The Fourth Lego in The Lego Box

Marshall McLuhan was a nifty character who thought of various technologies as extensions of our natural sensory apparatus. A radio extends our earshot; a TV extends our eyeshot. Both allow us to explore the world far beyond where our bodies are located. He is famous for his comment: "The medium is the message." The more I chew on that idea and what I perceive to be his worldview, the more it makes sense while still making less sense -- simultaneously. No wonder McLuhan is hailed as "The Prophet" of the Information Age while, at the same time, being dismissed as a whacko.

In the 1980s, Neil Postman came along and wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death. He was in no small part influenced by the ravings of McLuhan, but his argument is quite clear: we are living in a Brave New World characterized by the burlesque; we are, quite literally, building and living in a society with institutions eroded to the point of inefficacy. At the center of this erosion is television; to attract participants and inspire participation, religion and politics must conform to the television format. In other words, ritual and routine are replaced by show business and gags designed to attract audiences. Institutions must conform or wither away. The audience determines what concepts survive.

In the 1990s, Robert Putnam terrified the world when he claimed we are -- or will be shortly -- Bowling Alone. Flashing a vast body of rigorous and intensive research, he exposed a decline in social capital and civic engagement. Post WW2 America, he claimed, was a hotbed of social activity. Membership in bridge and lunch clubs, baseball teams, and all sorts of events and organizations to which people flocked, for the pleasure of interacting with other people, were at an all-time high. In the 1950s and 1960s, television diffused. Putnam fingers it as the culprit behind a marked decline in civic activity, with the logical conclusion being 1-person bowling leagues.

There are indeed a lot of problems with Putnam's assumptions and claims, yet there is probably something to some of what he says. Large bodies of research suggest he is right while other large bodies of research suggest he is wrong. Regardless, Bowling Alone is certainly worth the read, and every now and then he writes an update.

So what do we have here? What exactly is the Fourth Lego?

We have to take a look at cultivation theory to answer this. For now I will be brief, but cultivation theory is very deserving of greater elaboration than I am willing to give it in the middle of the night. Cultivation theory basically tells us that the format of television shapes us. By format, I mean segment-ad-ad-ad-ad-segment-ad-ad-ad-ad. Postman gets into this and almost goes so far as to suggest it is the cause of Attention Deficit Disorder, but he never quite gets there. McLuhan would probably derive a message of capitalist slavery from the format. Putnam might suggest it's what keeps us watching. Regardless, these three gentleman addressed the the format (as opposed to content) of TV and claim it has a powerful influence on culture.

Gerbner and associates argue that TV has two important effects on audiences. First, by being exposed to the the format over and over and over and over again from birth to death, television cultivates a "mainstream" form of thinking. It makes sense: by giving us a shared experience, television audiences think and generally behave alike. Second, the amount of sex and violence on TV create a "mean world" effect. People who watch a lot of television tend to think violence is more widespread than law enforcement reports would suggest. When surveyed, heavy viewers are more apt to believe they will be victims of violent crimes than those who watch less television. (Something I don't understand is this: Gerbner and associates claim content doesn't matter when it comes to cultivation, but at the same time they claim a "mean world" effect.)

So, again, what do we have? What is the fourth Lego in the box?

There is no simple answer for this one, so I'm going to try to weasel out of defining it in any operable terms. The closest I can get is this: television extends our visual and audio senses, and we spend a good deal of time watching it. The format of TV and to some extent the content shape how we think and, subsequently, who we are not only as individuals, but as a culture. Heavy use of television may erode our social capital (and I will get into fragmentation at a later time) while at the same time creating a mainstream of thought and, simultaneously, a "mean world" perception among heavy viewers.

In other words, television shapes us in various ways. Just as those who live in sunny environments have darker tans, and just as those who live in the tropics have greater immunity to tropical diseases, those who live around television are influenced by it, whether it is through the format, the content or both.

Television matters.