How The Twilight Zone Reflected American Society in the 1950s

The introduction of television casted a wave of change in the lives of the American public. In Gary Edgerton’s The Columbia History of American Television, he described the uprising of television, “involved the most extensive and ballyhooed series of public relations events ever staged around any mass medium in American history. “ (Edgerton, p.1) The first presentation of television played a pivotal role on how the American public adopted the new medium of technology and communication. I will explore the grand manner of how television was presented to the American public during the early years by the direction of David Sarnoff, and televised special of the 1939 World’s fair. In addition, how this presentation of television generated the acceptation

Today, Film and Television are among the most internationally supported commodities. Financially, their contributions are enormous: both industries are responsible for the circulation of billions of dollars each year. Since their respective explosions into the new media markets during the mid-twentieth century, film and television have produced consistently growing numbers of viewers and critics alike. Sparking debate over the nature of their viewing, film and television are now being questioned in social, political, and moral arenas for their potential impact on an audience. Critics claim that watching films or television is a passive activity in which the viewer becomes subconsciously

Through David Letterman, Rudy and Ron’s fear as well as Edilyn’s confusion, Wallace examines television’s role in American culture especially in making pop culture. In fact, this

How many people today watch family sitcoms to imitate or compare values with their own? Probably not as many as there were in the 1950s. In Stephanie Coontz's "What We Really Miss about the 1950s", she discusses why people feel more nostalgic towards growing up in the 1950s, and how she disagrees that 1950s wasn't the decade that we really should like or remember best. Apart from economic stability, family values played an important part then. Through television sitcoms, such as "Leave it to Beaver", "Father knows Best", families watched them to make sure they were living correctly. It was like guidance and somewhat reassurance. However, values of families have changed, and this is shown on sitcoms today. We watch sitcoms today for

In their article “Moving beyond the 'Vast Wasteland'”, Laurie Ouellette and Justin Lewis critique how public broadcasting functions in the US. Liberal reformers hold to the view that television needs protection from commercialism. The liberal reformer view contains cultural and class hierarchies. They believe that public television is for the white, college-educated middle-class viewer who has “cultural capital”(Ouellette & Lewis, 96). As a result, funding for public broadcasting has gone primarily towards high culture and intellectual programs and not sitcoms or other popular forms of television. Ouellette and Lewis disagree with this, saying that these types of high-brow programming are not the only ones worthy of public investment. Instead, they argue that popular programs that are being commercially maintained also merit public support and investment (96). Rather than reserving public broadcasting for more educational programming, the authors argue that there is a more progressive solution that can incorporate popular media forms while still veering away from commercialization.

Through the Cold War, America was transitioning in various ways such as the way messages were shared, consumerism, and the constant race against the Soviet Union. During the years 1959-1964, Rod Serling, a New York writer and playwright began using one of the newest inventions, the television, as a way to share his opinion about controversial topics. The rise of the television allowed Serling to access to a larger audience whom he could share his opinion in the form of science fictional episodes in the show The Twilight Zone. Although the show seems ominous and a horror related TV show, it allows us to understand the effects and feeling towards topics such as a possible nuclear war, consumerism, space exploration.

Many people inaccurately assess the 1950s and 1960s. Historians, in particular, tend to describe the 1950s as a decade of prosperity and the 1960s as one of turbulence. According to most, peace and harmony defined the 50s while violence and protest conjured the 60s. This isn't true because controversy existed in the fifties, many achievements occurred in the sixties, and both decades had its political ups and downs. With all the criticism surrounding it, the 1960s remains one of the most controversial decades in American history.

The world has become an audience waiting for reality to be presented in an hour long television program, or a two hour movie. The fake landscape Truman lives in is our own media landscape in which news, politics, and advertising are increasingly made up of theatrical illusions. The Truman Show addressed our fear of how far reality television could go, but also our fears about

In an effort to expose the epistemology of television, which Postman believes has not been effectively addressed, he examines the effects of TV on several important American cultural institutions: news, religion, politics and education.  All four institutions, Postman argues, have realized that they have to go on television in order to be noticed which, in turn, requires them to learn the language of TV if they are to reach the people.  Therefore, they have joined the national conversation not on their own terms, but on TV's terms.  Postman contends that this transformation of our major institutions has trivialized what is most important about them and turned our culture into "one vast arena for show business" (80).  In the case of broadcast news, we see visually stimulating, disconnected stories about murder and mayhem along with a healthy dose of infotainment delivered by friendly and likeable anchors that remind us to "tune in tomorrow".  In the case of politics, we have discourse through distorted paid TV commercials and "debates" in which the appearance of having said something important is

