Write a paragraph (4 - 6 sentences) that summarizes theinformation that you have learned about Television.  Thissummary should be in your own words, do not directly quote thesource.

Write a thesis statement based on the information written inyour summary.  Be sure to create a thesis statement thatis clear, specific, and thought-provoking. Create a thesisstatement that argues a controversial position.

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Television is one of the most significant communicationsinventions. Television has fundamentally changed the politicalprocess, our use of leisure, as well as social relations amongfamily and friends. Television was not developed by any singleindividual or even a group of people working together. Scientistsand visionaries imagined a device that would capture images withsound and transmit them into homes since the 1880s. The wordtelevision was first used at the 1900 Exhibition in Paris. Scottishinventor John Logie Baird (1888–1946) was the first person toprovide a television transmission in October 1925, and hesubsequently demonstrated it to the British public on January 26,1926. On December 25, 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi (1899–1990)displayed the first image in Japan. The technology improved slowlywith athletes participating in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlinable to see some poor quality images of the games. In 1936 Franceand Page 319 | Top of Article Germany began television programming.In Great Britain King George VI’s coronation from Hyde Park Corneron May 12, 1937, was the first broadcast of its kind, and the firstU.S. election reported on television was on November 8, 1941, wherenews of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s victory was transmitted to anestimated 7,500 sets. The development of television was haltedduring the Second World War in Europe and North America wheremanufacturers directed their attentions to munitions. Regulartelevision service reached ninety-six countries by 1973. Many ofthe things we associate with modern television technology werepatented or devised in television’s infancy. In 1928 VladimirZworyking (1889–1982) owned the first U.S. patent for anall-electronic color television; however, the development did notcome to fruition for another twenty-five years. During the 1939World’s Fair in New York, television could not only receive audioand video images, but it was also designed to record those images,foreshadowing video recording devices (VCRs). And Baird laterpatented a 600-line electronic high definition color system inBritain in 1945. TELEVISION’S GOLDEN AGE The golden age oftelevision is associated with the years 1949 to 1960 when Americantelevision viewing consisted of a variety of entertainmentprogramming. The burgeoning prosperity and optimism of post-WorldWar II influenced the spread of television. As more people wereable to purchase televisions the demand for content grew. Earlytelevision programs offered revamped radio programs. There was somenews and information programming, but those tended to be of shortduration. A similar golden age is associated with Britishtelevision. Early programs were reworked vaudeville acts and radioshows. Later situational comedies such as I Love Lucy and TheHoneymooners would create new talent and genres. The sharedexperience of watching key television programming provided anavenue for discussion and next-day water cooler conversation. Astelevision matured so did the content, with programs such as All inthe Family offering political and social commentary on issuesranging from race relations to the Vietnam War. Television’sdepiction of the family changed through time as well. While initialprogramming presented unified traditional families withbread-winning fathers and stay-at-home mothers, later programsdepicted the breakdown of the traditional family dealing in bothfiction and nonfiction with divorce, remarriage, blended families,and later, with same-sex unions. Not only did television providescripted programming, but it also broadcasted major sportingevents. The first televised hockey game between the MontrealCanadiens losing six-to-two to the New York Rangers in MadisonSquare Gardens was seen on February 25, 1940. Television is alsoclosely associated with the increasing popularity of the Olympicgames, soccer, American football, and baseball. With technologicalimprovements, viewing time increased as well as television’sinfluence on the public and politics. In 1947 there were only60,000 American homes with television sets; by 1950 this figuregrew to 12.5 million. Televisions are now found in nearly everyhome in the United States and Europe. In the developing world, theallure of television is so great that some want television beforeother communications devices such as telephones. The hold of majornetworks on audiences soon dissipated with the advent of cable andspecialty television programming. Rather than having a system wherethe networks catered to a common denominator of programming, theproliferation of specialty programs allowed people to view contentthat interested them specifically. Moving from analog to digitalsignals allowed for a so-called 500-channel universe where anyspecific interest could be satisfied, from golf to cooking; fromsport to fashion; and from all news to pornography. As a result ofthese