This picture is too powerful. In a nutshell it symbolizes globalization. One can also assume that the residents of this village are more concerned with entertainment than caring for the appearance of their houses. Another can argue that unemployment there is so high that satellite TVs become a must since people spend the bulk of their time at home. Makes me wonder how informed the people of this village are compared to those who live in urban areas; or for that matter, to any other connected home.
This picture also asserts the strength and influence that the media plays in our lives, both good and bad. With the myriad of program offerings one can almost always find something of interest – sports updates, election results, health tips, celebrity gossip, movie reviews, and the list goes on. So in essence, television can represent and report on the progress of societies in all aspects and disciplines of life.
But there seems to be a persistent negativity that surrounds this two letter word – TV. Many associate it with news, which more than often is not too delightful - epidemic outbreaks, crime, natural disasters, corruption, poverty, and on and on. And for some reason we keep watching. So is it that our taste for news has changed overtime? Could there not be enough accomplishments for us to highlight? Do negative reports always outnumber positive ones? Or has the definition of news simply evolved to become the record of human failure?
4 comments:
I'm honoured to be the first person to reply:)
As they say, a picture can speak a thousand words.
Thank you for the interesting & thought-provoking read.
To answer your questions,I humbly believe it's a case of negative reports outnumbering the postive ones, which, as you stated, shows our failures:) but that leads to other questions, do people tend to refer to the past as " the good old days" simply because the media wasn't that advanced & sophisticated as it is now & thus, they couldn't get easy access to global news?
& how about the media/news content?
Isn't it being played up or down,edited or concealed in accordance to its controllers'/providers' perceptions & tweaked to suit their needs?! *sigh*
Personally, I watch TV for 3 reasons: Movies, sitcoms and documentaries:)
when i was growing up in trinidad my colleagues and i decided to blank (avoid like a plague) the mind control perpetrated by the media including the TV...we nicknamed it the "idiot's box"
my gran ma now an ancestor would like that as she protested when grandad brought home a tv in 1963....
great to be linked
check out
www.ankhkara.blogspot.com
Hipster, thank you for blessing this blog with your kind words.
You raised some important and challenging points that have no easy answers but rather deserve a post of its own. I'll come back at you with a part II.
Roi, that's interesting because the notion of a "mind control tv" seems to be downplayed in developing countries where more than often people rely on a sole source (the state) to provide them with news. To this day, many trust in that information and take it as completely truthful. I wonder what the content was like in trinidad in 1963?
Looking forward to it:)
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