How Tv As Evolved Essay, Research Paper

Did you know there are more television sets in the world than there are telephones? Even

the television professionals find it hard to believe. However the statistics prove it. According to

official figures from the International Telecommunication Union there were 565 million

telephones in 1983, and 600 million television sets. Other statistics are just as impressive. In

Belgium, from 1967 to 1982, the average time spent watching television by children from 10 to

13 years, increased from 82 to 146 minutes per day. This amazed people.

Our senses are attacked every day visual images. Its almighty and instantaneitly are finely

tuned to our way of thinking, whether we are hard-worked or lazy. We expect from it effortless

pleasure and news. A Chinese word says a picture is worth ten thousand words.

But the astonishment takes its toll and we lust for more. Images pour over us in a

never-ending torrent.

Television has already modified our social behavior. It helps our taste for things that visual.

The impact of the picture and its colors. It encourages in us a strive for the big spectacle. The

effect can be seen in the way we react to one another and in the world of advertising. But

television cannot yet be said to have enriched our civilization. For that to happen it must become

interactive, so the viewers may cease to be just absorbers.

In the flood of images from the silver screen the less good accompanies the best, just as in cinema

or in literature. The factor which distinguishes television from the cinema and books, however, is

that the full quality range, down to the very worst, is offered to us round the clock, in our own

homes. Unless we take particular care to preserve our sense of values, we let it all soak in. We

have not yet become “diet conscious”, as regards our intake of television fare, although this is

becoming increasingly necessary as the number of chains available to the public steadily increases.

Without this self-control our perception becomes blurred and the lasting impression we have

ceases to be governed by a strict process of deliberate reflection.

Television cannot, on its own, serve as an instrument of culture. It has, to be appreciated that it is

not well suited for detailed analysis or in-depth investigation. The way it operates and its hi-tech

infrastructure are such that it cannot do justice to the words of the poet. How fortunate that there

is other media for that.

Television aims at our most immediate perception. Pictures…. to see almost to feel. It is a

medium for multiple contacts. It sets the whole world before us. It offers us entertainment games,

sports and more serious programs. Eurovision was created for that very purpose. Television offers

something of everything, and each viewer can pick and chose whatever he or she finds the most

illuminating.

The cultivation of a diet-conscious viewing public will be easier if the viewers can become

more familiar with the media and how they work if we can do away with the “telly” myth. Some

attempts have already been made. The 50th anniversary of television affords an excellent

opportunity to contribute to this movement and, by showing equipment and drawings, people hope

to enlighten people by working on this most consumed of consumer technologies.

A brief history

1873. Ireland. A young telegraph operator, Joseph May, discovered the photoelectric effect:

selenium bars, exposed to sunlight, show a variation in resistance. Variations in light intensity can

therefore be transformed into electrical signals. That means they can be transmitted.

1875. Boston, USA. George Carey proposed a system based on the exploration of every point

in the image simultaneously: a large number of photoelectric cells are arranged on a panel, facing

the image, and wired to a panel carrying the same number of bulbs.

This system was impracticable if any reasonable quality criteria were to be respected. Even to

match the quality of cinema films of that period, thousands of parallel wires would have been

needed from one end of the circuit to the other.

In France in 1881, Constantin Senlecq published a sketch detailing a similar idea in an improved

form: two rotating switches were proposed between the panels of cells and lamps, and as these

turned at the same rate they connected each cell, in turn, with the corresponding lamp. With this

system, all the points in the picture could be sent one after the other along a single wire.

This is the basis of modern television: the picture is converted into a series of picture elements.

Nonetheless, Senlecq’s system, like that proposed by Carey, needed a large number of cells and

lamps.

1884, the German Paul Nipkow applied for a patent covering another image scanning system:

it was to use a rotating disk with a series of holes arranged in a spiral, each spaced from the next

by the width of the image; a beam of light shining through the holes would illuminate each line of

the image

The light beam, whose intensity depended on the picture element, was converted into an electrical

signal by the cell. At the receiving end, there was an identical disc turning at the same speed in

front of a lamp whose brightness changed according to the received signal.

