Television And American Society Essay Example for Free

Television And American Society Essay Introduction Television Programs are aimed at entertainment. In the United States, most of the television programs in existence with the stated aims and objectives, owe their initial background to the practical situation and past experiences encountered by the blacks. When blacks are mentioned, the issue of racial discrimination automatically opens chapter.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The initial situation and experiences of the blacks is characterized by racial discrimination.   The initial social positions, the blacks were housemaids, whites’ cooks, whites’ â€Å"mammies† and other sorts of servants.    They were also seen as con artists and even deadbeats.  Ã‚  Ã‚   The technology of the televisions came up in some environment, which was completely unfamiliar to these blacks. The blacks occupied less inferior positions of baby sitters and nurturers for the white, to cater and manage the households of the whites and to the greater degree, restoration of balance and harmony in the house holds of the whites.   The whites were very comfortable to entrust the black on these roles.   However, more responsible social and civic responsibilities were denied the blacks by the whites. (Durham Kellner, 450) The blacks had an appreciated talent to amuse the whites through humor and this is the most significant tool to their success in the maintenance of humor in television programs. The black and the Whites occupied separate and unequal worlds in their existence, in terms of material and discursive attributes. Television programs and Blackness The programs aimed at entertainment in the United States are a good avenue to pass the information on intertextual and autobiographical issues of the blacks. (Durham Kellner, 452)   The blacks possesses an inherent talent of creating humor in a show whose amusement is so strong as to blind the culturally offensive message put across by the show.   The show exhibing blackness covers the institutional and cultural programs all of which are characterized by race and gender. The centre of interest in these television programs is the African American in all areas of its setting; aesthetic, context and narrative.   (Newcomb, 564)   The highlights of the entertainment programs usually attack fields such as class, gender, religion, colour and culture all visionalized, in the dominant angel of social location and cultural context to the African American (Williams, 110) The television program raises an attitude of hegemony whereby social and cultural forces emerge as influencing factors of political rule and domination.   Through these television entertainment programs, the actors make use of their physical and material resources, very inherent and talented towards an entertainment to others.   The recipient society interprets the presentation as an art, an entertainment or leisure. These people see the natural world as being internal to them and also in direct personal relationships with other people they encounter.   (Williams, 112) According to hegemony dominant messages inherent in African Americans are disguised as fictional entertainment in the United States.   These are a great assumption taken with respect to this scenario that the sender and the receiver interpret the message of the program in the same understanding.   The sender is making use of the inherent talent of humor and experience to come up with a message whose consequences are of political concern, since the control of these messages is a form of political control.   The audience of the program may come up with multiple meanings of the message that were not a priory.   Examined, controlled for or asked for (Newcomb, 565)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The television programs are a form of ritual communication whose aim and goal is to maintain the society and to represent the shared beliefs of the society.   The programs create an invisibility of the African American and an authorized representation by the white of the blackness. The television programs portray blackness and black themes for the purposes of entertainment to the whites due to the humorous attribute associated with the Africans.   The white producers take this advantage of audience appreciation and they stage the African humor at the expense of blacks.   The black Americans are left suffering out of the social problems confronting them.   The humor in the programs is out of the programs highlights of racism and sexism, which have got great social impact and cultural meaning to the audience. (Williams, 110) The programs present blacks playing subservient roles in the society and stereotyping the blacks while still the humor out these is enjoyed.   In first instances amusement created by the program blinds the offensive side.   Cultural and racial politics in the programs is the cause of humor to the whites.   The programs cores are further unfair to the African Americans by considering just as minor and a coincidental theme of the play, the social and the cultural facts of â€Å"blackness† It is the responsibility of every means of communication to uplift the ethical and moral standards of the society.   This target is practically defeated by the television programs aimed at entertaining the audience as part of leisure.   The televisions present programs, which highlight the use of drugs. Involvement in sex, acts of rebellion and extreme deviance behavior of the individuals. These issues are humorous and attract the audience but the far reaching consequences are towards the lowering of the ethical and moral standards of the society.   The programs also exhibit a sense of upward social mobility of the blacks and the replacement of black urban poverty with middle class affluence and yet retain the humor of the audience.   (Newcomb, 568)   Conflicts as age and suspicion based on race and colour are associated to the central elements of the contemporary America way of life by the programs.   This portrays the life of Americans to be a type of middle class family life (Newcomb, 569) The Americans are making all efforts to fight all form of racial and class discrimination.   The Americans are also determined to fight gender discrimination in terms of sex and age.   The social ills of drug abuse sexual abuse, deviance and rebellion are also practically out of the Americans policies.   However the television programs structure and viewpoint are contributing factors to defeat these aims and objectives. They portray to the world what is the position of African Americans, which is not a part of the modern American society.   The views and perspectives of these programs highlight the social locations and experiences subjected to the African Americans.   The program highlight situation comedy, variety, talks among others, which in totality operate vividly, and comfortably within the conventional and aesthetic boundaries of African Americans. (Newcomb, 570)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Morality issues circumvent around racism and this is a representation of the blacks in the society as per the television programs in the United States.   The television programs also features badly on the state of education and unemployment as negatively affecting the African Americans in the urban areas of the United States.   The programs also fail to address some very crucial issues that affect so many blacks in the United States. The audiences are not restricted to the programs representation of the African Americans and therefore they should be examined and their effects of derailing the meanings and pleasures correctly checked. The blacks’ presence in the United States is threatened with race, gender, class and power and inequalities related to these are a result of prejudice. (Newcomb, 571) Racial invisibility and colour blindness integrate Black characters into hegemonic white worlds.   This appeal to visions of colour blindness and universal harmony.   The uniqueness of the blacks in the shows is the appealing factor to create humor and a sense of fitness in a normative television universe.   The inherent victimization, anger and irrationality in the blacks at the shows, due to the pains of exclusion from society are a cause of humor to the audience.   This in the truest sense is racial prejudice.   (Durham Kellner, 447)   In the programs the whites acts the position of sympathizers for the elimination of this prejudice. The programs subvert American values bearing in mind that the effect of any communication is to persuade the audience to change attitudes, to modify behaviour and to take part in socialization. Any form of communication helps to maintain the values of a society and to represent the shared beliefs. These programs are responsible for production of dominant ideologies so influential as to take the audience into a dreamland. (Williams, 110) Conclusion The programs bring out the blacks as living simple and linearly dimensional lives in a segregated universe.   They are seen to be subjected to the challenges of domestic lives such as child rearing, embarrassments, and awkward situations among others.   Modern America is reduced to ancient behaviours of race relationships characterized by conflict, tension and apartheid and the African Americans dependent on cultural pluralism.   These programs make use of cultural politics within blackness to constantly modify the African Americans life, and comprehensively explain the position of an American from the point of view of an African American. Works cited page Horace Newcomb. Television the critical view. Oxford University press, New York Oxford. 2000. Meenakshi Gigi Durham,   Douglas M. Kellner. Media and Cultural Studies. Blackwell publishers.2001 Raymond Williams. Marxism and Literature. Oxford University press New York. 1997