the chutry experiment

What about the issue of "how" to watch television? There's no question of the passivity fostered by television--and a passivity that can be quite dangerous if we ascribe to Lasn's argument regarding the overt and covert brand advertising that marks the medium. Ok, I'll admit it--I enjoy reality tv in a love/hate kind of way, but it also gets me thinking about critical issues concerning representation, the aesthetics of what's considered "real," and so on--but I've taught myself to watch tv this way. I guess I wonder about the effect of being cognizant of thinking in a more complex manner.

I haven't read the links here or anything (this is supposed to be just a really quick break from grading hell), but I am sympathetic to the argument that tv is invading public spaces. Yeah there have been tvs in bars for decades, but now there are tvs in every public bus, at every terminal in the airport, over the pumps at the gas station. I'm not absolutely opposed to the television, or anything, even if I am participating in tv-turnoff week. Some tv is fine and good. But when I'm waiting for a plane, for example, I'd rather sit and read a book, which I find hard to do with 4 tvs blaring at me from every angle. It is seriously difficult to find a place to go in many airports where you can't see the tv, and it's impossible to find places where you can get away from the sound. Maybe I'm just deficient in some way, but I have a hard time tuning that noise and the motion of the screen out--it is very distracting. And the point is that these screens are more and more in places where I have no choice in avoiding them. Again, it's one thing to expect a tv showing sporting events in a bar, but it's another thing to have tvs in evey public space, which is the direction we're heading.

You don't have to argue against tv to argue that tv doesn't need to fill up every space in the world around us. Obviously, you'd have to be a real asshole to use that remote to turn off the tvs in a sports bar. But I would love to be able to turn off the tvs in the waiting room at my mechanics when I'm the only one there, and over the pumps at the gas station, and in airport terminals, and so on and so on.

Okay, I may have overstated my objections to the passivity thesis last night, but I have become increasingly dissatisfied with Adbusters-style anti-branding actions (re-editing corporate logos, etc). I'm certainly critical of TVs indebtedness to advertising support and of how four or five major corporations are able to use TV to promote their own interests (usually greater profits). In terms of watching TV critically, I do think (reality) TV presents us with a variety of problems ("what's considered 'real,'" for example), and I think you're right that such readings have to be taught, and that they should be taught. I have to run to teach, but I still want to think about some of these ideas.

Scrivener, I missed your comment earlier, and I do realize that TVs are much more widespread in public spaces than before. You're certainly right about airports having TVs almost everywhere. I've only been to one gas station with a TV, but that's probably a matter of luck more than anything else, and even then, the sound and image quality was so bad, I didn't know what I was watching. I think I'm fairly neutral about TVs in public space, but that may be because the background noise is comforting (I have a hard time concentrating in places that are relatively quiet).

I'm trying to figure out why I reacted so strongly to Lasn's comments (mentioned in the Stevens article). In some sense, I think it may be a form of self-critique, questioning some of my own assumptions about TVs in public space and habits of TV watching. Several student groups presented in my classes on Debrod's spectacle this afternoon, and unless they were trying to flatter me by endorsing his positions, they did reintroduce several important critiques of televisual spectacle (in particular), so I am aware of the negative effects of TV's having a captive audience (espeically in doctor's waiting rooms, etc).

I am a 17-year-old girl who was raised without a TV for my entire life. And I'm so happy I was. I won't go into all the clear pros of not having a TV since those can be found by googling on the internet. But I just wanted to add a little note about what I felt reading this artice. In the second paragraph, the author states that watching TV doesn't entail utter passivity. He even says that, "In fact, because I have a lot of nervous energy, I rarely watch an entire TV show without getting up several times or flipping channels or fixing dinner." OK, so tell me how that is not a bad thing. Sure, maybe that shows that you're not utterly passive when you watch TV. But doesn't that show your inability to sit through an entire program? What is it about the TV that balloons your nervous energy to a level so great that you have to get up several times or flip channels. I don't mean to be harsh. I can't speculate much about having TV and I understand that there are some advantages to having TV. But I just wanted to let the author know what it sounded like when he said it's so hard to sit through an entire TV show. It sounded like the point you were trying to make about how TV isn't that bad sorta backfired without you even realizing it.