After a complete rotation of the discs, the entire picture had been scanned. If the discs rotated

sufficiently rapidly, in other words if the successive light stimuli followed quickly enough one

after the other, the eye no longer perceived them as individual picture elements. Instead, the entire

picture was seen as if it were a single unit.

The idea was simple but it could not be put into practice with the materials available at the time.

Other scientific developments were to offer an alternative. The electron, the tiny grain of

negative electricity, which revolutionized physical science at the end of the 19th century, was the

key. The extreme narrowness of electron beams and their absence of inertia caught the

imagination of many researchers and oriented their studies towards what in time became known as

electronics. The mechanical approach nevertheless stood its ground, and the competition lasted

until 1937.

The cathode ray tube with a fluorescent scene was invented in 1897. Karl Ferdinand Braun, of the

University of Strasbourg, had the idea of placing two electromagnets around the neck of the tube

to make the electron beam move horizontally and vertically. On the fluorescent screen the

movement of the electron beam had the effect of tracing visible lines on the screen.

A Russian scientist, Boris Rosing, suggested this might be used as a receiver screen and

conducted experiments in 1907 in his laboratory in Saint Petersburg.

As early as 1908 the Scotsman A. A. Campbell Swinton outlined a system using cathode ray

tubes at both sending and receiving ends. This was the first purely electronic proposal. He

published a description of it in 1911:

? the image is thrown onto a photoelectric mosaic fixed to one of the tubes;

? a beam of electrons then scans it and produces the electric signal;

? At the receiving end, this electric signal controls the intensity of another beam of electrons,

which scans the fluorescent screen.

All this work went into the making of the television. It did not go UN- heard. The

television caught on very quickly. In only one hundred years the television has very rapidly grown

into the main source of media for almost the entire globe.

The technology used to create the television also made it possible for the computer to be

invented. Even though the computer is superceding the television because it is interactive, it would

have never bin invented if the television wasn’t.

If the television has led the way for the computer and was the first invention to have visual

movement with sound was almost like being at the event.

All media is held up to be compared to the television. The television certainly has held and set the

standard that media should be held at.

If it wasn t for the television media may have bin fizzled out or it would still be primitive like the

time of the first books.

This is why the television is the most important medium of today. But you never know…

television today something better such as the Internet tomorrow.

How has Television programming changed from the 1970 s to the present? During the last two

centuries there has been a vast amount of change in Television programming, as well as the

American attitudes towards their viewing choices. As time passed, changes in style, physical

appearance, influence of society, and demand for more modern viewing choices have taken place.

The changes in Television programming vary going from black and white to color, and going all

the way from old-fashioned family based sitcoms in the 1970 s to sitcoms depicting Homosexual

lifestyles along with violence. The changes that have developed into what is now Television

today have influenced viewers everywhere.

As time has progressed, there is a greater demand for advertising the human body, and so

exposure along with sexual content have been advocated and greatly looked upon. This is

depicted in shows such as Baywatch, Pacific Blue, V.I.P and major cable television shows. In the

1970 s shows like these weren t around. Exposure of the human body in a sexual nature was

unaccepted.

Some Game shows are still around, such as the Dating Game, Newly Wed Game,

Hollywood Squares, The Price is right and just until a couple of years ago the Pyramid. However,

there are shows that no longer exist such as Password, Name that toon and many more family

based game shows. Now in the year 2000 Trivia and game shows are very popular. Viewers at

this point in time are watching more television than before. With more people watching the more

shows start to develop and publicize.

In the 1970 s culture was respected and presented in Television programs. As time

progressed, culture is highly looked upon and much more diverse. The diversity is expressed

through the channels which are in different languages and focus on different cultures. Such

channels include the Spanish, Indian, Chinese and Arabic channels. These focus on the culture,

values, and beliefs of that certain culture. The diversity in Television today offers a chance for

society to understand one another as a people and be exposed to different cultures and languages;

which in turn increases tolerance for diversity, in society.

The over all change of Television programming since the 1970 s has grown with society

and expanded to greater horizons, as a whole. The growth has taken place from the inevitable

influence of the development of modern styles, which affected physical appearance of individual

viewers and cast. Although, there have been many advances in Television Programming, there is

yet to come many more changes and development in future centuries.