Welcome to our TV Media blog!
As Americans, we invest most of our leisure time watching TV because it provides adequate pleasure to keep us glued to screen. This blog reflects back to the 60’s to analyze the growth of television through the establishment of viewership and its effect on the public, in order to shed some light on how we have become such a TV orientated generation. In the articles First Televised Presidential Debate and TV in the 1960s vs today, the authors present different causes of bridging the gap between the audience and the TV set, through the use of technological advancements.
One significant catalysts for TV growth was the 1960s presidential election. The First Televised Presidential Debate article heralds this single event as game changer for TV watching because the candidates’ overall image did not only depend on oral appeal, but visual appeal as well. The event drew 70 million American viewers! As a result, this revolutionized how the elections and the presidential candidates interacted with the audience. This article praises the live broadcasting technology of the 60’s for increasing the demand of television sets, which led to an expansion of the number of channels.
On the other hand, in the TV in the 1960s vs. today article, the author dismisses the progress of TV in the 60s using words like “underestimated the audience” because it did not fully reflect the ongoing social changes. The content of the programs of the 60s is almost incomparable to today; shows like ‘Parenthood, Walking Dead offer a broad range of entertainment (i.e horror, comedy etc). Also with the restrictive channels due to the technological challenges of the 60s, TV lacked variety hence failing to increase TV ratings.
By selecting texts of two perspectives, the blog attempts to start a conversation of the trajectory of television. The blog begins with a Kairos post to provide the significance of this conversation which serves to validate the discussion of TV as an urgent topic, worth discussing. The next posts of Ethos and Pathos were the core elements of our main argument because it focuses on the credibility and emotional features of TV that strengthened the relationship between the audience and screen. For instance the credibility of the Presidential candidates attracted millions to the TV set and the portrayed emotions of the social movements made people more invested in television. The post on Logos serves to provide a logical understanding behind people’s interaction of TV in the 60’s, and how it made sense for Americans to invest in the new technology, which allowed people to visually experience current events. The last few articles go into detail on how the audience, visuals, and style of the texts helped to aid the message the author’s were trying to convey regarding the change in TV.
The growth in TV that has been seen from the 1960s to today can largely be traced to the success the channels had in presenting visual material that the public didn’t see on a regular basis. Events like the presidential debates, apollo missions, and the Vietnam war were made available to the masses, sparking new-found American interest in current events.
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