Back in February on All Things Considered, NPR explored the fragmentation of media channels. Specifically, they took a look at the most watched TV shows of all time and noted how the Super Bowl has dominated since the final episode of M*A*S*H aired more than 20 years ago. This was seen as much as an effect of cable television and internet as it was a sensationalization of this one annual game.
TV has been under constant attack as a root of problems in our culture. Too much violence. Too much sex. Too few positive role models. Too much inanity. To quote Seinfeld, yadda yadda yadda. While that may be true of the content (especially the inanity part), where’s tha causality? And where is the balance that shows the positive television brings to us?
My adulthood now is connected to millions of others through TV. I sing the Scooby Doo theme song, and anyone who was a child of the 70s has a reference. Thanks to the miracle of DVD, my kids can share that culture (although we do bar Scrappy Doo from this house), but it used to be that television was an event. I’m not talking about the 50s families huddled around a 6-inch, fuzzy black-and-white screen laughing at the Beav. I’m talking about the Disney movie that ran once a week, or that episode of Hill Street Blues everyone talked about at the water cooler the next day. There were no DVD season discs to get you all 24 hours of “24” in one sitting, and no Tivo to free you from the whims of network scheduling and technology glitches. The TV came on, and you were there. Or you weren’t.
One of the big plusses to the Internet Age is access to information (Commerce and Community being the other two). It’s great to be able to type here, pull up a new browser window and search Dictionary.com to make sure inanity is a real word. But it also disengages the act from time and radically changes a process. For a Bears fan living outside of Chicagoland, ESPN has been wonderful. But the web and cable TV have also taken the Event out of the game. The retelling of big plays to those who missed a game, or waiting for the 4-minute sports segment on the 10-o’clock local news, have been condensed down to: “Did you download that video clip?” … “Yeah.” … “Awesome.”
So Matt wants to do something designerly with the “Lost” series, about survivors of a plane crash. That interests us because one of the casualties of kids, school and Tivo (no ads) is that some of the good television passes through our radar. Never seen the show, but want to and now just a few DVDs away from can. Among other things, I wonder whether modern technology helps or hinders the collective experience. Does this show mean the same after the fact? Is it the cultural kin to reading about Kennedy being shot or the Challenger exploding instead of hearing it reported as it happened?
