Television has entered our homes at an alarming rate since its first conception. It has provided to the public interest - politics, news, education, religion, science, sports and a variety of entertainment as well as other information. Television has also been a tool utilized to shape our minds, alter our thoughts and thinking capacity. This alteration has all been tastefully mastered through the art of show business.

The television media, of today, has given us information to make informed decisions regarding our everyday lives, and it is done entertainingly. The term couch potato has been pegged to individuals who sit comfortably in their homes, with the television remote control in their hands, glued to the television, entertaining themselves. What they are viewing are ideas and thoughts, which will direct them in making their next decisions, all done without any struggle or discern. As Neil Postman observes:

today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration. Its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted t

Today debates are well scripted. The questions are given to the candidates prior to the debate. This gives the candidate an adequate amount of time to address the questions. This all plays into the appearance of the candidates to the viewers as they are viewed on the television. Their answers are already written out; therefore, all the candidate needs to do is read them to the viewing audience (without stumbling over their words).

the television commercial is the most peculiar and pervasive form of communication to issue forth from the electric plug. An American who has reached the age of forty will have seen well over one million television commercials in his or her lifetime, and has close to another million to go before the first Social Security check arrives. We may safely assume, therefore, that the

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The television pictorial image is truly an importance to the viewer’s eye contact. There are other forms of information sources, but they all have limitations. Radio, movies, newspapers and records are all forms of entertainment but only television has the pictorial image. “No one goes to the movie to find out about government policy or the latest scientific advances. No one buys a record to find out the baseball scores or the weather or the latest murder. No one turns on radio anymore for soap operas or a presidential address (if television set is at hand). But

o the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment. Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death (3-4).

Some topics in this essay:
Neil Postman, Social Security, Las Vegas, Stephen Douglas, Business Television, Postman American, Superbowl American, Central America, Vegas Nevada, neil postman, television commercials, business television, thinking capacity, television set, pictorial image, subject matter, shape minds alter, invitation “news”, seen television, alter thinking capacity, art business, variety entertainment information, newscasters’ invitation “news”, invitation “news” seriously,