Amy's Robot

We're too dumb to watch TV

The British Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, has stated that people in the UK need lessons in television viewing, so that they may better understand the difference between opinion and fact. She said that watching television as an informed viewer is like "understanding great literature," and that "Everyone needs to be able to decode the way the media works, questioning everything in order to understand everything."

The Secretary is encouraging viewers to catch up with postmodern trends in television programming (scripted "reality" shows, Law and Order using real news stories as plots, last night's State of the Union address) in hopes that they will stop complaining about shows they find worrisome, like Shattered, a game show in which participants went a week without sleep. Has the public gotten too lazy and complacent and unquestioning to even watch TV effectively? As Bill Hicks said, Go back to bed, America. And Britain.

categories: International, Media, TV
posted by amy at 2:45 PM | #