Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Newton Minnow called it a vast wasteland. Nonetheless, it was a popular wasteland. What were the key characteristics of American culture and society during the 1950s? Klooster, John. Companies around the world, most notably in Japan, began to develop technology that provided newer, better-quality television formats, and the broadcasting industry began to lobby the FCC to create a committee to study the desirability and impact of switching to digital television. Such gaffes as Beaver wanting to wear a piece of clothing that might embarrass the family were harshly condemned, while conformity was praised. Mechanical television systems had several technical disadvantages: Low resolution caused fuzzy images, and the use of a spinning disk limited the number of new pictures that could be seen per second, resulting in excessive flickering. Cold War propaganda reached its heights in the 1950s Web3) Conformity: the TV shows also demonstrated a lot of conformity when the characters were doing what was popular at the time and being the "typical American Family" How did television encourage the actions and behaviors of teens and families during the 1950s? HBOs use of a satellite to distribute its programming made the network available throughout the United States. Around the same time the U.S. government was reviewing the options for analog and digital television systems, companies in Japan were developing technology that worked in conjunction with digital signals to create crystal-clear pictures in a wide-screen format. An example is Father Knows Best with Robert Young, which features a family with two parents and three children, all of whom were conformist in their attitudes and pursuits. How do I choose between my boyfriend and my best friend? What role did the media play in the 1950s? Conformity was common, as young and old alike followed group norms rather than striking out on their own. Many sitcoms in the 1950s featured middle class white families whose values and ways of life were conformist and traditional. The booming postwar defense industry came under fire in C. Wright Mills' The Power Elite. Marlon Brando played the leather-clad leader of a motorcycle gang that ransacks a small town. This helped, for example, to ignite widespread support for the Civil Rights movement, leading to positive changes for blacks in the next decade. So that viewers would not need a separate television set for each individual network, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) outlined a single technical standard. Though the outward message of TV was to encourage conformity, the result was often the opposite. Log in here. How did television change the politics of the 1950s? The Culture of Conformity. TV news, with its broadcast of events such as the protests involved in the Civil Rights movement, also encouraged people's desire for change. What did television in the 1950s do? HDTV uses a wide-screen format with a different aspect ratio (the ratio of the width of the image to its height) than standard-definition TV. Following World War II, the National Television System Committee (NTSC) worked to develop an all-electronic color system that was compatible with black-and-white TV sets, gaining FCC approval in 1953. Abstract expressionists, such as Willem de Kooning, Hans Hoffman, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock, sought to express their subconscious and their dissatisfaction with postwar life through unique and innovative paintings. The analog signal reached TV sets through three different methods: over the airwaves, through a cable wire, or by satellite transmission. Since 1950, the amount of time the average household spends watching television has almost doubled. For example, newscasters simply read the news as they would have during a radio broadcast, and the network relied on newsreel companies to provide footage of news events. What seems to have been the chief purpose of mass media during the 1950s? Next, American tv shows started to gear told the fear of communism. Here they showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Created by German inventor Paul Nipkow, the scanning disk was a large, flat metal disk with a series of small perforations arranged in a spiral pattern. Salinger (1951). However, as with most new technology, prices dropped considerably over the next few years, making HDTV affordable for mainstream shoppers. Major world events such as the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and the Vietnam War in the 1960s, the Challenger shuttle explosion in 1986, the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and the impact and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have all played out on television, uniting millions of people in shared tragedy and hope. Cable television, initially developed in the 1940s to cater to viewers in rural areas, switched its focus from local to national television, offering an extensive number of channels. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. 4 How did television change politics in the 1950s quizlet? Baby boomers could not reconcile the actual conditions of life (which their Greatest Generation parents attempted to inculcate) with the artificiality of this television world. One wonderful effect was that it made speeches shorter. From the early experiments Identify three important developments in the history of television since 1960. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Likewise, the system of roads had to expand in order to meet the demand of an increasingly car-oriented society: states and the federal government invested heavily in an interstate highway system in the late 1940s and 1950s. Please respond to the following writing prompts. Beginning with the 1948 campaign, it made itself felt in U.S. politics. The average price of TV sets dropped from about $500 in 1949 to $200 in 1953.

