MASS CULTURE &
DISCONTENTS
“Television can instruct, inform and inspire, as well as distract, distort and demean” – Bill Moyers
Objective…
• Identify the elements influencing mass society. – TV
• Describe the criticisms of mass society.
• 1946 -Introduction of TV • 1948 -200,000 TVs… 9% of America • 1949 -Selling100K a wk.• 1955 -32M in US• 1956 -500 stations• 1960 -90% of Americans have a TV
The “Golden Age” of TV…
Early television sets…
The Economics of Television…
• TV Net Revenue: 1947 $2M…1957 $1B
• Advertising $: 1949 $58M…1960 $60B
American family watching TV in the 1950s…
Columbia Broadcast Stations
National
Broadcast
Company
Associated Broadcasting Company
Major Networks…
1940-1960: Radio vs. TV Ownership
Radio Television• 1940: 28M (80%)……….. 0• 1950: 41M (94%)……….. 4M (9%)• 1960: 50M (95%)……….. 46M (87%)
Television: Tube of PlentyThe early television shows…
How did they change through the 1950s…
1950 Sit coms…
- Ideal suburban families- Mischievous children- Kindly “all knowing” dads- No politics or social issues …Critics called them: "Aryan melodramas“– Why?
The Honeymooners: Urban working class people struggling with the issues of a consumer society.
Assorted clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAKSLJySqWI
Ralph learns to play golf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNauilZRzHk
Lucy and the Chocolate factory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI&feature=related
I Love Lucy was the most watched show in the US in four of its six seasons.
Abbott and Costello worked on stage, radio, film and television in the 1940s and 1950shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_gSWTQKE-0&t=1m22s
1957 : Leave it to Beaverhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=oay9VxFVFmE
Television & Politics
28) The effect of the Cold War on television…
31) The criticism of American mass culture & mass media...
Positive…• “On the scene” news• Entertainment & information• Advertising helps business
The positives and the negatives of the Golden Age of Television…
Negative effects…• Children… violence in programming • Stereotypes of women & minorities• Male dominated• Mostly reflects white America•TV ignores poverty, politics & civil rights… NO CONTROVERSY… Supports CONFORMITY
The Beats
32) Who were the “Beats” & what ideas did they express?
The Beats (Beatniks)… NON-CONFORMITY• Express disgust with…
- mass culture, conformity, consumerism & militarism
• The “Beats” believed in… -spontaneity, friendship, jazz, open sexuality, drug use, black culture & music
• The “Beat” look…-black clothes, sunglasses, berets
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzCF6hgEfto&feature=PlayList&p=756566302C1887A9&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2
• Spontaneous prose… “first thought … best thought”
Bullwinkle on the “Beatnik”...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWjRgzFeE_8
The Quiz Show Scandal• Charles Van Doren was involved in a TV quiz show scandal in the 1950s. In 1959 he confessed before the
U.S. Congress that he had been given the correct answers by the producers of the show Twenty One.
In Jan.1957, Van Doren entered a winning streak earning him more than $129K ($1M + today)
Why was all of this so shocking to the public?
