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Television is about to celebrate its 50th birthday in Australia: a good time to reflect on its contribution to Australian society in particular, and to the world in general. At its best, television has opened history and knowledge to us, empowered and educated. At its worst it has served as an anasthetic to reality, losing us in the midst of inane stories and chintzy advertisements purporting to deliver us into an illusory yet promised future.
Two movies come to mind challenging our notion of television's importance, power and potential. Good Night and Good Luck details thes battles of Ed Murrow against the extremes of McCarthyism in the US in the 1950s. His speech to the Radio and News Television Directors Guild in 1958 raised a challenge which resonates today. Murrow said:
It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments, can survive. Perhaps the money-making machine has some kind of built-in perpetual motion, but I do not think so. To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late....
To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.
Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.
A second movie, Network, in which Howard Beale castigates his audience:
You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.
...Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people... when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?
At the age of 50, we find that the major celebrities of our time are news presenters. The death of Richard Carlton at Beaconsfield took the battle of the miners off the headlines... ironic that the one who reports the news becomes it. Politicians have realised this, and the best ones exploited it. "Reality shows" have become standard fare - we watch "Big Brother", but what are we ingesting?
Has the television been more of an asset or liability? Without a doubt, at its best, its value is beyond question. But these moments have been few and far between. We get little independent news, little bold critique of culture and politics, largely due to the need for the advertising dollar. Why bite the hand?
Where will television be in another 50 years? Will the decentralised media of the internet erode its power and centrality, or will the resources of the massive media corporations still dominate news flow? Many questions.
Can we rely on the TV to bring us the truth? How can we be sure, and where else do we look?
Posted by gary at June 17, 2006 09:15 PM
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