Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!pyramid!hplabs!hp-pcd!uoregon!kaw
From: kaw@uoregon.UUCP (Keith Alan Weinberger)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Living in the 20th C
Message-ID: <1617@uoregon.UUCP>
Date: 29 Feb 88 00:06:20 GMT
References: <1880@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: kaw@drizzle.UUCP (Keith Alan Weinberger)
Organization: University of Oregon, Computer Science, Eugene OR
Lines: 24

Regarding the non-linearity of television:
	I still watch television news, but only from time to time.  Basically,
I get bored because there is not enough depth and the reporting is slanted to 
appeal to conventional American opinions: small farmers good, corporate farmers
bad - Cuba bad, Contras good.  It's not that I disagree with any or all the 
slants, but the one-dimensionality of it all, which is probably the result of
time constraints, leaves me wanting more.  I find I can get the same news by 
word of mouth. 
	Television still presents ideas in a linear fashion; this is the e
essence of language.  The problem is that television gives the illusion of
the news occuring as you watch it.  The immediacy of the visual input saves
the viewer the trouble of organizing his thoughts on the subject, and of 
bringing to bear past experience.  Hence the short memory of the American
public.  The failure to stick to reading for any length of time is a lack
of concentration.  People think that television gives them understanding of the
world.  It doesn't. It only gives them an image of it.  An image without depth.
There is no easy way to gain depth of understanding, one must think and 
descriminate.
	If reading is too hard, I would suggest listening to foreign radio
news, or National Public Radio to get another side of the story.  It should
always be kept in mind the source of information.  Television is a commercial
enterprise.  But then keeping this in mind involves thinking, which perhaps 
Americans consider too much effort.