TV and American Culture

A living popular artifact that represents the American Culture is the TV. The TV represents to the American Culture more than just entertainment. It represents social-economic status, freedom, and companionship.

If we visit every single American house, there is a very high possibility that we will find a TV set in the living room. We as Americans are addicted to our TV’s. We want our entertainment, and we want it now, on-demand, and 24 hours a day, with enough programming to keep us in the couch for years. Not only do we enjoy our TV, but also enjoy showing it to our friends and family.

TV’s are the new symbol of social-economic status. The bigger the better, and the more expensive, the more satisfaction we feel. We enjoy inviting friends over to watch sports, just to show-off our new toy. Some people have referred to the TV’s of the 21st century as the rat-race syndrome. We are always looking for a better, bigger and more expensive model than our neighbor. The more expensive the better, since spending a lot of money on a TV, shows our economic power. The ability to show our purchasing power to others, somehow make us feel good about ourselves. We enjoy showing our superiority to others and what better way than by purchasing the highest priced TV.

Americans love their freedom, and what a better way to show our freedom than by purchasing one TV set for every single family member. One TV is not enough. After all, we have the economic power to do it. America is an individualistic society; we must provide our children with their own TV. We want them to explore the same feelings and emotions that we enjoy when we are in front of our TV. We want them to interact and receive “Mass Culture” information the same way we do, in front of our TV.
As of result, children have learned that entertainment and information is obtained from the TV and not by establishing relationships with parents. This is the American culture that our children have learned.

In difficult times, we turn into our TV for emotional support, for companionship. We love our TV because they provide us with much need it relief when we need it. If we feel depress, we just turn-on our best friend and we can instantly feel better. Dr. Phil is there for our emotional support. If we have a question, we can find the answer just by flipping channel.

In the book Common Culture, “Mass Culture” is defined as “the information we receive through print and electronic media”, and what better artifact to receive our information than our beloved TV set.