Your Ideology Will Be Televised
So much fear and disillusionment came out of the years following the invention and use of the atom bomb. War historically had been a major catalyst for human events, but never like this. The atom bomb changed humanity’s outlook on war, conflict, and the meaning of life. It can be argued as the technological bridge between what some deem to be “modernism” and others deem to be “postmodernism.”
The bombs act as a connector between a world that widely shared faith within science’s ability to propel humanity to its collective dreams and a world that steadily drew skepticism and negative curiosity from the potential of technology and scientific development to cause harm and disillusionment. Like anything today, the term is conflated. There are people who connect post-modernism to macroeconomic changes made in the 1970s and others who do keenly point to the rise of the knowledge economy.
All of these examples are valid and represent a breakdown in dogma, or metanarratives seeking to explain reality, and how the tools aiding that break are distributed or manipulated throughout this process. Thus, the postmodern world is contemporaneously referred to as the post-truth world.
The invention of television had an exponential role in the development of our post-truth age and is just as impactful as nuclear weapons and cyber connectivity.
In 1950, only 9 percent of American households owned television sets, by 1959 that number had sky-rocketed to 89 percent. Coupled with a baby boom was also a television boom. A new device swept the globe after decades of governments and private interest perfected modern propaganda. Its impact on the future was still unknown.
But as the years rolled on, the invention (like most technology) grew complex in its relationship with the public. Debates over what was appropriate to air on television reached a boiling point in the 1970s involving network executives’ and government officials’ concerns over gritty television news reports about domestic and foreign events, as well as, Norman Lear shows discussing difficult topics of the day. 1960s television is popularly described as escapist because the idea of distributors was to sanitize the images shown from newscasts of the day.
By the dawn of the new century, people could reflect on the end of television’s ability to generate large audiences to one program or timeslot. The advent of cable television fueled reruns and the rise of recording shows on VHS tapes. There was eventually TiVo. Historical forces demanded viewing no longer be constrained to mainly a communal practice as the technology cheapened and became more widespread. Televisions were soon in many different spaces, public and private. A generation that stared curiously at the glow of a seemingly hollow box would see its presence multiply in their own adult homes with a lasting cultural impact. Today there is ample evidence that television has risen to awesome creative heights in its ultimate maturation. But that shouldn’t underscore how that process has fragmented reality, debilitated the free press, and sustained a business model built on keeping segments of the population financially beholden despite chord cutting and changes in audience demands.
The rise of cable television allowed for the expansion of content that television could market. This is how we get everything from amazing cooking shows to shameless political outrage theater. Though, the way television has interacted with the computer age has been fascinating.
What happens to societies when this deadly invention of the atomic age matures into full form and establishes feedback loops with other technologies that effectively facilitate thick shells of propaganda and disinformation which parasitically feed off democracies and civil society?
In America, the media conglomerates are both at war with each other for market supremacy on a new streaming frontier while simultaneously trying to outfit products to appeal to a specific ideology and audience. Much of the rules being played are not much out of the ordinary from high-stakes corporate battles. But unfortunately, the negative externalities caused by these corporate wars can be destabilizing for societies. Especially when information and truth are put in the crosshairs.
The written word and truth have always been susceptible to manipulation in larger human history. It’s not ahistorical or uncommon for vested and powerful interests to seek control over the flow of information.
Today new ways of squeezing audiences for media bucks are maturing. A manic cable news industry is driving the United States mad with so many hidden agendas that aren’t anywhere near attempting to deliver press reports in a far-reaching and holistic manner. The infusion of other products like forums, fan sites, and the significant role social media plays in trafficking culture also interacts with a sphere of visual stimuli that is more powerful and influential than ever before.
History and media studies (with a touch of psychology) can explain how media has become a steroid for people’s ideologies. The incentive structures around growing a news organization that creates graphics and colors to subliminally signal to viewers that this is their team is a major reason why print and broadcast media are fractured in America today. It bleeds over into other facets of life like which stores Americans shop at, which products Americans buy, and even which celebrities Americans patronize.
The drumbeat behind why a woman from North Carolina can become a fan of Fox News on Facebook and then receive QAnon propaganda soon after is also a story of our cable television culture intersects with the dangers of information technology and artificial worlds. An echo chamber has formed if one wants to imagine it as a bedroom with posters of specific propagandistic media-induced problems, like cancelling Dr. Seuss, and their messengers all over the place.
Sometimes the American Left can be bashful when digging into the reasons the American Right has built a large intellectual Crystal Palace around delegitimizing the mainstream media. Historians, like James Patterson in his book Restless Giant: America from Watergate to Bush V. Gore, discuss how media clout would often favor left-leaning leaders and organizations in the 1970s American media because those guests were more “articulate” about their ideas. Whether one agrees with that or not, it also is because they worked in professional spheres adjacent to parts of media, like the arts and academia for example. Patterson also points that out.
Though right-wing critiques on objective excesses of the media industry were polarizing and offensive early on, they could also be clever and built to dispel the sad state of affairs regarding media demagoguery and sleazy business practices. Over time, these attacks became lazy and increasingly took up space while a larger need to reevaluate our national media priorities, diet, trends, and our subliminal vulnerabilities in a non-tribal manner.
Today, selling ideology is thoroughly a televised affair and there is little room for a full-throated conversation around the way media and the proliferation of communications technologies have altered the psyche of America. It has left us vulnerable to shrewd attacks by those seeking to corrupt the legacy of modern democracy and enlightened debate to meet their own ends.
