Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, a few comments.
Watching television is different than attending school in America. As Postman says, with television the emphasis is on images and fun, rather than language and learning. You aren’t legally required to watch television, but you are required to attend school. You do not have to participate in anything when you watch television, but at school you are immersed in a definite medium which demands certain responses and other behaviours. In short, there is an involvement.
The notion of “commandments” of television is related to the concept that television is “just for fun”, that it does not require anything of us in the way of effort. One must be able to join a wildlife documentary at any point, and be as titillated by the commentary as somebody who has been watching it for over half an hour. This philosophy can be extrapolated beyond the single show, to a constellation of wildlife documentaries (or anything else), none of which demand any form of qualification other than to be a relatively higher conscious entity (cats and dogs watch TV all the time, especially wildlife documentaries). To produce material so utterly lacking in its ability to provoke effort, television must retain a “nowhere” perspective, ensuring that the viewer is told a story rather than asked to formulate an opinion. From the viewpoint of television executives, asking people to form opinions is not good television, as it may cause them to change channels or, worse, send them off in search of more substantial representations of the issue at hand (like books).
Some people have learning difficulties and require a more visual form of educational instruction than traditional lectures. As a result, increasing numbers of visual-aid learning devices are being introduced into classrooms. Modern technology has also made it possible for colleges to offer “Distance Learning” courses, where students study with the aid of videos, the internet and DVD’s. The commandment, “Thou shalt have no prerequisites” is quite obviously broken here, and distance learning properly finds its place on the side of education, and not entertainment. People are not required to sit exams based on what they saw on television, nor do they receive credits toward educational qualifications, for good reason. When PowerPoint presentations, overheads and televisions are used in classrooms, they are used as a means to an end, and not, as Postman says, as a form of “entertainment as an end in itself.” When Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death, the InfoTech revolution was in its infancy. He cannot have guessed the potential for visual aids as a communication-educational tool. Even so, the TV Commandments remain a threshold between two very different forms of “learning”.