Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television: Inherent Bias

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ILLUSTRATION: FOTOLIA/OCONNER
The inherent bias of television towards simulating novel and unusual situations is yet another argument for its elimination. INSET: Author Jerry Mander

From Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander, copyright© 1977 by the author. Reprinted with the permission of William Morrow and Company, Inc.

What’s the matter with our modern, technologically based society anyway? Why isn’t it more satisfying? Why do so many of us now feel that some vague something hounds us and diminishes us and makes us into something less than we should be? Most specifically of all, do we really use television and so many other “benefits” and “tools” of our technological age–or does it use us? Jerry Mander speaks the unspeakable and asks the unaskable in a remarkable new book that is being completely serialized in this magazine. This is the ninth installment in the series.


Argument Four: The Inherent Biases of Television

Along with the venality of its controllers, the technology of television predetermines the boundaries of its content. Some information can be conveyed completely, some partially, some not at all. The most effective telecommunications are the gross, simplified linear messages and programs which conveniently fit the purposes of the medium’s commercial controllers. Television’s highest potential is advertising. This cannot be changed. It’s an inherent bias of the technology.

  • Published on Jan 1, 1980
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