“There is a fifth measurement past that's known to man. It is a measurement as huge as space and as ageless as endlessness. It is the center ground amongst light and shadow, science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's feelings of trepidation and the summit of his insight. This is a measurement of creative energy. It is a region we call A Twilight Zone!" (Rod Serling: A Twilight Zone). Brian Murray expounded on how, the earth shattering thing about the man who made an extensive number of these scenes from 1959 to 1964, Bar Serling, is that the writer arbitrator took in his specialty not in the visual period yet rather in the season of radio drama. It has been watched that Serling, whose characters routinely moved into long (and consistently captivating) moralistic jeremiads, made more for the ear than the eye. Moreover, it was Serling's sentiment great stunt — against comparability, scapegoating, war as a first resort, corporate voracity above quality — that passed on family to his substance and stories, and that served to marry hypothetical creation and financing, perhaps ever, to a type of good

The coincidence of the growth of television with the first military defeat for America was used by the government to explain why the war was lost: it wasn’t because of government policy or by underestimating the enemy but because television journalism and lack of censorship that undermined the whole operation “by ‘graphic and unremitting distortion’ of the facts, pessimism, and unvarnished depiction of both Americas youthful casualties and American ‘atrocities’ inflicted on the Vietnamese.” The amount of televisions in America was on the increase; ‘In 1950, only 9 percent of homes owned a television. By 1966, this figure rose to 93 percent.’ This alone shows the sheer coverage that the news had and the potential influence that it could impose upon the minds of the people. Not only did more people have television sets in their homes but more and more people were relying on television over any other medium to obtain their news. The survey conducted by the Roper organisation for the Television Information Office in 1972 shows us that 64% of people got most of their news from television, an 8% increase from the survey conducted in 1964. Another factor in the power of television was not just the fact that it reached a wide audience, it was also the fact that people were more likely to believe what the television news said over reports in the newspaper or radio, especially if the reports were conflicting in nature. This was due to two factors; the personality who

Kurt Andersen is an American novelist and radio host who graduated from Harvard with a magna cum laude. He worked as a writer for numerous reputable magazines. He has his own talk show called Studio 360 which has won the Peabody Award. He is the author of three books that have become bestsellers in their published years. Many of his novels focus on the culture of America. Kurt Andersen’s article Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History is a take on how and when America went absurd. This article was published in The Atlantic magazine. With the article being published in The Atlantic magazine, his target audience is curious people who are eager to accept or challenge new ideas to ultimately progress. The article’s purpose is to bring awareness of the influence the 60s, 70s, and beyond had on Americans and how we as humans can make an effort to combat this issue. Which is how Americans began to make their own alternate realities within their communities and how it has affected the country

The ‘Golden Age of Television’ is what many refer to as the period between the 1950s and 60s when the television began to establish itself as a prevalent medium in the United States. In 1947, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and the Du Mont Network were the four main television networks that ran stations with regular programming taking place. (Television, 2003) While regular television programming was a new innovation, the television itself had been commercially available for over twenty years prior to the 50s. It was conceived by many worldly innovators and went through several testing stages before it was finally completed in the late twenties. The

Television is one of the best innovative inventions ever. There are so many networks that offer a variety of channels that cater to the likes of their audiences. This major media platform contributes to informing, persuading, and entertaining the public. More than anything, television provides us with TV shows that spark our many interests. In other words, television reflects reality and fabrication, but both keep us wanting to see more. Once Upon A Time is a show on ABC that does just that and more. The seven truths that the media do not want us to know are all represented in this show. Now, that we are consciously media literate, we are able to recognize and uncover concepts portrayed that reflect

The Twilight Zone was one of the most influential tv shows of all time. The twilight zone was so influential on the American family because of the screenwriter Rod Serling(Rod Serling 1). Rod Serling used his scripts to talk about issues going on. He also used his scripts to mess with the mind of the reader(Pendergast 764). The Twilight Zone had a huge impact on the American society because of the topics they would cover in their episodes.