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Chris Adkins Diana Watkins Eng Comp 11 26 February 2013 Televisions Positives For years television has been bashed for dumbing down our society. With mindless shows that drain our productivity, television can, in fact be found guilty of producing garbage for our entertainment. With the incriminating evidence being shows like Jersey Shore, Bad Girls Club, and Real Housewives, the jury would spend little time coming to a guilty verdict. These shows are jam-packed with arguments, fights and endless drinking, all of which have a negative influence on our society. Thank God those are not the only programs on television! Television is simply a medium used to convey a message. There are many messages and many channels and they are not all bad. Viewers choose to either stimulate their mind with something useful or pass the time with something more entertaining. It is the viewers choice. Television can be and in fact is a positive force for many people around the world. Through childhood education, news access, and religion, television is providing a beneficial commodity to people across the globe. Televisions most important benefit for our society is its ability to teach children. Children are so very impressionable and it seems like they pick up everything they observe. So having positive and educational shows on television helps them to both learn academic material as well as proper social behaviors. Television has served as an educational tool since the groundbreaking show Sesame Street aired in 1969. This well known children`s television program changed the face of educational TV for children. It showed that children not only learn from documentary style programs but also learn skills by modeling positive behaviors on television (Sedycias). People saw the benefits of this show and now television has many shows that successfully educate children. These shows both entertain and educate simultaneously,

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which is very difficult for a regular teacher to accomplish. Television is providing the children of today with a solid academic and social foundation to better increase their chances of becoming a confident and productive member of society. Not only do children get educated from watching television, but adults do as well. Television gives access to news that is going on around the world. Adults educate themselves on global issues and current events. It helps people stay connected and gives people something to talk about. The way people educate themselves on these issues is by watching the news broadcast. Without the medium of television, people would be oblivious to what is going on in the world around them. As Kashmira Lad puts it, we have the latest news in our drawing rooms due to the television set. By being able to watch what is happening in another country people become more globally connected. Peoples perception of the world changes when they travel. Well having global news has the same affect just to a lesser degree. If people did not see anything from other countries, their worldview would be tiny and selfish. News access provides people with valuable information about the world they live in. I believe it is safe to say that if we were to remove the news programs from television, we would be taking a step backward in our evolution. Without television providing the news, the world would revert back to when we were a bunch of separate countries coexisting instead of caring about each other. The only people that would be able to really know what is going on in the world would be the government. The populations would be segregated and kept in the dark. Television has enlightened the world with a global awareness that it lacked prior to the television being invented. For that, amongst other things, television must be considered beneficial. Amongst those other things are the religious benefits that people get out of television. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 78 percent of Americans are

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Christians. Another five percent are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or another faith, and many people of no traditional faith are still highly spiritual (Stearns). So having religion on television would just make sense, and it does. People not just in the United States, but around the world love having their religious programs on television. It provides them with a convenience that is unprecedented! People can actually learn more about their religion and their god by simply tuning in to a station. For some people that do not have reliable transportation to and from their worship centers, this is a big deal. They can receive the same benefits and participate in a service even if they do not reach their local church that day. Not only that, but on the days when the church is closed, people can still have church and be taught by major leaders in the faith through their own television. People are now being able to get as much God as they want. People in other countries who do not have a church to go to are now able to go to church here in the states through their satellite connection. For many across the world this is the only way they ever get to go to church. Yes, television has its accusers, but it also has those who have benefited tremendously from it. To end, television has provided the people with education, current event access, and religious empowerment. It has proved to be not only positive but beneficial to society as a whole. Yes, television has gotten a bad rap and it is time that the record is set straight. The only reason television is the way that it is today is because people allow it to be. If people were to stand up for what they think is right there would be less filth and more positive things on television than educational kids show, global news, and religious programming. The Television is a powerful tool with many benefits if used properly. Maybe it is time to stop complaining about how television abuses people and simply learn to use television properly.

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Works Cited Lad, Kashmira. "Pros and Cons of Mass Media." Buzzle.com. Buzzle.com, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pros-and-cons-of-mass-media.html>. This article give the pro and cons of mass media. There is a short paragraph that talks about mass media to begin with. She then goes on and lists pros and cons of mass media. There is no bias. This served as evidence in my news portion of my argument. Sedycias, Roberto. "Television and Education." Articlesbase.com. Articlesbase.com, 13 Nov. 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2013. <http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/televisionand-education-258200.html>. This article talks about television and how it actual a positive when it comes to education. It gives statistics on the subject about how it is positive. The writer gives alot of information I did not know previously. He has a biased toward the benefits of t.v. with education. I used this for evidence in my educational paragraph. Stearns, Richard. "Show More Religion on TV to Bridge the Cultural Divide." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 June 2012. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-stearns/show-more-religion-on-tv_b_1587054.html>. This article talks about religious programming on television. He talks about how christians are misportrayed on television. He talks about equality and respect for all people of faith. He has a christian biased. This served as evidence for my religious argument.

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