annke 3.12

annkeUID: 2605122

3.12: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
The purpose of television should all be educative, not entertain.

In recent years, there is a heated discussion about the function of Television which should be given the precedence, the education or entertainment. Some of people maintain that entertainment should be prior, arguing that people are inclined to enjoy something relaxing on Television after a whole day's tiring work. However, I disagree with the idea for Television is one of the major accesses for individuals get information, and it has a great influence on children who are favored of watching TV. Therefore, people should pay more attention to, at least equal attention to education.

First of all, as the advent of information age, it is essential that people should keep up with the time and have a clear view of how the world changing. Television is such a common and traditional way for people to acquire the information. For instance, from the news broadcasting on TV, we can get to know what happened everyday without stepping out of our living room. Also, the information of Television is selected and provided by professional media staff. It will definitely save the precious time for us to cover every corner of newspaper and Internet, which is probably efficient. Thus, if the Television is focused on entertainment, citizens who generally limited in the house would have to fall behind time, I think that's why some housewives have a communicative gap with their husband, maybe partly due to they are immerged in the soap stories.

Furthermore, as we all know, Television has a potential impact on people's mind and behaviors, especially for the teenagers. There is a famous a scholarly treatise on Mass Communication, I bet most of you have heard about it, that is Amusing Ourselves to Die, which provide a classical theory about the entertainment programs on TV. According to the book, teenagers are ever-increasing likely to imitate the character in the series or the entertainment programs, like American Idol. They tend to care more about their hair style and clothes when expose to entertainment program for a long time. What's worse, it is a fashion for teenagers to smoke, addict, or day dreaming to be a superstar, which result in poor performance on their academic activities. Hence, what should be broadcasted mainly on TV is not only a matter of preference, but also a serious social issue. In order to give an instructive guidance for the young, it is better for us to consider the educative TV programs.

However, it should be admitted that more people would like to view something amuse rather than something didactic and without sufficient viewers TV companies cannot survive in the fierce competition of media. Thus, considering of practical reasons, education and entertainment both should be provided and make sure the subtle balance.

To sum up, from my perspective, the primary purpose of television should be education contributing to the concerns of teenagers and board reliance on television to get information. Besides, I believe it will be an interesting exploration for media companies to combine education and entertainment, as they do not distinguish each other.