Broadcast networks actively molded homogeneous postwar Americans into a unified consumer mass
Evidence
This had happened at a time of relatively homogeneous national sensibilities following the great collective effort of winning the Second World War. But as we’ve seen, broadcasters used their monopoly over the most powerful attention capture technology yet invented to mold that relative sameness into a single, national consumer mass, unified in schedule, attentional habits, and information diet. At the time, nothing could have been better for their business or American business generally. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 618
Categorization
- XREF: Extends the book’s running argument that broadcasters did not merely reflect a unified American audience but actively constructed it — a ‘manufactured consensus’ theme paralleling the shaping of demand seen earlier. — connects to: Postwar American consumption was politically constructed — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1721; Broadcast television absorbed the political energies of the 1960s into passive viewing — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 568; Cable networks rose by targeting demographic fragments instead of mass audiences — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 615 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Cable networks rose by targeting demographic fragments instead of mass audiences
#contradicts(0.82) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 615 - Broadcast television absorbed the political energies of the 1960s into passive viewing
#expands(0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 568 - The rise of personalized web consumption ended broadcasters’ power to compel attention
#contradicts(0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 921 - Media homogenization results from the broader political economy and financial capital’s power
#complicates(0.75) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 69