Television creates a false intimacy that substitutes for real community engagement
Evidence
Communications theorist Joshua Meyrowitz notes that the electronic media allow social ties to be divorced from physical encounters. “Electronic media create ties and associations that compete with those formed through live interaction in specific locations. Live encounters are certainly more ‘special’ and provide stronger and deeper relationships, but their relative number is decreasing.” Political communications specialist Roderick Hart argues that television as a medium creates a false sense of companionship, making people feel intimate, informed, clever, busy, and important. The result is a kind of “remote-control politics,” in which we as viewers feel engaged with our community without the effort of actually being engaged. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 837
Categorization
- XREF: Remote-control politics and false companionship resonate with the social-media-age critiques postdating this book; connects to what the reader knows about online engagement. — connects to: Television privatizes leisure and thereby erodes community social capital — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 67; TV talk shows deliberately engineer an illusion of intimacy with audiences — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 774; Media audiences form one-sided intimate relationships with performers — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 74 (+9 more)
- QUESTION: The ‘false sense of companionship’ thesis invites asking how social media’s parasocial dynamics extend or differ from TV’s version.
Broader Connections
- TV talk shows deliberately engineer an illusion of intimacy with audiences
#epitomizes(0.95) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 774 - Media audiences form one-sided intimate relationships with performers
#corroborates(0.90) — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 74 - Television adoption reduced community participation across age groups
#corroborates(0.85) - Rising TV viewing correlates with a large decline in civic participation
#corroborates(0.85) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 448 - Television privaatizes leisure even in group settings meant for sociability
#expands(0.75) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 849 - The networked audience differs from broadcast audiences in enabling active participation
#qualifies(0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 593 - Impartial broadcast form recruits viewers into a false neutrality toward class conflict
#expands(0.75)