Television and Americana

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that, like everything else that has impacted the American way of life, the TV has created tribulations with some viewers, who believe in accusations such as how the TV is inappropriate for children or how it can ruin an audience's mind. There are always going to be two sides to a controversy or argument, and that is primarily the case for the television. The paper shows that although the opposition's belief toward the television might seem logical, more than not has the television satisfied many Americans, while shaping the American lifestyle in a positive way. The paper argues that since television's introduction in the 1940s and 1950s, it has proven to be a revolutionary instrument that has influenced political, social and economic changes in America, while contributing to keeping the American dream alive.

From the Paper:

"The "boob tube," in its early continuation of the 40s and 50s, also signified change in American society and cultural principles. Ed Weiner, a TV statistician for over fifty years, has studied sitcoms closely and can prove this transition. According to Weiner's studies, when Lucile Ball of the famous sitcom I Love Lucy became pregnant in 1952, the writers wanted to incorporate the pregnancy into the show's story line. Pregnant women had never been included in a film or radio plot before and was a subject that many writers tried to avoid. However, the show allowed it, and doing so opened the moral barriers found in the entertainment industry and society itself. CBS in the process lined up priests, ministers and rabbis in order to review all the pregnancy scripts to protect themselves (76)".

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• Research Paper # 65381 : "How Television and Society Shape Each Other"

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