technological changes, the era of the mass audience was over.While there remain a few programs that can attain mass audiences,the market has been so fragmented that networks must compete for anever-shrinking television audience. EFFECTS ON CHILDREN The rapidadoption of television fundamentally changed modern society.Television has been blamed for the decline in civil society, thebreakdown of the family, suicide, mass murder, childhood obesity,and the trivializing of politics. Children have been the target ofbroadcasters since the 1950s. Initially American broadcastersprovided twenty-seven hours a week of children’s televisionprogramming. By the 1990s there was twenty-four hour a dayprogramming available to children. Children in Canada spendfourteen hours per week (Statistics Canada) watching television,while American children spend twenty-one hours per week (Roberts etal. 2005, p. 34). Some surveys suggest that British children havethe highest rate of television viewing in the world. There areseveral concerns associated with television and children’s viewingpatterns. Many researchers have noted the link between the adventof television and increasing obesity and other weight-relatedillnesses. The time spent watching television is time not spentplaying outdoors or in other physically challenging activities.High television viewership of violence is linked to an increase inviolent children. Prolonged exposure to violent Page 320 | Top ofArticle television programming has shown that children can becomemore aggressive, become desensitized to violence, become acceptingof violence as a means to solve problems, imitate violence viewedon television, and identify with either victims or victimizers.Despite the negatives associated with television, it remains apowerful tool in shaping and educating children. While many pointto the destructive nature of television, there are others whoacknowledge television’s positive impact. Researchers andprogrammers have developed content that has positively influencedchildren. Early studies on the PBS program Sesame Street found thatchildren who viewed the program were better readers in grade onethan students who had not watched the program. Programs weredeveloped not only to help with literacy, but with other subjectsas well as socialization, problem solving, and civic culture.Notwithstanding the positive effects of children and televisionviewing, high television viewing has been associated with a declinein civic culture. As people have retreated to their homes to watchtelevision, they have been less inclined to participate in politicseither by voting or by joining political parties. In additiontelevision viewing means that people are not interacting as muchwith friends or neighbors. What is more, television viewing alsohas been associated with an overall decline in group participationas well as volunteerism. ADVERTISING AND OWNERSHIP The issue ofownership of content and transmission was debated from television’sonset. In 1927 the U.S. Radio Act declared public ownership of theairways. They argued that the airwaves should “serve thePICN—public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Because of thisunderstanding of the public owning the airwaves, it set the stagefor regulatory bodies around the world licensing stations accordingto content regulations. Taking the issue of public interest onestep further, the British government founded the BritishBroadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1927. Other countries followedestablishing their own public broadcasting systems. The UnitedStates lagged behind other nations by adopting a PublicBroadcasting Service (PBS) in 1968. With the increasing adoption oftelevision, many countries found the need to create new regulatoryagencies. In the United States, the U.S. Federal CommunicationsCommission (FCC) was created as an act of Congress on June 19,1934. The most successful television enterprises are closelyassociated with advertising. From the outset the way in whichtelevision content was funded was through the pursuit ofadvertising dollars. As a result it has often been said thattelevision does not bring content to audiences, but instead itbrings audiences to advertisers. The propaganda model of the media,coined by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their 1988 publicationManufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media,argues that the media uphold the dominant ideology in America. Thefive pillars of the model focus on ownership, advertising,sourcing, flak, and anticommunism. This model has been linked toother western media systems, but is most fitting in the UnitedStates where the power of the media rests with the owners.Television’s hold on the public imagination stems in part becauseof its ease of transmission. No one needs any special skill toreceive the messages. All that is required is a television that canpick up a signal. More important, television influences our view ofthe world precisely because images are transmitted into people’shomes. Since its inception, television transmissions have had thepower to change our perceptions of world events. Starting with theVietnam War and continuing to a myriad of events from the arms raceto Tiananmen Square, and from the Civil Rights movement to the warin Iraq, television has become synonymous with the phrase “thewhole world is watching.”