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?
... 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.
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.
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?