The Television

The television is one of the modern media yet does not strictly belong to the category of “New Media,” despite the high-definition images, which digitization allows. It has already been widely used for more than 50 years and is to be found in almost every home in the world, even the poorest. In both America and France, 99% of all households possess at least one television. Even in Africa, the poorest continent, 85% of households possess a television. In many households the main television, which presides in the living room, is backed up by several more in the bedrooms of both parents and children.4Only a few are able to resist. They are generally in the higher social classes and, motivated by religious, intellectual, or cultural considerations, seek to protect their children from bad examples and evil influence that may distract them from their school work or from more cultivated and social pursuits. They voluntarily abstain, but are seen as eccentrics.5 In many families the television is on from morning to night, and, even when no one is watching it, it remains as a background that flavors the whole life of the house.6

In general, people spend much time in front of the television, 4 hours per day on average over all the regions of the world. The television occupies a large part of the days of the retired and the unemployed, but it also invades the days of working adults, schoolchildren, and infants. Studies have shown that schoolchildren spend more time in front of the television than in front of their teacher, or in interacting with their parents.

It is a cheap leisure pastime that is easy to access. Many people develop an addiction to it, and it can be hard to tear children away from the screen without provoking disobedience, complaints, and screams.

Children become more deeply dependent than adults. They are occupied less by daily duties in the home, and so are more passive and receptive, captivated by the worlds the television reveals to them. Inexperienced, lacking any points of comparison or solid principles, and bereft of critical ability, they are far more permeable to external influence.7

It is not true that the television has been supplanted by more recent media. It coexists with them,8 either in parallel9 or as their partner. For instance, while the Internet transmits programs live, it also allows them to be recorded so that they can be viewed later with a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone.

 Television’s impact on children is especially powerful. As Lilian Lurçat has observed: “The television moulds a child from birth. It implants its message unhindered, for the child has no experience which could counter its effects and the restraint imposed by adults is minimal. The social effects of the media are yet more powerful, for they capture the imagination, seducing and shaping it, by associating what they show with the fulfilment of the basic needs of daily life such as eating and relaxing.”10

Its power of seduction rests mainly on its use of the emotions, which it stimulates by subtly combining the real and the imaginary into scenes that are truly manipulative.11 The television aims, through our affections, to draw us to participate and to identify12 with its message.

Furthermore, many studies over the last decades have shown how the image has an overwhelming effect in modern society. It has its own power to impress, which gives it a huge influence on the way we see reality.

notes

4.  In the United States, which sets the standard, 80% of households possess at least three televisions, and more than 70% of children over eight have one in their bedroom.

5.  Usually these are families with high moral, cultural or educational standards who are sufficiently well off to provide their children with various supervised activities.

6.  There are of course different levels between total abstinence and complete saturation. Generally, viewing time is less amongst higher social classes, since they have the culture and the means to replace the television with alternative cultural and leisure activities. On the other hand, the lack of alternatives reinforces the place of the television.

7.  See the work of L. Lurçat, quoted above.

8.  See M. Desmurget, TV Lobotomie. La vérité sciéntifique sur les effets de la télévision, 2nd ed. (Paris: J’ai Lu, 2013), 54–58. N. Carr, L’ Internet, rend-t-il bête? (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2011), 128–129. Studies have shown that the time spent in front of a computer screen increases the total time spent in front of screens in general. It does not replace television time except for the television time combined with the Internet (cf. H. Dawley, “Time-wise, Internet Is Now TV’s Equal,” Media-Life, February 1, 2006.

9.  A recent study has shown how frequently three media are used at once—television, computer or tablet and smartphone.

10.  Des enfances volées par la télévision. Le temps prisonnier, 2nd ed. (Paris: François-Xavier de Guibert, 2004), 13, 29.

11.  Ibid., 14. The author writes of the “violent” influence of the television for which he gives three reasons: “Firstly, the medium degrades reality, allowing all kinds of confusion and association by blurring the distinctions which are required for rational judgement. Secondly, the emotions are infected by the direct action of the images presented and their associated ambiance. Thirdly, there is a sophisticated manipulation of the viewer’s desires and motives. This manipulation uses psychological techniques which encourage automatic imitation through their subliminal and subconscious action, and more or less conscious imitation through suggestion” (pp. 151–152). See also pp. 161–162 for the techniques of manipulation inherent in the television.

12.  See L. Lurçat, Des enfances volées par la télévision, 37.

Jean-Claude Larchet
The New Media Epidemic