In relation to the influence of television on the state, it is possible to say that it depends on the level of competition between different channels. For instance, Globo network played a dominant role on Brasil television in 1980s. Globo used their influence on people to urge Brasilians to vote for Fernando Collor de Mello and helped him to win in the election. But when the choice of TV channels is wide enough, the possibility to affect election results becomes illusory as we can observe today in the developed countries like USA.
Even more, competition and diversity of TV channels can become the insurmountable obstacle for corruption. A television is a huge industry and roguish people would pay hundreds of thousands dollars to every TV channel to provide their support. And if the diversity of TV channels is appreciably wide, then the total control under mass-media becomes unreachable.
The many positive sides of television were illuminated above. But can it make our world more peaceful place?
There is a lot of debate among researchers about the influence of violence on TV on people. Any way in common the TV reports from Vietnam to the Iraq war intensify pacific trends in the human society. A television provides also emotional connection between the people from distant places of the Earth. According William Davidson Institute, the news about the Asian tsunami increased online donations to charity.
Undoubtedly a television helps to grow global cosmopolitanism but its development depends on what people are watching. It is clear that Al Jazeera and CNN describe September 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq totally differently. But with the spreading broadcasting of Al Jazeera in the West, and with the spreading broadcasting of CNN in the Middle East, it might be possible to understand the opposite side.
Yes, a television can help to solve real-world problems as with well-designed educational TV programs as with soap operas and music shows. But it doesn’t mean that the governance should use a television as a universal panacea. Rather the politicians just shouldn’t interfere in the news and limit the number of channels.
Because of the global spreading of television broadcasting, the world is spending more time to watch TV. Surely this time can be spent in a better way. But still a television provides new ideas, a connection with different people, the growing of tolerance and cosmopolitanism (with Charles Kenny).
Sunday, January 29, 2012
TV Global Influencing - Part 2
Another unobvious application of TV was promoted by health and family welfare minister of India. He suggested assisting TV expansion to decrease birthrates. From his point of view, a television is considered as the substitution for sex that used to be the only entertainment in the past.
In 1970s, Brazilian soap operas used the popular female characters that were uncommon to this country: divorced, having no kids ones. And soon it started to transform to the realty. More and more women preferred to get higher education and tended to have fewer children. Against the contraceptive advertising restrictions and without any government policies the soap operas managed to choose social attitudes.
In a similar way, soap operas affected on women in rural India. Popular characters from TV shows, that have high education, run business and have few children, inspired Indian village girls to stay at school longer and become well-educated.
Thus, cable and satellite changed the birthrates and girls’ high school enrollment, increased female autonomy and significantly decreased the difference between the life in cities and in countries. The director of Afganistan Star claims that this show “do more for women’s rights than all the millions of dollars we have spent on public service announcements for women’s rights on TV.”
In addition, TV shows lead to decreasing drug consumption by young people, as survey of World Bank reports. And not only soap operas work miracles but also purposeful educational broadcast campaigns affect people and make social changes. For example, in Ghana the amount of women, who wash their hands before cooking, increased after the broadcast campaign explaining the potential damage of dirty hands.
In spite of common opinion that a television impedes learning, well-designed educational TV programs can even improve the results of school tests. Nowadays in Mexico the Telesecundaria program helps about 700,000 schoolchildren to get better scores in mathematics and language.
The influence of a television on the human society can be ambiguous. According Ben Olken, habitants of Javanese rural areas decreased the level of participation in social activities. But it didn’t affect the participation in discussions and meetings. The similar results were achieved in the researches of US regions that got access to more channels in 1950s. It increased political knowledge and interest among the local population.
In 1970s, Brazilian soap operas used the popular female characters that were uncommon to this country: divorced, having no kids ones. And soon it started to transform to the realty. More and more women preferred to get higher education and tended to have fewer children. Against the contraceptive advertising restrictions and without any government policies the soap operas managed to choose social attitudes.
In a similar way, soap operas affected on women in rural India. Popular characters from TV shows, that have high education, run business and have few children, inspired Indian village girls to stay at school longer and become well-educated.
Thus, cable and satellite changed the birthrates and girls’ high school enrollment, increased female autonomy and significantly decreased the difference between the life in cities and in countries. The director of Afganistan Star claims that this show “do more for women’s rights than all the millions of dollars we have spent on public service announcements for women’s rights on TV.”
In addition, TV shows lead to decreasing drug consumption by young people, as survey of World Bank reports. And not only soap operas work miracles but also purposeful educational broadcast campaigns affect people and make social changes. For example, in Ghana the amount of women, who wash their hands before cooking, increased after the broadcast campaign explaining the potential damage of dirty hands.
