Description
Book SynopsisHaving spent most of his career working with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Martin Esslin appraises American TV with the eyes of both a detached outsider and a concerned insider. American popular culture, writes Esslin, has become the popular culture of the world at large. American television is thus more than a purely social phenomenon. It fascinates and in some instances frightens the whole world.
The Age of Television discusses television as an essentially dramatic form of communication, pointing to the strengths and weaknesses that spring from its character. It explores its impact on generations destined to grow up under its influence, with such questions as how TV turns reality into fiction, and fiction into reality. Esslin considers the long-term effects of television on our abilities to reason, to read, to create. He asks if current programming on American television constitutes what we want and deserve, and asks what we would change, if we could. Th
Table of Contents1: The Drama Explosion; 2: Drama as Communication; 3: Fiction into Reality; 4: Reality into Fiction; 5: The Long-term Effects of Television; 6: Problems of Control; 7: The Challenge of the Future
