The Perils of the TV Watcher
Of course, teaching people to read put them in touch with other kinds of information - not just the orders from the boss... but also opened the radical press to him. Soon, a revolution was underway.
Williams says broadcasting has taken that freedom a step further. He says: "The unique factor of broadcasting [is that] it requires no specific training. If we can watch and listen to people in our immediate circle, we can watch and listen to television. Much of the great popular appeal of television and radio has been due to this sense of apparently unmediated access."
In other words, TV and radio are popular because they apparently give us direct access to the world around us, in the same way that teaching working people to read in the 19th century began a movement which eventually brought down the so-called ruling classes.
A Double Edged Sword
But, like all gifts, broadcasting is a double edged sword. Anyone born after the 1940s has had their lives immensely enriched by broadcasting. Millions of people have seen the world's greatest actors present the works of Shakespeare. It would have taken the Royal Shakespeare Company nearly 30 years, playing to full houses, for every night of the year to reach an audience the same size as the one which watched just one of the plays produced in the BBC Shakespeare series. Natural History programmes have shown us our world in all its astounding and terrifying beauty - whilst leaving the environment untouched, in a way that the tramping feet of millions of tourists would not have done. Countless interview programmes have given us a chance to understand the people who are running our world.
But... broadcasting has sucked up hundreds of millions of man-hours watching vacuous day-time soaps and reality discussion shows... brainless quiz shows and half-witted situation comedies. Broadcasting reflects our world and is like our world. There are good bits and bad bits. The trick is discerning which is which.
If you want a wry look at the way broadcasting has changed the way we live, check out http://othello.localaccess.com/hardebeck... , which features some thought-provoking cartoons on the subject.
And there's no doubt that indiscriminate TV viewing can truly be dangerous. Check out http://world.std.com/~jlr/comment/tv_imp... which tells the story of a scientific study of a town in British Columbia which was suddenly introduced to TV after years of being cut off, when a repeater transmitter was built to service their community.
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