Television as Cultural Form

Since its appearance as a major means of "mass communication" in the aftermath of World War II, television has increasingly become one of the most powerful metaphors of contemporary American culture. Occupying a central place at the crossroads of politics and business, entertainment and information, home and world, sound and image, work and leisure, television is certainly not simply an effective means of disseminating knowledge or images, but a cultural form, a regulating metaphor for social life. Many of its characteristics underpin the ideals of a culture of work and consumption: a technological achievement, a means of communication covering vast distances and bringing information and images to our homes, a service product in all its varieties and programmes, produced in a professional, disciplined and punctual manner and presented as a response to our "demand."

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