“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,” said Edward R. Murrow in 1958, commenting upon the degenerate state of American television broadcasting.
Today, 51 years later, Murrow would be abhorred by the horrendous condition of television. This tool with the potential to educate, inform and teach is now dedicated to reality shows and comedy. Late night talk show hosts jabber from 9:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. while C-grade movies play in endless circles on numerous cable stations.
Much programming has fallen below being useless but entertaining to simply horrendous. It is unintelligible how a superhero-meets-baby-sitter reality show was ever given the green light for production. It is baffling that a weight loss competition for cash and prizes has been broadcast to Americans for the past eight years, and has managed to rise in popularity. And it is nearly inconceivable that a show titled Chain Saw Ice Sculptors managed to win a four-hour block of broadcasting time across the nation.
Yet this junk has poured in flashing, squawking streams into Americans’ living rooms for decades and in increasing proportions. Still, the public appears content. But while American audiences seem indelibly lost to this decadence, Murrow has reason for hope. For these flamboyant, grandiose torrents of entertainment have begun to serve a greater purpose as their airwaves are picked up outside American borders.
In Brazil and Iran, Vietnam and Venezuela, the increasingly ubiquitous availability of television access has permitted the spread of American ideals through adaptations of Hollywood programming to numerous international cultures.
Television has become passive diplomacy through free media. Today in Afghanistan, many Taliban members will text votes for favored contestants on the profoundly popular Afghan Idol, regardless of the contestants’ tribal affiliations. In Saudi Arabia, women have gained respect in a male-dominated society through the success of female participants on a televised poetry competition. In rural China, the Tienanmen Square massacre was recently publicly recognized for the first time via television.
Trends in India signify that television programming for the masses has provided alternative late night entertainment for couples and caused a reduction in fertility rates; a welcome sign for a country experiencing a dramatic population boom. T.V. also beams digital role models into Indian households for parents to emulate. Responsible television mothers who send their children to school have purportedly had a positive effect on real world student enrollment.
These shows often have roots in Western media, but are entirely modified from their Hollywood or European origins so as to be culturally acceptable overseas. They transmit Western values, but not Western culture. However, as international populations become accustomed to these underlying values, Western culture itself begins to gently seep through foreign screens.
Afghan television, for instance, currently transmits only underlying Western values. It distributes slightly liberal-themed programming that is presented in a conservative fashion. Neighboring India however, has begun openly broadcasting heavily Western-influenced programming that goes beyond displaying basic underlying values. Indian heartthrob and Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, for example, mirrors Ray Romano in appearance, Pierce Brosnan in suave persona, and Brad Pitt in popularity. He is one example of Western culture, in addition to Western values, perforating international boundaries.
This diffusion of culture can be witnessed through its ongoing contribution to modern movie style. As American movies find an increasingly immense audience overseas, they are dumbed down to be universally understandable. More and more films follow the trend of Transformers or 2012, in which content is watered-down to raw action absent of substantial plot, permitting any international viewer to appreciate what plays on screen. Much of Hollywood income now flows as yuan, yen and pesos, not simply American dollars.
Truly, the diffusion of ideas through television has clear benefits, but this international informational conduit also has inherent risks. Many states in which T.V. is proliferating do not have reliable or free news coverage. The events of September 11, 2001 are frequently portrayed as permissible or even beneficial on many Saudi stations. Elsewhere, state-run media only serves to strengthen regimes rather than provide a voice for opposition.
But in most of the world, the benefits of television seem to outweigh the risks. It has offered a method of peaceably conveying Western positions and perspective to remote corners of the globe. It has empowered women and diluted tribal divisions. It encourages socially beneficial behavior.
Today, in the flashes of billions of pixels around the world, optimism glimmers.
