Gore: TV has made nation complacent

[CatWoman]

NASHVILLE - The "quasi-hypnotic influence" of television in America has fostered a complacent nation that is a danger to democracy, former Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday.

Gore, speaking on "Media and Democracy" at Middle Tennessee State University, told attendees the decline of newspapers as the country's dominant method of communication leaves average Americans without an outlet for scholarly debate.

"Our democracy is suffering in an age when the dominant medium is not accessible to the average person and does not lend itself most readily to the conveyance of complex ideas about self-governance," Gore said. "Instead it pushes toward a lowest common denominator."

Gore said the results of that inaccessibility are reflected most prominently in the changed priorities of the country's elected officials, who feel that debating important issues is "relatively meaningless today. How do they spend their time instead? Raising money to buy 30-second television commercials."

Students and members of the community filled the 235-seat auditorium for Gore's appearance, and several hundred more watched his speech on a big-screen monitor set up in the building's lobby. It was the first of two lectures Gore has scheduled at MTSU as part of the "American Democracy Project for Civil Engagement," an effort to launch a national discussion on the "vigor of the national democracy."

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS_348_2421025,00.html

[Frangible]

1. It's always been my position....

That humans were dumb, lazy, and violent before television existed...

[Westegg]

7. RE: It's always been my position....

Indeed they were. But TV hasn't helped.

(With apologies to the late, great Art Carney, whose "Ed Norton" was a classic clown for the ages, TV or not.)

[SlavesandBulldozers]

2. something tells me

he's not paying very close attention to the way Dean has run his campaign. I would be careful to categorize the current crop of young people as complacent.

[Larkspur]

4. Dean depended more on the Internet, not TV for success

Internet users are more active than TV watchers.

TV, not religion, is the opiate of the masses.

[AlGore-08.com]

9. He's talking about our entire society, not the 2004 primary

He was giving a lecture about the changes in media over all of recorded history and how those changes have affected politics. His main point was that Democracy has suffered since TV became the dominant media, because there's no diversity of opinion and scholarly debate on TV - - and average people have no easy way of influencing the political debate. Later in the article, he's quoted endorsing the 'Net as one of the solutions to the problem:

Gore said a remedy to television's dominance may the Internet, a "print-based medium that is extremely accessible to the average person."

"We have to choose to rehabilitate our democracy in part by making creative use of these new media and by insisting within the current institutions of our democracy that we open up access to the dominant medium," he said.

Gore is very aware of the growing power of Internet activism - - that's why he asked Moveon.org to sponsor his last two major speeches.

[Brucey]

3. George Gerbner has studied TV watching probably

more than anyone. He has found many variables related to heavy TV viewing including conservativism. Over 3,000 studies of violent media have found increases in aggression and desensitivity to aggression. Pediatricians regularly warn parents about adverse effects of heavy TV viewing on their children. The idea that heavy TV reliance interferes with a healthy society is not wacky; in fact, it seems reasonable. One of the paradoxes of modern thinking are the common notions that advertising works, but that the media do not affect anyone in any way.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Woo hoo!! Preach it, Mr. Gore!!

Well said.

Less TV and more thinking for our kids - and our adults.

[LSparkle]

6. I love this new improved Al Gore

He's pointing out things that are conspiring against our democracy: loss of civil liberties, control of information ... Hope he keeps it up.

[mitchum]

8. TV has also helped make the nation stupid...

and into slavering consumers of worthless shit (both the content and the products surrounding the content) I consider it the height of hypocrisy when networks run anti-drug PSAs