Many sitcoms in the 1950s featured middle class white families whose values and ways of life were conformist and traditional. Federal Communications Commission, Visionary Period, 1880s Through 1920s, Federal Communications Commission, November 21, 2005, http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/tv/1880-1929.html. Beginning with the 1948 campaign, it made itself felt in U.S. politics. In the years following the war, the technical development and growth in popularity of the medium were exponential. Understanding Media and Culture by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. The 1960s and 1970s saw a huge step backwards from the 1950s. Parents were shown as wise and forgiving, gentle Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this answer and thousands more. Studies have shown that television competes with other sources of human interactionsuch as family, friends, church, and schoolin helping young people develop values and form ideas about the world around them. HBOs use of a satellite to distribute its programming made the network available throughout the United States. 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. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The film terrified adults but fascinated kids, who emulated Brando's style. While in 1949 only 172,000 television sets had sold, this number jumped to over 52 million sets by 1953. During the so-called golden age of television, the percentage of U.S. households that owned a television set rose from 9 percent in 1950 to 95.3 percent in 1970. 4 How did television change politics in the 1950s quizlet? While it is useful for a culture to have a cohesive social vision, these programs excluded too many social groups, such as minorities, and offered a range of behavior so narrow that the conformity urged threatened to become restrictive. But despite the emerging affluence of the new American middle class, there was poverty, racism, and alienation in America that was rarely depicted on TV. On average, Americans spent more than five hours a day in front of the TV. As of 2010, nearly half of American viewers are watching television in high definition, the fastest adoption of TV technology since the introduction of the VCR in the 1980s (Stelter, 2010). In the 1950's, these strict social norms were communicated primarily through television. Stelter, Brian. Culture is the label that anthropologists give to the structured customs and underlying worldview assumptions that govern peoples lives (Kraft, 1998). Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph. While the decade of the 1950s was overwhelmingly conformist, some aspects betrayed an underlying rejection of this society that would carry through into later decades. The necessity of compliance pervaded nearly every aspect of American life. The Cold War elicited a profound, deep-rooted fear of a perceived communist threat. And yet, historians contend that this memory of the 1960 television debates is more myth than reality. TV also helped make professional and college sports big businesses, and sometimes provided excellent comedy and dramatic shows to vast audiences that might not otherwise have had access to them. 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. Network radio suffered losses as major stars and their audiences moved to TV. While mainstream America seemed to ignore African American culture, the beats celebrated it by frequenting jazz clubs and romanticizing their poverty. What were some of the causes of suburbanization during the 1950s? Politicians and commentators alike began to think and speak in sound bites that fit the medium.

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By 1960, the televised debates between candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy were considered a crucial element in Kennedys narrow victory. But even to its mildest critics, much of what was on the often-aptly nicknamed boob tube was mindless junk. The mechanical aspect of television proved to be a disadvantage that required fixing in order for the technology to move forward. And teen alienation and the neurosis of coming-of-age in postwar America was examined in J.D. Icons of Invention: The Makers of the Modern World from Gutenberg to Gates (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 442. The notion of the white-collar, executive-track, male employee was condemned in fiction in Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and in commentary in William Whyte's The Organization Man. WebBy 1956, television coverage of the parties' presidential nominating conventions was noticeably transforming the conventions from political free-for-alls into media-friendly marketing events. Formerly known as Community Antenna Television, or CATV, cable television was originally developed in the 1940s in remote or mountainous areas, including in Arkansas, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, to enhance poor reception of regular television signals. "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me ". By increasing program length from the standard 15-minute radio show to 30 minutes or longer, the networks substantially increased advertising costs for program sponsors, making it prohibitive for a single sponsor. Television during the 1950s encouraged conformity by giving everyone a common experience and by the fact that many of the shows promoted traditional values. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. What impact did television have on society? Mass-production advances made during World War II substantially lowered the cost of purchasing a set, making television accessible to the masses. It has a much higher resolution than standard television systems, using around five times as many pixels per frame. As the media helped create a single notion of an idyllic American lifestyle, a vocal minority of social critics registered their dissenting voices. Television during the 1950s encouraged conformity by giving everyone a common experience and by the fact that many of the shows promoted traditional values. Television programmers knew this and they knew that serious dramas on Broadway were attracting this audience segment. 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. 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. It served as the foundation for experiments on the transmission of visual images for several decades. Prior to World War II, television was in the early stages of development. Describe the rise of Rock 'n' Roll and explain why it was so popular among teens of the 1950's. They were also screened on a daily, rather than weekly, basis, drastically increasing advertising costs. Out of the cathode ray tube and the scanning disk, two types of primitive television systems evolved: mechanical systems and electronic systems. Identify two technological developments that paved the way for the evolution of television. Perhaps the most controversial and influential of these films is 1955's Rebel without a Cause. 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. Despite the television industrys support for the new technology, it would be another 10 years before color television gained widespread popularity in the United States, and black-and-white TV sets outnumbered color TV sets until 1972 (Klooster, 2009). How have TV sets changed in your lifetime? However, as with most new technology, prices dropped considerably over the next few years, making HDTV affordable for mainstream shoppers. From the early experiments with visual transmissions, two types of television systems came into existence: mechanical television and electronic television. 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. Many, at the time, strived for the comfort and simplicity depicted in TV shows such as Father Knows Best and Leave it show more content During the so-called golden age of television, the percentage of U.S. households that owned a television set rose from 9 percent in 1950 to 95.3 percent in 1970. The 1950s proved to be the golden age of television, during which the medium experienced massive growth in popularity. It also recommended that all U.S. television sets operate using analog signals (broadcast signals made of varying radio waves). Why. In 1939, RCA subsidiary NBC (National Broadcasting Company) became the first network to introduce regular television broadcasts, transmitting its inaugural telecast of the opening ceremonies at the New York Worlds Fair. Although it did not become available until the 1950s or popular until the 1960s, the technology for producing color television was proposed as early as 1904, and was demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1928. This series of five high school lesson plans teaches your students the highlights of the decade of the 1950s in America. 3 How did the television contribute to the conformity of the 1950s? Early receivers were a fraction of the size of modern TV sets, featuring 5-, 9-, or 12-inch screens. The FCC responded by placing restrictions on the ability of cable systems to import signals from distant stations, which froze the development of cable television in major markets until the early 1970s. Let us know your assignment type and we'll make sure to get you exactly the kind of answer you need. The cathode ray tube, invented by German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897, was the forerunner of the TV picture tube. Television programs in the 1950s encouraged an exploding and newly prosperous white suburban class to adopt normative social behavior. 3 The Television Candidate Mechanical Television versus Electronic Television. 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