This is just my opinion: The thirst to influence and control societies(American Public)has lead the PTB(powers that be) to invent all types of devices,mindsets and everything in the middle,the ruling elite has never stop longing to and trying to figure out how to control us.The Tell-a-lie vision has been the most influential to this date.After crashing and burning up to the 1930’s a little radio show program with a aspiring actor(Orson Wells) proved that we can be controlled and influenced with ease.fast forward to NOW,the internet has basically replaced the TV,so naturally they want to to control it too.There is a war going on behind the scenes and we are the prize.Watch what you Read,View and listen to especially if it is coming from any government,state,city run organization because you(we) are a product not a human being like you(we) think. Sungod. 
Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium that is used for transmitting and receiving moving images and sound. Television can transmit images that are monochrome (black-and-white), in color or in three dimensions. The word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε (tèle), meaning “far”, and Latin visio, meaning “sight”. Television may also refer specifically to a television set, television program or television transmission.
First commercially available in very crude form on an experimental basis in the late 1920s, then popularized in greatly improved form shortly after World War II, the television set has become commonplace in homes, businesses and institutions, particularly as a vehicle for entertainment, advertising and news. During the 1950s, television became the primary medium for molding public opinion.
[1] In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting and sales of color television sets surged in the US and began in most other developed countries.”The War of the Worlds” is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series
The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It became famous for causing mass panic, although the extent of this panic is debated.[3]
The first two thirds of the 62-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to some listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program’s realism, and that others were primarily listening to Edgar Bergen and only tuned in to the show during a musical interlude, thereby missing the introduction that proved the show was a drama.[3]
In the days following the adaptation, there was widespread outrage in the media.[4] The program’s news-bulletin format was described as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers (which had lost advertising revenue to radio) and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.[3] Despite these complaints—or perhaps in part because of them—the episode secured Welles’s fame as a dramatist.
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Television’s Impact on American Society and Culture
TV is a constant presence in most Americans’ lives. With its fast-moving, visually interesting, highly entertaining style, it commands many people’s attention for several hours each day. Studies have shown that television competes with other sources of human interaction—such as family, friends, church, and school—in helping young people develop values and form ideas about the world around them. It also influences viewers’ attitudes and beliefs about themselves, as well as about people from other social, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.
Between the 1940s and 2000s, commercial television had a profound and wide-ranging impact on American society and culture. It influenced the way that people think about such important social issues as race, gender, and class. It played an important role in the political process, particularly in shaping national election campaigns. TV programs and commercials have also been mentioned as major factors contributing to increased American materialism (a view that places more value on acquiring material possessions than on developing in other ways). Finally, television helped to spread American culture around the world.
Racial minorities on TV
Until the 1970s, the majority of the people who appeared on American television programs were Caucasian (white). Being white was presented as normal in all sorts of programs, including news, sports, entertainment, and advertisements. The few minorities that did appear in TV programs tended to be presented as stereotypes (generalized, usually negative images of a group of people). For instance, African American actors often played roles as household servants, while Native Americans often appeared as warriors in Westerns.
Some critics argue that outright racism (unfair treatment of people because of their race) was the reason that so few minorities appeared on television. But television industry analysts offered several other explanations as well. In the 1950s and 1960s, for instance, the broadcast networks tried to create programs that would attract a wide audience. Before research tools became available to gather information about the race and gender of people watching, network programmers assumed that the audience was made up mostly of white viewers. They also assumed that many white viewers would not be interested in watching shows about minorities. In addition, the networks did not want to risk offending viewers—or potential advertisers—in the South who supported segregation (the forced separation of people by race). Whatever the reason, prime-time television programming largely ignored the real-life concerns and contributions of America’s racial minorities for many years.
There were a few early TV shows that featured minorities. The popular situation comedy (sitcom) I Love Lucy, which aired from 1951 to 1957, co-starred comedian Lucille Ball (1911–1989) and her real-life husband, bandleader Desi Arnaz (1917–1986), who was Hispanic. The Nat “King” Cole Show, a musical variety series that began on NBC in 1956, was hosted by the well-known black entertainer Nat King Cole (1919–1965). Even though the program attracted many of the top performers of that time, it was cancelled after one year because it failed to find a sponsor (a company that pays to produce a program for advertising purposes). A very popular early variety program, The Ed Sullivan Show, featured a number of black performers as guests. Still, African Americans mostly appeared on TV in the role of entertainers.
