1. MASS CULTURE & DISCONTENTS
“Television can instruct, inform and inspire, as well as distract, distort and demean” – Bill Moyers

2. Objective… Identify the elements influencing mass society. – TV
Describe the criticisms of mass society.

3. The “Golden Age” of TV… 1946 -Introduction of TV
,000 TVs… 9% of America
1949 -Selling100K a wk.
M in US
stations
% of Americans have a TV

4. Early television sets…

5. The Economics of Television…
TV Net Revenue: 1947 $2M…1957 $1B
Advertising $: 1949 $58M…1960 $60B

6. American family watching TV in the 1950s…
Major Networks…
Associated
Broadcasting
Company
Columbia
Broadcast
Stations
National
Broadcast
Company

7. 1940-1960: Radio vs. TV Ownership
Radio Television
1940: 28M (80%)……….. 0
1950: 41M (94%)……….. 4M (9%)
1960: 50M (95%)……….. 46M (87%)

8. Television: Tube of Plenty
The early television shows…
How did they change through the 1950s…

9. 1950 Sit coms…
- Ideal suburban families - Mischievous children - Kindly “all knowing” dads - No politics or social issues …Critics called them: "Aryan melodramas“– Why?

10. Lucy and the Chocolate factory
The Honeymooners: Urban working class people struggling with the issues of a consumer society.
Assorted clips:
Ralph learns to play golf:
I Love Lucy was the most watched show in the US in four of its six seasons.
Lucy and the Chocolate factory

11. 1957 : Leave it to Beaver
Abbott and Costello worked on stage, radio, film and television in the 1940s and 1950s

12. Television & Politics 28) The effect of the Cold War on television…
31) The criticism of American mass culture & mass media...

13. The positives and the negatives of the Golden Age of Television…
“On the scene” news
Entertainment & information
Advertising helps business
Negative effects…
Children… violence in programming
Stereotypes of women & minorities
Male dominated
Mostly reflects white America
TV ignores poverty, politics & civil rights…
NO CONTROVERSY… Supports CONFORMITY

14. 32) Who were the “Beats” & what ideas did they express?

15. The Beats (Beatniks)… NON-CONFORMITY
Express disgust with…
- mass culture, conformity,
consumerism & militarism
The “Beats” believed in…
-spontaneity, friendship, jazz,
open sexuality, drug use,
black culture & music
The “Beat” look…
-black clothes, sunglasses, berets
Spontaneous prose… “first thought … best thought”
Bullwinkle on the “Beatnik”...

16. The Quiz Show Scandal Why was all of this so shocking to the public?
Charles Van Doren was involved in a TV quiz show scandal in the 1950s. In 1959 he confessed before the U.S. Congress that he had been given the correct answers by the producers of the show Twenty One.
In Jan.1957, Van Doren entered a winning streak earning him more than $129K ($1M + today)
Why was all of this so shocking to the public?