As a child, I grew up sickly with asthma. I would sit and stare at the TV for hours on end, literally drool at all the televisions shows, in a mindless zombie-like fashion, not willing to move because I might miss something. Yet, still today, I cannot even remember the names of most of those TV shows. I don’t know what it was that made me so addicted to television, but I could not stop watching. After reading Neil Postman “The Ring Around the Collar” where he sarcastically defines one TV ad as “religious parables”, (Postman 68) I found it to be an eye-opening experience. Postman shows how advertisers use media in a religious context to control the masses, where consumers are considered to be a sinner unless they purchased their products. Being that there are five million products on TV, consumers sin a lot. Then, through this process, consumers are only redeemed by purchasing their product and then you are immediately cast into a heaven-like environment. Basically, this whole idea of television persuasion is based and preyed upon consumers need or even fear to be socially accepted. In addition, Marie Winn’s essay, “Television: The Plug- IN Drug”, depicts how American family structures are being depleted because of the influences of television. Having a TV in the home takes away the intricate interactions that families need to assure a healthy structure. Television disrupts bonding growth and an overall nurturing environment is detrimental to a family’s self-worth. In analysis of these two perspectives, I can acknowledge that TV has immensely impacted our social structure, but I believe it is the just another way of social manipulation. In general, most television ads give a false reality, deplete self-worth, and take ...
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...w see how TV uses social acceptance to influence people to perform or to buy things by instilling a lack of self-worth, advisement manipulation, and sales tricks, such as Postman’s “religious parable.” We are forever changed by TV and TV advertisement. We talk about them, we relate to them, we are influenced by them, but we should not let them dictate our lives. It is a big world out there. My advice to all is to turn off the TV and go outside. See the world for what it is, in all its intricate beauty.
Works Cited
AT&T U-Verse, Advertisement. ABC. 31 January 2011. Televison.
Cohen, Samuel. ed. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/ St.
Martin’s. 2007
Postman, Neil “The Parable of Ring Around the Collar.” Conscientious Objection: Stirring
Up Trouble about Language, Technology and Education. New York, Vintage books. 1992
66-71
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