Mass television delivered shared experience without the collective exaltation of a rally

Evidence

What was missing was the exaltation of the rally, the thrill of losing oneself in the common experience for as we all watched from our separate living rooms, it was as if we sat in isolation booths, unable to exchange any responses about what we were all going through together. Everybody was engaged in the same act at the same time, but we were doing it alone. What a bizarre situation! 12 The 1950s would be remembered as a decade of conformity, and while the reasons may be many and complex, one cannot exclude the most salient: the historically anomalous scale of attention capture effected by television, together with the homogeneity of the stuff created to do the capturing. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 456

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the distinctive character of mediated mass simultaneity versus physical collective gathering.
• XREF: connects to: Broadcast television absorbed the political energies of the 1960s into passive viewing — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 568; The counterculture was co-opted when networks traded relevant programming for viewer attention — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 584; Television privaatizes leisure even in group settings meant for sociability — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 849 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Broadcast television absorbed the political energies of the 1960s into passive viewing #expands (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 568
• The counterculture was co-opted when networks traded relevant programming for viewer attention #expands (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 584