Section 2 - Unit 6: A Medium of No Important

Section 2 - Unit 6: A Medium of No Important

    1. Grow-ups, as any child will tell you, are monstrous hypocrites, especially when it comes to television. It is to take their minds off their own telly-addiction that adults are so keen to hear and talk about the latest report on the effects of the programmes on children. Surely all that nonsense they watch must be desensitizing them, making them vicious, shallow, acquisitive, less responsible and generally sloppy about life and death. But no, not a scrap of convincing evidence from the sociologists and experts in the psyches of children.

    2. The nation has lived with the box for more than 30 years now and has passed from total infatuation – revived temporarily by the advent of colour – to the present casual obsession which is not unlike that of the well-adjusted alcoholic. And now the important and pleasant truth is breaking, to the horror of programme makers and their detractors alike, that television really does not affect much at all. This is tough on those diligent professionals who produce excellent work; but since – as everyone agrees – awful programmes far outnumber the good, it is a relief to know the former cannot do much harm. Television cannot even make impressionable children less pleasant.

    3. Television turns out to be no great transformer of minds or society. We are not, en mass, as it was once predicted we would be, fantastically well-informed about other cultures or about the origins of life on earth. People do not remember much from television documentary beyond how good it was. Only those who knew something about the subject in the first place retain the information.

    4. Documentaries are not what most people want to watch anyway. Television is at its most popular when it celebrates its own present. Its ideal subjects are those that need not be remembered and can be instantly replaced, where what matters most is what is happening now and what is going to happen next. Sports, news, panel games, cop shows, long-running soap operas, situation comedies – these occupy us only for as long as they are on. However good or bad it is, a night’s viewing is wonderfully forgettable. It’s a little sleep, it’s entertainment; our morals, and for that matter, our brutality, remain intact.

    5. The box is further neutralized by the sheer quantity people watch. The more of it you see, the less any single bit of it matters. Of course, some programmes are indefinitely better than others. There are gifted people working in television. But seen from a remoter perspective – say, four hours a night viewing for three months – the quality of individual programmes means as much as the quality of each car in the rush-hour traffic.

    6. For the heavy viewers, TV has only two meaningful states – on and off. What are the kids doing? Watching TV. No need to ask what, the answer is sufficient. Soon, I’ll go up there and turn it off. Like a lightbulb it will go out and the children will do something else.

    7. It appears the nation’s children spend more time in front of their TVs than in the classroom. Their heads are full of TV – but that’s all just TV. The Kojac violence they witness is TV violence, sufficient to itself. It does not brutalise them to the point where they cannot grieve the loss of a pet, or be shocked at some minor playground violence.Children, like everyone else, know the difference between TV and life. TV knows its place. It imparts nothing but itself; it has its own rules, its own language, its own priorities. It is because this little glowing, chattering screen barely resembles life at all that it remains so usefully ineffectual. To stare at a brick wall would waste time in a similar way. The difference is that the brick wall would let you know you were wasting your time.

    8. Whatever the TV/ video industry might now say, television will never have the impact on civilization that the invention of the written word has had. The book – this little hinged thing – is cheap, portable, virtually unbreakable, endlessly reusable, has instant replay facilities and in slow motion if you want it, needs no power lines, batteries or aerials, works in planes and train tunnels, can be stored indefinitely without much deterioration, is less amenable to censorship and centralized control, can be written and manufactured by relatively unprivileged individuals or groups, and -- most sophisticated of all – dozens of different ones can be going at the same time, in the same room without a sound.

(From an article by Ian McEwan in the Observer, London)

• CHECKING COMPREHENSION 

    Answer briefly the following questions:

1. (para 1) Does the writer think television is harmful to children? Why or Why not?

2. (para 2) Has the nation become more or less keen on television since it was first introduced? What development had an effect on the popularity of television?

3. (para 3) How successful is television as an educator, according to the writer?

4. (para 4) Why do most people watch television, according to the writer.

5. (para 5 -6) What effect does quantity of viewing have on people?

6. (para 7) Why are children not affected by television violence, according to the writer?

7. (para 8) In one word, what is the advantage of the book over television?

Answer Key: 


1. No, because there is no scientific evidence that this is the case.
2. Less been; the introduction of color TV
3. Not very successful. We remember little of what we watch.
4. For entertainment, relaxation and escapism.
5. It reduces the impact of each item they watch.
6. Because they recognize that it is different from real life.
7. convenience

• DEALING WITH UNFAMILIAR WORDS 

Find words and phrases from paragraphs 1-7 that mean the same as:

1.extremely shocking (para 1)
2. showing a desire to hurt (para 1)
3. careless or muddled (para 1)
4. absolutely none (para 1)
5. television (para 2)
6. arrival / introduction (para 2)
7. becoming known (para 2)
8. critics (para 2)
9. hardworking (para 2)
10. easily influenced (para 2)
11. cruel and violent behaviour (para 4)
12. unaffected/ unchanged/undamaged (para 4)
13. make callous or unfeeling (para 1)

Answer Key: 

1. monstrous	2. vicious	3. sloppy
4. not a scrap of	5. the box	6. advent
7. is breaking	8. detractors	9. diligent
10. impressionable	11. brutality	12. intact
13. desensitize

• UNDERSTANDING WRITER’S STYLE 

1. Why does the writer describe adults as ‘hypocrites’?

2. What does the writer mean when he compares television viewers today with ‘well-adjusted alcoholics’?

3. The writer says watching television is like ‘a little sleep’. What does he mean?

4. What is ‘a relief’ to the writer?

5. Explain what the writer mean by ‘The box is further neutralised…’

6. What is suggested about the heavy viewer’s attitude to the programmes he and his children watch?

7. What does the word ‘chattering’ suggest about television?

8. What point is the writer making about books in the final paragraph?

9. The writer’s attitude toward TV can be described as:

a. negative

b. positive

c. concerned

d. pessimistic

Answer Key: 
1. Because they pretend to be concerned about the effects of TV on children.
2. They have a dependence on TV (as on a drug) but are able to control their addiction.
3. Watching TV is a completely passive activity, it requires no effort.
4. To know that bad programmes are not harmful.
5. The box has less impact as the result of much watching.
6. He doesn’t care what he watches.
7. The TV is continually talking at the viewers regardless of whether there is anything important to say.
8. Books are more convenient to use.
9. a, d

• WRITING SUMMARIES 

    In a paragraph of 50 – 100 words explain why television is seen as ‘a medium of no importance’.

Answer Key: 


- It does not educate children
- It does not transform our minds and society.
- It does not impart knowledge.
- What it reflects is different from real life.
- It is used to kill time

• FURTHER WORK 

1. Discuss with your classmates which of the media (Newspapers, books, radio and TV) provides most of your:

a. international information
b. national information
c. local information
d. entertainment

If you had to rely on only one of the media, which would you choose? Why?

2. Working with a partner, list the effects of television under two headings: positive and negative.