medium of cinema because although both have ideals of relaxation and entertainment it is television that benefits from the possibility of viewing over a longer timescale.
The cinema has its main theme based on a purely entertaining relaxing activity where its audience can engage in an ‘experience’ for only a limited period of time. There is little interaction between the production and its audience other than the sensations each genre of film might convey to its viewer. This is different from television due to the fact that there are many programmes that do interact with the audience at home either via digital technologies recently established (where the viewer can actually influence the decision of what is being viewed), or by the presenter of the television programme looking directly at the camera instilling the notion into the audience that the speaker is talking directly to them. This is most common within news broadcasts and is also seen within a variety of informational documentaries such as Wildlife on One and game shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Cinema confines itself to the viewing of film alone whilst television is a multi-genre medium. The applications of the television are linked with cinema with the use of home video recorders (VCRs). These have been able to give the viewer control over time management of screening and to allow films or any pre-recorded programmes to be watched at the viewers’ discretion. The video recorder came from the idea of cinema which has always been of social interest and has now even been converged with the television not simply by wiring connections but literally integrated into the moulding of the set to become one. This literal convergence is an example of social determinism and shows the dominating prowess of the television, the importance it has in our everyday lives and that both televisions and video recorders “will continue to be vastly more accessible than computer communications for a very long time and probably a better investment for a democratic society”(Seiter, 1999).