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Like radio before it, the spread of TV had a huge cultural impact. Harry Hay, Pauli Murray and Medgar Evers. Cables exponential growth was viewed as competition by local TV stations, and broadcasters campaigned for the FCC to step in. Many critics have dubbed the 1950s as the Golden Age of Television. As of 2010, nearly half of American viewers have high-definition television, which offers a crystal-clear picture in wide-screen to provide a cinematic experience at home. In the artistic world, dozens of beat writers reviled middle-class materialism, racism, and uniformity. Both reflecting and shaping cultural values, television has at times been criticized for its alleged negative influences on children and young people and at other times lauded for its ability to create a common experience for all its viewers. Television has been reflecting changing cultural values since it first gained popularity after World Dummies helps everyone be more knowledgeable and confident in applying what they know. Beginning with the 1948 campaign, it made itself felt in U.S. politics. At the start of the decade, there were about 3 million TV owners; by the end of it, there were 55 million, watching shows from 530 stations. Copyright 2008-2022 ushistory.org, owned by the Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia, founded 1942. Today, as Internet technology and satellite broadcasting change the way people watch television, the medium continues to evolve, solidifying its position as one of the most important inventions of the 20th century. Sitcoms such as Leave it to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and Father Knows Best were typical. Chapter 10: Electronic Games and Entertainment, Chapter 11: The Internet and Social Media, Chapter 12: Advertising and Public Relations, Section 6.3 Current Popular Trends in the Music Industry, Section 9.4 Influence of New Technologies, http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/tv/1880-1929.html, http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade30.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/technology/07digital.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/media/24def.html, Next: 9.2 The Relationship Between Television and Culture, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Television during the 1950s encouraged conformity by giving everyone a common experience and by the fact that many of the shows promoted traditional values. While in 1949 only 172,000 television sets had sold, this number jumped to over 52 million sets by 1953. Comedian Milton Berles show was so loved, for example, that movie theaters in some towns closed down Tuesday nights because everyone was home watching Uncle Miltie.

And in 1954, the Toledo, Ohio water commissioner reported that water consumption surged at certain times because so many people were simultaneously using their toilets during commercial breaks on the most popular shows.

Steve Wiegand is an award-winning political journalist and history writer. "In what ways, did television during the 1950s both encourage conformity and spark desires for rebellion and change?" Enjoy eNotes ad-free and cancel anytime. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. The stations initial broadcasts transmitted to just 400 television sets in the New York area, with an audience of 5,000 to 8,000 people (Lohr, 1940). Prior to World War II, television was in the early stages of development. Rothko covered his canvas with large rectangles, which he believed conveyed "basic human emotions.". On the other hand, TV also showed things like American Bandstand. The 1950s proved to be the golden age of television, during which the medium experienced massive growth in popularity. Icons of Invention: The Makers of the Modern World from Gutenberg to Gates (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 442. Westerns reinforced the '50s notion that everything was OK in America. 1955 saw the release of Blackboard Jungle, a film about juvenile delinquency in an urban high school. It had a fluorescent screen that emitted a visible light (in the form of images) when struck by a beam of electrons. Early televisions were expensive, and the technology was slow to catch on because development was delayed during World War II. Television, a new technology, drastically altered the political scene during the 1950s. The mechanical aspect of television proved to be a disadvantage that required fixing in order for the technology to move forward. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The new technology is attracting viewers to watch television for longer periods of time. For example, the mother stays at home, and the children have problems that are not serious in nature. The film earned three Academy Award nominations and propelled James Dean to posthumous but eternal stardom. Between 1952 and 1958 the amount of households owning a television set tripled from 3 million to 9 million. Because there were so few channels, many people watched the same shows, most of which (like Leave It To Beaver) promoted traditional values. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. What impact did television have on society economics and politics during the 1950s? Early television programs were developed and produced by a single sponsor, which gave the sponsor a large amount of control over the content of the show. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Silhouette images from motion picture films were broadcast to the general public on a regular basis, at a resolution of just 48 lines. sonicwwtbamfangamer2 millionaire CC BY-SA 2.0. During the golden age of television in the 1950s, television moved away from radio formats and developed new types of shows, including the magazine-style variety show and the television spectacular. A year later, NBC made the first national color broadcast when it telecast the Tournament of Roses Parade. But happy days values were soon about to make way for the 1960s. WebPeter Lev was a man who lived during the 50s and experienced the impact of television: In 1950, more than 7.3 million TV sets were sold in the United States, and US TV sales were never less than 5 million in the years 1950-1959. Edward Hopper who had made a name for himself in earlier decades, combated the blissful images of television by showing an America full of loneliness and alienation. Patricia Mellencamp (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 98116. Describe the rise of Rock 'n' Roll and explain why it was so popular among teens of the 1950's. Two new types of programsthe magazine format and the TV spectacularplayed an important role in helping the networks gain control over the content of their broadcasts. By 1955, half of all American homes had a television. The result was that many baby boomers grew up with feelings of resentment and anger toward their parents. Shorter than some of the new types of programs, quiz shows enabled single corporate sponsors to have their names displayed on the set throughout the show. The use of alcohol and drugs foreshadowed the counterculture of the following decade. Out of the cathode ray tube and the scanning disk, two types of primitive television systems evolved: mechanical systems and electronic systems. Cable antennas were erected on mountains or other high points, and homes connected to the towers would receive broadcast signals. How did television change politics in the 1950s quizlet? Instead of commercial television sets, they began to churn out military electronic equipment. 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