How television changed society in the 60s
irishtimes.com
irishtimes.com
I can't see television ever having that large an influence again, anywhere. While Gay Byrne and the Late Late Show made a very significant influence on the time period in the modern history section I had to study in the Leaving Cert (Irish exam at the end if secondary school), people nowadays are too skeptical of anything televised.
Once the number of channels people have available to them is taken into consideration, plus the fact that the only shows to gain widespread popularity are fiction shows like 24, news shows, or lighter non-fiction shows (like Mythbusters), anything trying to make a serious impact just won't get watched by enough people to get a large response.
Then of course there is the fact that the people in power are a lot more conscious of how all media affects them. Politicians aiming for soundbites, and companies having PR teams trying to influence media also reduce how seriously media is taken. (This particular point also applies to the internet, even if many politicians haven't quite figured that one out.
One of the reasons it had so much influence at the time is that, at least here in Ireland, there is a certain older generation who used to take "what the man on the telly said" as an authoritative source. Even talking to my own grandmother reveals a certain amount of this attitude, at least for RTE or BBC.
They're showing how the nature of the medium (as an entertainment vehicle) shaped the nature of the the public's interaction with it. You could apply an abstraction like that to the internet as well.
A pipeline for mass communication was built and changed their attitudes toward authoritative sources. Our pipelines are fracturing and we probably have certain attitudes that aren't useful for the future.
Maybe I'm reading between the lines too much, but reading it figuratively is much more useful to me.
The comments that veteran reporters and producers made on the New Year Eve's RTE show were quite enlightening in that regard. The phrase which stuck in my mind was "fighting the bishops" to get RTE and its shows on air. They also spoke of the "fear" from politicians and the Church. It was clear that they all knew from the outset how powerful TV would be and what an opinion shaper it could be.