Old Man Television: Understanding the Complexities of the Senior Citizen Medium

[Mike Gange]

Old Man Television: Understanding the Complexities of the Senior Citizen Medium

by Mike Gange

We have come a long way from 1951. Or even from 1991.

 

I view those two dates as turning points in history – the history of the mass media that is, and more specifically, television.

 

By 1951, most of the developing world was experiencing post-war economic prosperity and the phenomenon known as the Baby Boom. Television was the technological innovation du jour, and although a new TV cost as much as a car at that time, it was a must-have apparatus. The number of TV sets sold jumped from ten thousand to more than a million. But despite the growing popularity, critics of television derisively called it the “boob tube” and the fear was it would seduce society into a sort of trance-like numbness.

 

By 1991, Media Studies was becoming an accepted part of schools. By 1991, cultural critics and academics alike were advocating that some form of media studies was as important to a high school student’s development and success as was a driver’s license.

 

Since 1991, I have built some aspect of media literacy into all my lesson plans and course objectives, even if those subjects were Law or French Second Language.  I have been an advocate of media studies because although television is as old as our oldest baby boomers, it has positive and negative aspect that are worth exploring. It is a license to print money for the station owners, a shaper of culture and society, an oligopoly endorsed by national governments, and contributes as much as ten percent to the GDP. Despite being a pioneer in media education, a regular attendee at professionally related conferences and an avid reader of many books and academic articles in the communications field, I have often struggled to be able to get across the complexities of modern television.

 

Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is credited with saying that Canada is the mouse sleeping with the elephant.  That metaphor is an apt explanation for Canadian culture being overshadowed by the American entertainment industry. This adds yet another wrinkle for Canadian media studies teachers.

 

I am happy to be able to tell you of an article (in fact, a whole book, which I will review more completely at some time very soon) that addresses the complexity of the television industry. The book is called The Television Reader and is published by Oxford University Press. Both the first and second essays are worth reading, and using in media studies classes, but I really like the succinctness and depth of the second essay “Introduction: A Political Economy of TV Broadcasting in Canada and the United States” by the editors of the book, Tanner Mirrlees and Joseph Kispal-Kovacs. At 12-and-a-half pages, it is hardly a brief classroom lesson, but it does a way better job of introducing the complexities of modern television than any essay I have seen.

 

Television as an industry may be as old as the oldest Baby Boomers, but it is not about to be retired. “I Love Lucy,” one of the ground breaking shows that helped shape the medium through its infancy, frequently used the line “you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.” Indeed, there is a still lot to learn about TV. And The Television Reader does some of that explaining.