Telling Stories

A few centuries ago, Scottish patriot Andrew Fletcher wrote, “If I were permitted to write all the ballads, I need not care who makes the laws of the nation.” Over the past fifty years, says George Gerbner, the job of writing ballads — or, more broadly, stories — has shifted away from parents, schools, communities, churches, and nations, and onto a television industry run by corporate conglomerates with products to sell. This transformation has profoundly changed the way children are socialized, and done much to shape the way our society is governed. In short, it has changed the way we live.

Correspondence

We read with interest Derrick Jensen’s interview with George Gerbner. Many of Gerbner’s observations hit home with the force of revelation: that the media have virtually eliminated real political choice in this country; that television will never attack the corporate structure; that five or six men determine most of what we see on television; that television cultivates passivity, withdrawal, and insecurity, which is precisely its purpose.

After recognizing such disturbing truths, however, Gerbner offers this remedy: diversity in programming. He says that the single most important thing we can do is “demand that producers cast more women and more people of color.” But what possible difference will this make if the goal is still to “deliver the audience to the commercial in a mood to buy”?

Gerbner also says the enormous amount of time people spend watching television is not the main problem. Yet even if television offered more real choice, more people of color, and more complexity of plot and character, seven hours in front of the television is still seven hours you are not reading, or talking with your neighbors, or walking in the woods.

No, the single most important thing a person can do is turn the television off. That is what the corporations controlling television fear the most.

Lee and Kayla Pruett Atlanta, Georgia

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August 1998