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Product Description
Book Description
A total departure from previous writing about television, this book is the first ever to advocate that the medium is not reformable. Its problems are inherent in the technology itself and are so dangerous -- to personal health and sanity, to the environment, and to democratic processes -- that TV ought to be eliminated forever.
Weaving personal experiences through meticulous research, the author ranges widely over aspects of television that have rarely been examined and never before joined together, allowing an entirely new, frightening image to emerge. The idea that all technologies are "neutral," benign instruments that can be used well or badly, is thrown open to profound doubt. Speaking of TV reform is, in the words of the author, "as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns."
About the Author
Jerry Mander holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Economics, spent 15 years in the advertising business, including five as president and partner of Freeman, Mander & Gossage, San Francisco, one of the most celebrated agencies in the country. After quitting commercial advertising, he achieved national fame for his public service campaigns, leading the Wall Street Journal to call him "the Ralph Nader of adevertising." In 1972 he founded the country's first non-profit ad agency, taking leave of that in 1974. Mander is co-author of The Great International Paper Airplane Book.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
My TV has now been disconnected 4+ months...,
By
This review is from: Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television (Paperback)
...and as I peruse this book it only assures me I should not and can not "go back to the way things were".It has been praised by other reviewers far better than I could, so all I will say is that it is a very UNIQUE book. It covers statistics and surveys you will never find in Time magazine, and it examines even the physics behind the images, the way camera shots change frequently, etc. I have not even read every page, there is just SO much in there! The parallels to "Brave New World" or "1984", in terms of the power this one technology has in controlling masses of people... Well, it's simply staggering. The little tidbit about the TV "news" program being almost a miniature "family"... Well, that was news to me but in hindsight makes a lot of sense. I am now extremely skeptical of the value and the benefit of TV as a whole. I pray more people hear about this book, written in the 1970's but even MORE timely today! Don't read this if you are too weak to give up your music videos and mindless sitcoms... Perhaps you would be happier remaining one of millions of "sheeple". Maybe buy a copy and give it to your kids, while there's still time - they're our hope for the future!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
very reasonable and persuasive,
By
This review is from: Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television (Paperback)
Mander presents four main arguments, and dozens of corollary arguments, against having television as any part of our lives. Any one of them alone might seem plausible but perhaps overblown, but the overall effect of their combined presentation is overwhelming. I closed the book absolutely revulsed by the nature of this technology and how it has manipulated us. I can anecdotally attest to its ill effects in my case, certainly -- I can recognize thousands of brands but only a few plants. My direct knowledge of the world has been reduced by about 20,000 hours' worth of actual experience interacting with real people, time that I spent instead glued to the boob tube, absorbing hundreds of thousands of commercials. I don't have a TV anymore, but whenever I am around one that's turned on, I find myself hypnotically drawn to stare at the screen, irrespective of content. This occurs even if I am in the middle of an interesting conversation -- to my embarrassment and dismay, my eyes dart as of their own accord toward the flickering images. I have to stand facing away from the TV to prevent this. What I consider to be my natural aesthetic sense has been perverted such that I can hardly look at a man or woman -- or myself in a mirror -- without automatically, subtly judging the person's appearance against an internal metric, a deep and narrow palette of beautiful faces and lithe body parts, implanted by hundreds of thousands of advertising images. This phenomenon subtly cheapens and distorts many interactions I have with people. .... Just scan the table of contents to Mander's book, ..., and you will begin to see the array of influences these forces have in our culture and in our individual minds. Please buy the book, give it to everyone as gifts this year, ***especially to parents of small children***. I see parents use the TV as a pacifier, but as you will read, it is an incredibly high price to pay just to keep the kids temporarily quiet. ....
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book about television,
By Casca (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television (Paperback)
Jerry Mander shows how TV is an integral part of late capitalism.Although it was invented in the 1920's,TV was not put to use until after 1945, to promote the consumer society with advertising and a materialistic lifestyle.Most critics of TV are concerned about program content, but Mander shows that TV by its very nature is detrimental to human well-being.Like modern society as a whole, TV creates artificial experience, causing people to lose touch with their own nature, their true needs, other people and the natural world.TV puts the viewer into a passive hypnotic state.Mander shows how TV implants images in our brain, even against our will.Although nothing on TV is really "real", it tricks our mind into thinking that the pictures portray reality.Negative behaviors such as fighting, killing,rage and hate are very suitable for TV, but gentleness, affection,caring and the like is boring on TV.Mander says you cannot make TV "better", it must be eliminated.This book deserves a wide audience, because Mander gets to the root of what is wrong with television.
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