Critical Consideration on TV Culture

涂艳

重庆三峡学院  重庆市万州区404000

Abstract: Since TV culture has been the mainstream, TV, as an important cultural media, have spread its influence widely and rapidly so as to alter people’s ideology and life style. The emergency of TV has brought about convenience and happiness and created popularity, but due to its vulgarity, it has inevitably become one of piece of the mainstream culture and a means of social control.

Key words: TV; Popular culture

Introduction

The invention of TV is one of most influential events in people life. Hollywood was even driven to face the challenge of TV in the early 1950s.In contemporary society, people prefer to stay at home watching TV plays, TV program and news report for free rather than go to cinema. However, since TV has appeared, people never stopped pouring assault on it. Thus when TV has been elevated to the inevitable part of family cultural life, it means to re-estimate the value of TV as a cultural form.

A student announces immolation, “I am unwilling to admit the fact, but I will lead a better life, the score of my test will be increased and I will have more time to accompany my family and friends without watching you.”[4]

1. Following the Tendency

In order to gain commercial benefit, when TV media disseminates an event, topic or thought with tremendous effect, the subject will be expanded immediately and penetrated in each level of society. Meanwhile everyone observes the other ones all pay attention to the same object. What is more, to keep pace with the majority, he pays attention to the hot point to avoid looking too ignorant in public. In fact, these hot points have no real relationship with society, personality, and even real personal interest. During the period of World Cup, many young people pretend to involve watching the match in high spirits who lack inner interest in soccer and even sit up watching living match in mid- night, for fear of falling behind times. The whole world seems to become so small, everything seems happen around you. Can’t you concern it? For the modern society is interrelated, how can you stand up in the world without knowing any information about the world?

When the development of industry of TV was still on the preliminary stage, some sensitive ideologists have predicted that this new transmissive way would have extraordinary influence on human life. Someone kept optimistic pleasure toward this influence, while the others felt depressed with pessimism. Today many cultural elites of TV station all awfully yearn for great times of initial development of TV. Although current technique of TV has made great progress, TV has in fact entered dark times due to orientation of audience rating.

2. Modern Totem

The scholars on popular culture considered it as modern totem. Gao Xiaokang declared that the most striking characteristic of modern popular culture is popularity. That is to say there are mutual identification and imitation on large scale all over the society from a novel, a song to brand and so on. It does not matter how much someone can understand rationally the intricate meaning of popular objects, it is natural to admit the phenomena is based on sensational psychology. Pursuit, identification and imitation on scale have driven popular object into symbolic sign. TV advertisement is the complex of aesthetic and irrational image that force audience to produce spurious need on commodity by simple sense of sensual reflection and impulse of purchase stimulated by image without considering carefully.[1] In a word, it seeks psychological adherence by symbolic means, which shows popular totem of modern character.

3. Rational Reverence

The basic character of religion is wild irrational reverence and dependence on the object. Cultural anthropologists figured religion originates from social need. The reason that parts sacred objects from secular object is society not people. “Sacred object” refers to a symbol, which indicates the social fact that whole member of society deemed it as sacred one. The obvious peculiarity of modern culture of TV is the blind adoration and trust on TV. Some scholar reckoned that the similarity between TV and religion lies in irresistible attraction to the public who actively receive the message. For the purpose of cheap and relaxed amusement, satisfying desire of peeking other’s privacy, gaining superiority status in the people’s comment, avoiding annoyance and upset, finding sense of security that is identified with society, millions of public has voluntarily become the greatest amount of disciple in the human’s history crowding around the TV. The conference of forecast of popular color held twice every year even has direct influence on production and sale of world fashion and textile so that manufacturer of international textile claimed that it is high time that earn money by popular color.[2] To some extent, social hot point results from making use of common people’s psychology.

As popular culture, the essence of TV is supposed to lead to getting close to mainstream ideology. In other word, TV has to be adapted for the majority of audiences’ satisfaction, which, in most cases, is exactly the social mainstream ideology. Therefore, the deeply connotation of culture of TV derives from social value. In addition, TV organization of high investigation is determined to be the respondent of main culture, and TV tends to stand for public’s taste, represent the pursuit of public due to public’s identification, in return it compels people to imitate. Under the guide of TV, the whole social member wear clothes, have dinner, entertain, communicate and keep attention on the same hot point and value standard in the uniform mode, which bring on unprecedented uniform situation that is conflict with the individual and multi- culture consisting in modern ideology. However, just as smoke will increase the rate of cancer, watching TV will naturally increase the rate of children’s eccentric behavior. [3]

4. Criticism on Control

In the developed industrial society, popular culture is possessed of significantly social function and consists of the construction and basic content of consumptive society as social controlling means. In a word, popular culture is the mixture of social ideology and material, as a part of capitalistic society, which was acknowledged by famous ideologists. Maucuse considered popular culture as main obstacle the liberty of western country. In his opinion, traditional culture of bourgeoisie was still bidirectional before appearance of industrial society. Although it is the outcome of upgrade as well as the affirmative culture, it still remains to criticize and surpass reality. As a core of abstract lofty merit and abstinence, popular culture provides psychological basic for consolidating ranking society and its vested interest in order facilitate people to substitute happiness and satisfaction with responsibility and discipline as people’s purpose. It establishes a set of substitution for individual desire, ranging religion, literary art, PE and entertainment. On one hand, popular culture induce people to satisfy present life, on the other hand, it still remains to criticize commercial world. Generally speaking, it is not so degraded that merges into current institution, because it still keeps criticism and imagination. A student announces immolation, “I am unwilling to admit the fact, but I will lead a better life, the score of my test will be increased and I will have more time to accompany my family and friends without watching you.”[4] However, the dawn of the industrial technology witnesses the prevalence of overall technical rationality and consumptive control, consequently traditional bourgeois culture clines discarding abstinence of traditional bourgeois classic spirit. Keynesianism offers precondition for capital accumulation, the uniform action mode leads to destroy of idealism, with the rise of pragmatics education, strict scientific means immersed into field of social science and spiritual science and the image of father in bourgeois family collapses. These characters represents in surface of popular culture, popular culture in modern industrial society conceals the truth, for the purpose of shunning the truth of materialization. Maucuse condemned popular culture as manipulating ideology that degenerates to identify with present institution.

4. Conclusion

   ove all, it can be understood that the main reason that TV brought extreme side-effect on people’s daily life is not that TV, but is that people make use of it by mistake. In our country, TV is still defined as positive culture, and it is inconspicuous that TV controls and manipulates individuality. However, as a mass media, TV has been still somehow harmful to daily life.

Reference    

[1] Janda，Kenneth Jeffrey M．Berry，and Jerry Godman．；the Challenge qfDemocracy,5th edition．(New York：Houghton Mifflin Company，1997．)

[2] Kessler，Sanford，Toequeville's Civil Religion：American Christianity and the Prospects for Freedom．(Albany：State University ofNew York Press，1994)．

[3] Kintz，Linda，and Julia Lesage，eds，Media．Culture, and the Religious Right．(Minneapolis：University of Minnesota Press，1998)．

[4] Lienesch，Michael．Redeeming America：Piety and Polities in the New Christian Right．(London：the University of North Carolina Press．1 993)．