What did you think of Agnew's speech?
He's speaking some time around 1970, so when he talks about modern media, he means television networks. At the time, there were several national networks and some relatively local networks, too. TV dials (round knobs; you turned them and they went click-click-click between channels) went all the way up to 13, though of course not all the channels were occupied in any one city.
Agnew was Vice President during the Nixon Administration, at the height of the Vietnam War, during part of the big roil of social and political unrest that people mean when we talk about "the sixties" or "the seventies."
Some people still talked about television as the educational wave of the future. We were all going to be able to see and almost touch the world, right as things happened. We would be more informed than ever before. For the last ten years or so, we have heard the same thing about the Internet. What happened to TV? What might happen to the Net? What should happen?
6 comments:
I do not know about when the Internet became more about the pornography than the wealth of information that is available; but I can't think that it was too long after its creation. Surprisingly, it is pornography that has pioneered the most innovative of the technologies you now see in widespread use. Mainly (obviously) streaming video technology and pay for play type of transactions online. It is not the problem of the medium itself, as the medium is static and is dependent on what the operators use said medium for. The Internet has more information and categories of information that is possible to properly categorize. I would list a few of my favorite sites, but they are mine! I don't share!
The same goes for the optimistic views of TV as a medium for education and enlightenment. Thing is, that people, as a whole, no offense, prefer to be entertained in short bursts than to be taught something that may benefit them. It is a reality, not a sad one, not something that brings down the medium, but the relative nature of the majority of viewers. As much as I love Discovery Channel HD, or learning new recipes, or watching Top Gear (Best show on TV) to learn about new cars, there are a million different Reality shows.
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, other wise known as "Who can we trick to marry a giant mardi gras head on a fake body" is quite popular. Why? I have no idea. She is the ugliest "pretty" woman I have ever seen. Her head, you could land planes on it.
But this is what people watch. Cops, Cheaters, umm, 24 iterations of Law and Order...it is entertainment.
Is the Net more about porn than (other) info? You mean by popularity, no?
There was probably some passing of porn on BBS systems even back in the early ArpaNet days, but the explosion probably happened in the middle-90's, with the advent of the GUI interface when the Mosaic browser became popular in 1994.
At that time, modems were S L O W, however, so folks who wanted graphics had to W A I (yawn) T
Porn distributers did pioneer a lot of commercial Net practices from late '95 on. WThese businesses were among the first to be willing to risk billing and collecting personal customer information online, probably because a lot of participants intended to make a lot of money fast and get out, whereas large financial concerns like banks feared the responsibility of having customer databases within reach of hackers.
Does the use of the Net for non-intellectual fare reduce public access to more useful info? How does this compare to, say, cheesecake programming on TV, perhaps as in the case of Ms Tequila, who appears to be marketing on both media?
Not at all; no matter how badly reports state that porn is everywhere and that you must wade through that to get to the enlightening stuff, you are not immediately bombarded with porn the minute you open a browser. Albeit, porn is full of pun's, double entendre's, plays with words, etc. So if you want to get the recipe for a Sex on the Beach, don't be surprised or offended when the first few links that google spits out are NOT drink recipes.
It does take some time and at least the tiniest bit of effort to find porn on the internet. As was stated above, to the contrary of the scare us to hell and back news reports. The best example is the Nintendo Wii, in that it does now contain an Internet Browser (Opera, great browser) that children everywhere will reel in horror to the likes of pornography, shattering their innocence. Kids, as I once was, will go out and actively seek out porn. It is a fact of life no matter how much you think little Billy and Montana are good kids. It is common human nature to find such things titillating, which piques curiosities. You cannot blame sites because they do not force you to go to them, you actively have to find them on your own.
It is common sense with a dash of self responsibility and control. To say that the mere presence of such information on the web detracts from the good stuff is facetious at best, stupid at worst.
*Note to teacher, not calling you stupid*.
In defense of my children, I do not believe they "actively seek porn", and until they are actually caught doing so,the accusation is unjust. In the U.S., or for most part anywhere, makeing harmful accusations of this nature will arouse some indignation from parents.
Television is still currently the main source of information. Telesvison has built its status from the premier of the 1928 Octagon, the T.V. (famous Acronym) has truly established itself and withstood time. Currently we now have hundreds of channels and can recieve the clearest picture quality on the new LCD (Liquid-Crystal Display) flat-panal T.v.'s. The main objective of the creators of high-resolution Televisons was to be able to place the screen next to a window and one should not be able to tell the difference.
Now the T.V. is still around. It is still stronger than ever. With hundreds of channels that offer entertainment, news, and information it is still the prefered source for all this. The T.V. can appeal to botht he audual, and visual senses. And adding both could accumilate into ones emotional side as well. It can creat laughter through enteraining sit coms, fear through horror shows and movies, anger through issues presented by the news. The T.v. is one powerful tool used by many from the rich to the poor.Young and old.
The internet, may replace the traditional T.v. viewing. As Bill Gates made a bold statment awhole ago during a press conference, he mentioned that the internet may replace the television way of life. Which in some ways makes sense. A recent poll conducted by American Online states that not too many people watch the T.V. anymore. The internet can offer many shows. The internet offeres control on viewers choice. He or she can watch anything he or she wants at any given time.
A lot of the stuff on T.V. does not appeal to me. I go on youtube and I can easily watch shows that I enojoyed that were cancled or over with. Even the cartoons I used to watch as a Kid I can for the most part find them online. And even now the flat planal LCD screens can be used for Television purposes and for computer use. I think the net may eventually take over the television networks. It is seen with newscasts online and even youtube.
I think what should happen is that there should still be a line between T.V. and the internet viewing. But as always time moves forward as with the betamax not it is a interactive Digital Video Disc (DVD)
The use of non-intellectual material on the internet should not interfere with other information. If one seeks to look for a specific information or data, personal filters will be used. For example if one wanted to conduct resarch on housing market trends on a local level, he would not type in porn related material to search for his information.
Online bill collecting has been a source of I.D. theft. Someone close and personal to me was a victim of it. Not much police can do and it took awhilie before the perpatrator was caught and recived little punishment. I think this should be a concern if the net is someday to be used as the main source for payments.
Tila Tequilla is using both myspace and the television to obtain her populatiry.I agree with Pocky and I think she is repulsive. But why? this is what people want to see on T.V. Most of what they promite is done by taking survay's studies and polls and tons of research. However not ALL T.V. viewers are unintellectual. If that were true, the Discovery channel, and other educational programming will not exist. It's just that people have different moods and tastes at different times. Think if one program and one channel was one 24/7. It would not be appealing to you. One of the beauties of TV and the net is that one can pleausre all senses. But the internet makes it more user friendly than scheduled programming.
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