
Why TV, not Facebook or Twitter, is still revolutionizing the world - robg
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/19/revolution_in_a_box?page=full
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unalone
Why can't they all be revolutionizing the world? This meme where only one
thing can be revolutionary at a time really bugs me. Revolutions happen _all
the time_ and they are _all awesome_.

I also dislike that an article like this needs to open with the typical anti-
TV comments. Ray Bradbury always struck me as a whiny brat of an old man who
refused to embrace technology as being really neat. Whenever somebody quotes
him just because he's Ray Bradbury I sigh a little.

~~~
timr
You're missing the point: television is everywhere. Even if you're generous
and you assume continued exponential growth of the internet, it won't have the
same global reach for a long time to come.

When most of the world is still at the stage where clean water is
revolutionary technology, it's kind of silly to suggest that Twitter is
_"changing the world"_ of much more than people who live comfortable lives in
first-world countries.

~~~
unalone
Again I'll ask: Since when is a revolution measured by quantity? I mean,
Twitter is arguably more _cutting-edge_ than television. So in one sense it's
more revolutionary. But television is spreading faster, so that's a revolution
that's hitting more people. It doesn't need to be a competition between the
two. I for one don't expect to pay television much mind in the coming years,
no matter how quickly it's spreading everywhere else.

~~~
chrischen
Ok I don't see how Twitter is more cutting edge than television, but even if
you don't watch TV, it will undeniably affect you more than Twitter once it's
hype dies down, if Twitter even affects you more than TV right now.

~~~
unalone
_Ok I don't see how Twitter is more cutting edge than television_

Let's see. Television is a form of communication in which there are a hundred
channels and I am forced to pick one to consume. Twitter is a form of
communication in which there are two million channels and I can create my own.
That's cutting edge.

 _but even if you don't watch TV, it will undeniably affect you more than
Twitter once it's hype dies down, if Twitter even affects you more than TV
right now_

I don't understand this. Not like I don't understand your mindset: I don't
understand what you're saying. This is incredibly convoluted.

~~~
chrischen
Way more people watch tv than use Twitter, facebook, or even all of the
Internet. Heck more people use facebook than twitter. If anything, facebook is
more cutting edge than tv, but no, it's not.

------
gbookman
150 Million new users expected by 2013. Not bad for something invented in the
20's.

~~~
staunch
Does the user adoption chart look like a hockey stick? If not no VC is going
to touch this slow-and-steady technology.

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sethg
The article claims that (a) television prevents war and other bad things by
exposing people to role models (e.g. women with few children) and other
cultures (e.g. Kobe Bryant in China); (b) as access to TV, particularly
digital TV, increases, people will have more choices about what they watch.

I wonder if these two influences will end up working against one another; if
Network A, whose soap operas model a multi-cultural community where women
control their fertility and control their own businesses, is in competition
with Network B, whose soap operas model pious, nationalistic, and dutiful
women with eight children each, who will end up having the most influence on
the culture?

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conanite
_... soap characters are typically well-educated and have few children. And
they prove to be extraordinarily powerful role models: Simply giving a village
access to cable TV [...] has the same effect on fertility rates as increasing
by five years the length of time girls stay in school._

Oscar Wilde claimed "life follows art". I guess he wasn't thinking of the
transformative power it could have over millions of lives, and might have
debated whether soaps are "Art".

Who wants to watch soaps about pious mothers-of-8? Our choice of role-models
is about who we want to become, and perhaps one of the success factors for TV
is that it offers poor people a vision of The American Lifestyle ... something
to aspire to (at least from their perspective). On the other hand, I've never
figured out why anybody watches Coronation Street, a half-hour banging my head
on the wall would be better spent.

A soap character who's beautiful, charming, popular, wealthy, witty, racist,
xenophobic, homophibic, antisemitic could be a very dangerous thing indeed. If
TV becomes a tool for manipulating culture, it could get nasty in the wrong
hands.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Who wants to watch soaps about pious mothers-of-8?_

You obviously don't live in the US! While it's 'reality' rather than soap, two
popular cable shows here include (until very recently) 'Jon & Kate plus 8',
about a couple who had twins and then unexpectedly ended up with an additional
set of sextuplets after a fertility treatment - they have just divorced, but
the Kate character is indeed pious; and '18 and counting' about an extremely
pious Christian family who rejoice in 18 their 18 children, with #19 on the
way. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not.

I'd worry less about soaps-as-propaganda than you, if only because any kind of
drama requires at least some ambiguity of characters and a balance of
oppositional characters in order to gain emotional participation on the part
of viewers. Of course, episodic dramas like police and hospital shows make it
easier to exploit stereotypes if programming directors see fit to do that.
Another context that has been the subject of some controversy is in Palestine,
where TV channels operated by Hamas, a militant group, have been host to
children's shows featuring violently anti-Israel content. Israelis have
naturally been deeply offended, while some Palestinians argue they were forced
to address the issue by the fact of real-world political conflict.

~~~
Steve_Baker
People like to watch train wrecks too, but that doesn't mean they want to be
in one.

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hristov
What a bunch of BS. They did not show any evidence of the supposed benefits of
TV. Obviously as poor people get slightly less poor they will get a TV and
will also do less of the other things associated with very poor people, like
have too much children, etc. But there is no reason to think one thing causes
the other.

TV is merely a mass broadcasting machine. It can be good if the people doing
the broadcasting use it for positive purposes (e.g., education, etc.) Or it
can be evil. You can just as easily use TV to start racial hatred or a war as
you can to educate people about different cultures. Or it can be just a mind-
numbing waste of time, which is the usual case.

But either way it is almost always used by a small group of elites (either
government or business elites) to cram information into a large group of
people, without the recipients being able to say anything or contribute
anything. So regardless how it is used it usually ends up creating rather
boring and homogeneous culture.

As such the Internet is endlessly preferable to TV. It is nice that all those
poor people are getting TV but they will be so much better off when they
finally get the Internet.

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dangoldin
You can argue that people who use Facebook and Twitter are more likely to
revolutionize the world than the people who are watching TV.

In that case although the number of people watching TV is greater their
"weighted productivity" is less.

~~~
evgen
That's a pretty smug attitude to sport without data to back up your claims.

What can be said, with strong data, is that _right now_ the people who produce
and create TV shows around the world have more influence and capability to
revolutionize global culture than all of silicon valley put together
(including our precious Google...) The best chance Facebook and Twitter have
to play a role in this game is as a tool to inform and influence key members
of this infotainment community.

~~~
chrischen
You're comparing TV, the technology, to companies. I think the internet is
much more revolutionary than TV. I mean a country like China goes as far as
censoring the internet (and it takes much more effort to do this than to
control the TV stations) because it knows it is not only revolutionary, but
capable of inciting revolutions.

Perhaps TV, when it was first invented, was comparably revolutionary, but in
terms of today, the internet is the _big, new_ thing.

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uninverted
Classic game theory: it's (supposedly) a net benefit for everyone to watch TV,
but for any given person it's a net loss.

~~~
cglee
Why is it a net loss? I agree that a lot of programs on prime time are trashy
and sensationalistic, but there are a lot of great programs on television as
well.

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c00p3r
Think how much money invested in content alone - billions and billions. When a
fraction of that amount would be poured into a mobile content - it will be
completely different picture. Financial and market news channels for mobile
devices is a simplest idea. Time-wasting (passing) reality shows and sports
translations are another winners.