In spite of common opinion that a television impedes learning, well-designed educational TV programs can even improve the results of school tests. Nowadays in Mexico the Telesecundaria program helps about 700,000 schoolchildren to get better scores in mathematics and language.
The influence of a television on the human society can be ambiguous. According Ben Olken, habitants of Javanese rural areas decreased the level of participation in social activities. But it didn’t affect the participation in discussions and meetings. The similar results were achieved in the researches of US regions that got access to more channels in 1950s. It increased political knowledge and interest among the local population.
TV Global Influencing - Part 1
TV has been reviled for its moral decline and ignorance since it appeared in 1920x. Religious authorities from different countries considered television as a sinful tool of spreading immorality.
There was one TV set for 1.1 billion households around the world by 2007, and this amount is going to grow to 1.25 billion next four years. The critics of TV are afraid of increasing such negative tendency as an obesity and desocialisation, solitude. But at the same time wide spreading of television can lead to the unity of people in face of global problems. It can lead to women’s emancipation in developing countries, and make the world more healthy and well-organized.
In the last few years new web-based social networks like Twitter and Facebook are at the center of attention, but, despite of this, a television keeps influencing the important changes around the world such as increasing amount of weel-educated poor people and decreasing level of the corruption. This effect was achieved with assistance of music shows and soap operas like local versions of American Idol and Desperates Housewives. It’s hard to believe, that households have more TV sets than refrigerators in 5 time! Even more, the distribution of a television in poor countries passes ahead of electricity.
Thus, the television seems to extend its broadcasting over the whole world with lightning speed: 90 percent of Europeans and North Americans, 80 percent of Vietnamese people, about 50 percent of Indians households already have a TV.
In addition to spreading geographically, a television is going to make revolution in the quantity of accessible channels providing wider choice. The half of TV viewers will be able to use digital broadcast through cable and satellite. Today Americans have access to more than 100 channels and there is trend to spread these technologies around the world.
In addition, wider choice of TV channels gives access to the diversity of opinions, and helps reduce influence of the bureaucracy. Of course, in many countries the state strives to control the main TV channels. For example, Hugo Chavez took the control over the most popular TV network in Venezuela and now people in this country have to enjoy TV show Alo Presidente during many hours. And the access to the bigger amount of TV channels gives the opportunity to choose what the audience wants. And in so diverse countries the people often have similar tastes. The final of 2006 soccer World Cup attracted to TV screens about 715 million people. Above 80 million people in 66 countries are addicted to medical drama House. So most people prefer sports, reality shows and soap operas.
There was one TV set for 1.1 billion households around the world by 2007, and this amount is going to grow to 1.25 billion next four years. The critics of TV are afraid of increasing such negative tendency as an obesity and desocialisation, solitude. But at the same time wide spreading of television can lead to the unity of people in face of global problems. It can lead to women’s emancipation in developing countries, and make the world more healthy and well-organized.
In the last few years new web-based social networks like Twitter and Facebook are at the center of attention, but, despite of this, a television keeps influencing the important changes around the world such as increasing amount of weel-educated poor people and decreasing level of the corruption. This effect was achieved with assistance of music shows and soap operas like local versions of American Idol and Desperates Housewives. It’s hard to believe, that households have more TV sets than refrigerators in 5 time! Even more, the distribution of a television in poor countries passes ahead of electricity.
Thus, the television seems to extend its broadcasting over the whole world with lightning speed: 90 percent of Europeans and North Americans, 80 percent of Vietnamese people, about 50 percent of Indians households already have a TV.
In addition to spreading geographically, a television is going to make revolution in the quantity of accessible channels providing wider choice. The half of TV viewers will be able to use digital broadcast through cable and satellite. Today Americans have access to more than 100 channels and there is trend to spread these technologies around the world.
In addition, wider choice of TV channels gives access to the diversity of opinions, and helps reduce influence of the bureaucracy. Of course, in many countries the state strives to control the main TV channels. For example, Hugo Chavez took the control over the most popular TV network in Venezuela and now people in this country have to enjoy TV show Alo Presidente during many hours. And the access to the bigger amount of TV channels gives the opportunity to choose what the audience wants. And in so diverse countries the people often have similar tastes. The final of 2006 soccer World Cup attracted to TV screens about 715 million people. Above 80 million people in 66 countries are addicted to medical drama House. So most people prefer sports, reality shows and soap operas.
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