[commieneko]

Television (and movies, and telephones, and newspapers) _have_ brought education and culture to the masses. Really. Go back in time a couple of hundred years and talk to some regular folks. Salt 'o the Earth, industrious (maybe), and worldly even, but _not_ educated or culturally sensitive in great numbers. It's important to remember that the teeming masses didn't use all that time they spent not watching television reading Shakespeare and Newton...

[philwelch]

Nor have they spent all the time they do watch television watching Shakespeare or learning physics.

[commieneko]

No, but more of them are doing it now than in Shakespeare's time. (Okay, they were watching it on stage rather than on TV; the period's equivalent of soap operas and sitcoms...)

As a percentage and in absolute numbers there are more educated people, by nearly anyone's definition of education, than at any time in history up to now. And television, mass communication in general, plays a large part in that.

As hard as it is for many to imagine, a lot of what passes for junk culture and time wasting trivia these days will be considered high art in the future. Future pundits will decry how the youth of the country are wasting their time with the latest feelie dramas and grab-o-vision media instead of partaking of more uplifting fare like downloading _Maru, the box cat_ and staying up all night playing _Tomb Raider_...

[philwelch]

See, you're changing the goalposts. I'm talking about TV, you're talking about mass media in general. I'm comparing, say, 1945 and 1965, you're comparing 1810 and 2010. (Or 1610 and 2010.) There are too many confounds and you can't just throw everything since then (wider college education, mass publication) in with television as if they're even remotely the same thing.

I know there are a handful of TV series that constitute legitimate art, and an even rarer handful of those which are even popular. But by and large, TV isn't an improvement to the average person's level of culture or education. It's not necessarily a setback, but it's not an improvement, either.

[commieneko]

Go back and read your parent post. The discussion is clearly mass media, or at least the effect of new media on society.

As someone who grew up in the 50s and 60s I can tell you from first hand experience that TV was used massively for education, and that it had a profound effect. Was it used for other things? Things more visible? Sure. Is all TV educational? That's a harder question to answer; note my point about what is considered culture at any given time. Sturgeons Law applies to TV like everything else, so we can't only judge a form by its worse 90%...

As for broading the discussion, which I refute, it's impossible to discuss the effects of one mass communication medium without discussing it within its context. At least not very meaningfully. If you scan around the posts on this page you'll find a post from me making references to the history of reading, writing and printing.

[philwelch]

You started the discussion by responding to me, not the other way around. And I was talking specifically about the example of television. I don't think every new media has the same effect on society. If you think otherwise, you need to actually argue that point instead of just handwave it away as an assumption.

You've taken my point ("television failed to fulfill its promise as a source of education and culture for the masses"), ignored it, and instead responded to a straw man ("the aggregate of changes in mass media since the Elizabethan era have not improved the level of education and culture in the general population"). And then when I call you out on it, you tell me "the discussion is clearly about more than television". My point was about television, you can respond to whatever straw men you like but don't pretend it's a response to my point.

[commieneko]

No, I _entered_ the discussion by responding to you...

OP was about new media, communications tech, iPads, etc. The parent post was about more of the same. Your response implied that TV didn't have a positive effect on education; which you didn't state explicitly, but your comment could only make sense to someone who understood the larger context of the discussion. So my bringing in media other than TV would seem to be OK.

It's impossible to discuss the effects of media in isolation from history, precedence and context. Okay, that isn't true; but I would argue it's impossible to _usefully_ discuss the effects of media, especially a mass communication medium, like television, without looking at it in a broader context.

If anything, it seems to me that you've taken a useful discussion and tried to limit its scope to a single point of supposed failure and tried to extend that failure to the entire topic. And rather than to responding to any of my points directly, you are arguing about form and context. I hope you'll excuse me if I tried to drag the discussion back toward relevance...

Television has had a massive effect on education in many parts of the world. Some first world, some third world. I could list hundreds (thousands) of shows that have been considered a success and have affected mass audiences. Do you really need me to make such a list? Start with Sesame Street, the Bell Labs science series, oh, I don't know, nearly every PBS station's daytime instructional schedule for the last 40 years. In many third world countries broadcast television is the major source of daily schooling. I'm talking teacher and black board somewhere else and children in a remote area gathered around the village TV set hooked up to a satellite dish. (These days I suspect this scene is played out out with internet satellite based technology.) Someone is watching all that TV. And notice that I'm not even considering whether or not the explosion of Discovery/Learning/A&E/DIY/Indie type channels are of educational value (I vote yes.)

If you want to do some additional reading on the subject, I can recommend Arthur Clarke's excellent collection of essays on the subject of modern communications technology _How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village_.

No if you want to argue that the bulk of TV is junk, I wouldn't disagree with you, hence my reference to Sturgeons Law. If you wanted to argue that the infrastructure for TV, and most mass communication in general (opps!!! there I go again!!!) is funded and driven by things other than purely educational goals, many of them not so noble... Whelp, yep, you're right. But so what? That doesn't make the education benefits not there, and that doesn't mean that the technology is worthless (I would argue, as I did, that what you think is education and what other people might find of value in broadening and enlightening their world might be different.)

As someone who grew up when TV was (relatively) rare, and has lived to see such an explosion in instant, nearly frictionless mass communication, I find it incredible that someone could think that TV has had little positive effect on education. Color me puzzled...