Ever since the fifties, when television became ascendent in
American popular culture, it has become commonplace to bemoan its
"bad" effects. Little or nothing, however, has been said about its
"good" effects. With this observation, Henry Perkinson introduces
his provocative and original analysis of television and culture.
Rejecting the determinism inherent in most studies of the effects
of television ("We are what we watch"), he insists that it is
people that actively change culture, media having no agency to do
so. Nevertheless, he argues that television did facilitate the
changes we have made in our culture over the past thirty years.
Perkinson describes how television helped us become critical of
our existing culture, especially of the relationships that were
commonly accepted between men and women, blacks and whites,
politicians and voters, employers and employees, and between people
and the environment. These criticisms have brought about dramatic
changes in our social, political, and economic arrangements, as
well as changes in our intellectual outlook. Since these changes
came about through our efforts to eliminate or reduce
discrimination, suffering, and injustice, Perkinson argues that our
culture has become more moral in the age of television.
In what amounts to a history of recent social change in
America, "Getting Better "examines the role television has played
in the rise of feminism, the black protest movement, the
presidential elections, the Vietnam War, Watergate,
environmentalism, religious fundamentalism, and the New Age
movement. This book will be essential reading for students of
communications and American culture, and for anyone who wants to
make sense of the transformations of American life from the 1950s
to the present. Even those who do not agree that things are
"getting better" will find that Perkinson's analysis helps to make
things more coherent.
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