Television and the Forever Changing World :: Essays Papers

Television and the Forever Changing creative activity To suggest that children growing up in the 1990s live in a different valet than the one their parents or grandparents experienced is not only to state the obvious, but to understate the obvious. -Children & Television Images in Changing a Sociocultural World - ecstasy Keiko Asamen and Gordon L. Berry, Eds. From Barney the Purple Dinosaur and Sesame Street to Friends and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, television set covers a variety of materials. The television, as a means of education, has changed drastically since its 1939 North American debut. The way children learn, twain academically and socially, withstand been affected by this change. Television is at the center of a mul whiledia society. Effects of television on children include, among many other aspects of life, time control and leisure activity displacement, parental involvement in education, and attention, comprehension, and retention skills. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TEL EVISION At the time of its debut, the television was evaluate to impact the lives of children. TV broadcasting came to the United States in July of 1941, when the Federal Communications Commission licensed the first commercial stations. Broadcasting was then limited during World War 2, and once again went full-scale in 1946. Despite the slow start to television broadcasting, this medium was quickly adopted and it diffused through the people at an accelerated pace (Asamen 10). The number of households with a television set jumped from approximately 10,000 in 1945 to nearly seven million in 1950. By 1955, well-nigh 65% of U.S. households had at least one television set, and that figure was 90% in 1960 (Asamen 11). Currently only 2% of American households do not have a television set. (Asamen 10-11) Throughout the past three or four decades, the image of an American family has become more complex. In the past, families predominantly consisted of a mother, a father, and several chil dren. This has developed into something new, with a highly varied collection of nuclear families with one or two children, single parent households (predominantly female-headed), reconstituted or blended families pastime divorce and remarriage, and married or unmarried couples who prefer to remain childless (Huston 36). This observation causes a person o ask whether or not television programming has reflected this change. Are shows like 7th Heaven an accurate representation of a modern American family? Are the contents of The Wonder Years and The Brady constellate still relevant in our society?