This situation slowly began to improve during the civil rights movement (1965–75), when African Americans fought to end segregation and gain equal rights in American society. TV news programs provided extensive coverage of civil rights protests, which helped turn public opinion in favor of the cause of equality. As awareness of racial discrimination (unfair treatment based on race) increased, more social critics began complaining about the absence of minority characters on television. They argued that positive portrayals of minority characters in TV programs could help increase the self-esteem of minority viewers, promote understanding, and improve race relations in the United States.
Breaking the color barrier
In 1965, African American actor and comedian Bill Cosby (1937–) costarred as a detective on the popular series I Spy. He won three Emmy Awards for his role. In 1968 Diahann Carroll (1935–) became the first black woman to star in a prime-time TV series. She played the title character in Julia, a sitcom about a nurse raising her young child alone after her husband’s death. Since Julia lived in an apartment building with both black and white tenants and never faced prejudice or discrimination due to her race, some critics complained that the show did not reflect the realities of the African American experience. But Carroll claimed that Julia was as realistic as any other fictional program on TV. “We all had to realize that television was not representative of any community,” she commented in Ebony. “It was a make-believe world. Even the white families were cardboard [one-dimensional or flat].”
During the 1970s, television program ratings began using such viewer characteristics as age, income, education, and ethnicity to break down the mass audience into smaller groups. Once the networks could collect more detailed data about the audience, they began creating programs to appeal to specific groups. Around this time, the networks also shifted their general focus away from older, rural viewers and toward younger, urban viewers, who were seen as more likely to spend money on sponsors’ products. This change in audience focus led the networks to tackle more frequently debated issues in their programs.
As a result, several programs featuring minority characters and families first appeared in the 1970s. The African American comedian Flip Wilson (1933–1998) hosted a successful variety show that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1974. The Flip Wilson Show reached number two in the national TV rankings and won two Emmy Awards. Some historians credit Wilson for leading the way for later black comedians who had successful television careers, such as Arsenio Hall (1955–), Eddie Murphy (1961–), Chris Rock (1965–), and Dave Chappelle (1973–). However, other critics claim that Wilson started an unfortunate trend in which a growing number of African American entertainers on television played the role of comic fool.
Another important minority show of the 1970s was Good Times, which aired on CBS for five years beginning in 1974. This situation comedy focused on the struggles of an African American family living in an inner-city apartment building. Each week the Evans family relied on love and humor to overcome discrimination, unemployment, crime, and other problems faced by many black families in the United States. Many TV critics praised the series for dealing with these issues in a realistic way, and many viewers identified with the family’s struggles during tough economic times. But some African Americans felt that the character of son J. J., played by Jimmie Walker (1947–), was a ridiculous stereotype. In fact, the actors who played his parents, John Amos (1939–) and Esther Rolle (1920–1998), left the show in protest when its focus shifted from the family to the clownish J. J.
The Jeffersons, which aired on CBS for a decade beginning in 1974, was another important show about an African American family. It was created by Norman Lear (1922–), who also created the popular but controversial show All in the Family. The sitcom centered on George Jefferson (played by Sherman Hemsley [1938–]), a successful black businessman who moved his family into a luxury high-rise apartment building in New York City. George often behaved rudely and made a fool of himself, only to be rescued by his patient wife, Louise (Isabel Sanford [1917–2004]). The program reached number four in the annual television ratings in 1974–75, demonstrating that shows starring African Americans could achieve widespread, popular success. But it also received criticism during its long run for portraying some characters as stereotypes.
The mid-1970s also saw the launch of the first prime-time TV series centering on a Hispanic character. Chico and the Man, which aired on NBC from 1974 to 1978, starred Puerto Rican comedian Freddie Prinze (1954–1977) as Chico Rodriguez. Chico is a talented young mechanic who builds a relationship with a cranky old garage owner, Ed Brown (played by Jack Albertson [1907–1981]). The show was set in a multicultural neighborhood in East Los Angeles, and it received critical praise for presenting a thriving Hispanic culture to national TV audiences. The show continued after the death of Prinze in 1977, but went off the air the following season.
Another landmark program in African American TV history is Roots, an eight-part mini-series (a short series of television programs with a continuing story line) that earned some of the highest ratings ever when it aired in 1977. Based on a historical novel by Alex Haley (1921–1992), it followed four generations of an African American family, beginning when the first member was brought to the United States from Africa and sold as a slave. Many people hoped that the miniseries would increase awareness of the impact slavery had on African American families, and thus would help improve race relations in the United States. …http://www.encyclopedia.com/register/index.aspx?docid=1G2-2687300020
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