We Are Constantly Subjected To The Drip, Drip, Drip Of

Passage A

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ffi"a

We are constantly subjected to the drip, drip, drip of arguments and

concerns in the media about specific aspects of television. Perhaps you read last week about a new connection between television viewing and obesity; today, you may hear of another controversy about television violence; tomorrow, a study looking at the effects of television on our social skills will be published. But debate has focused on the narrower and in many ways safer issue of the messages relayed by television as opposed to the wider issue of the medium itself. Yes, we are watching too much, but there is far more to this issue that we are not aware of

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To some, this devotion to television means simply that people enjoy watching television and make a conscious decision to watch it. Nowadays this is couched in the inviting language of'lifestyle' and 'choice'. But if this is true, why is it that so many people experience misgivings about how much television they watch? Researchers in Japan, the US and ihe UK have even identifled a middle-class guilt

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arising from knowing that you watch too much television instead of doing somethinq more productive.

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To consider television as habit-forming is an understatement. Why does Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Johnson, who has pdblished a number of key studies on the effects of television, declare that 'television is highly addictive'? Why would anyone consciously choose to watch a television screen for twelve years of their life? lf our relationship were with a substance as opposed to a screen, we would be talking in terms of abuse, overdose and going cold telly. Even so called sex addiction is a more readily accepted concept. We would not watch this much television unless there were powerful physiological mechanisms at workls the cosy expression 'telly addiction' really an overstatement? Reconsidering the role of television in our lives is inconvenient. We like to slob out after a hard day and we use television to occupy our children in order to buy us some time for ourselves. However, unlike straightforward health debates, a /a Fast Food Nation, where additives, contaminating agents and hidden fats can be revealed and blamed directly for causing cancer, heart disease and food poisoning, television's route to harm is more covert and hitherto difficult to explain. Yet another problem in evaluating the effects of television is the sheer lack of control groups to provide a point of comparison. lt seems that everyone has gone to the movies. Perhaps the biggest obstaele to having an honest look at the effects of television is the simple fact that we enjoy watching it. Criticising our main waking activity, aside from work, tends to bring about a selective deafness, along with an inclination to shoot the messenqer. Yet if we based our health policies on how much we enjoy things, hospital waiting lists would be even longer than they are now. Whether it is sunbathing, drinking alcohol, smoking in the family sitting room or eating junk food,

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we enjoy lots of things that are, after a ceilain point, bad for us or farthe resi of society. That js precisely why we recognise concepts such as units of alcohol, sunblock SPF, cholesterol levels, passive smoking and body lveight. Envisage a lime when we will finally talk in terms of recommended limits t'or hours per day of screen time.

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This state of afairs is reminiscent of how ihe tobacco industry managed for years to claim that people enjoyed smoking and that there waJno definitive proof that cigarette smoking actually caused lung cancer _ that there was only an association beiween the two, noi a causative relationship. The industry's scientisis were also pressured to cover up the findings that nicotine was addictive. ln a similar way, the sugar

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industry

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successfully funding and pressuring World He;lth Organisation scieniists to issue international guidelines and reports that cover up the strong link betur'een refined sugar and diabetes, obesity

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and death.

The most influential arena of all television - is hardly likely to broadcast bad medical press about itself and contribute io its own

demise. There is a suryival instinct within most powerful industries with prediciable responses to those who question their virtues: ' .._ this is merely speculation - there's no definitive proof'. Those who do advise a beiter safe-than,sorry approach are predictably referred to as being :rlarmist, over-reacting or jumping the gun. A slock answer is: .it's too early to conclude... there's no empirical basis for these assertions'. The most popular refrain is: 'This presents a one-dimensional analysis of ielevision as the cause of so many problems, it,s too easy to blame one thing for society's problems...' lt is reassuring to accept this type of soothing balm as it excuses us from having to change a comfortabie and fundarnental part of the way we live. There is also the gritty reality of academic funding and image. There is little money, funding and public gratitude in looking for the negative effects of the television screen. lt is far easier and safer to eiplore avenues ihat seem to acquit television or, better yet, seek out its virtues. Centres for media studies, which produce most of the research about television, seem curiously prone to sitting on the fence, so it is hardly surprising that the incriminating research concerning television comes from outside their jurisdiction. lt is often studies that focus upon health rather than television that happen upon worrying links between the two. Finally, there are other reasons why we have not had ihe biq debate Vet. Televrsion is a cultural force equalled in history only by reliqion, so should we be surprised that the media and government have stood jn the way of a forensic examination? After all both need us - the bewildered herd - to continue to take our cue from the screen Adapted from "Remotely Controiled,' by Arig Sigman

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Passage B

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Television turns out to be a brilliant medium for assessing other people's emotional intelligence - a property that is too often ignored when critics evaluate the medium's carrylng capacity for thoughtful comment. Part of this neglect stems from lhe age-old opposition beh/veen intelligence and

emotion: intelligence

is following a chess match or

imparting

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sophisticated rhetorical argument on a matter of public policy; emotions are the province of soap operas. But countless studies have demonslrated ihe pivotal role that emotional intelligence , plays in seemingly high-minded arenas: business, law and politics. Any profession that involves regular interaction with other people will place a high premium on mind-reading and emotional lQ. Of all the media available to us today, television is uniquely suited for conveying the flne gradients of these social skills. A book will give you a better vista of an individual's life story, and a newspaper op-ed is a better format for a riggrous argument, but if you are trying to evaluate a given person's emotional lQ and you do not have the option of sitting down with them in person, the tight focus of television is your best bet. Reality programming has simply recognised that intrinsic strength and built a whole genre around it.

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Politics too, has gravitated toward the television medium's emotional fluency. This is often derided as a coarsening or sentimentalising of the politicai discourse, tuming the rational debate over different political agendas into a Jerry Springer confessional. The days of the Lincoln Douglas debates have given way to'Boxers or briefs?" The late Neil Postman described this sorry trend as the show-businessification of poliiics in his influential 1985 book, Amusrtg Ourse/ves to Death. ln Postman's view, television is a medium of cosmetics, of surfaces, an endless replay of the Nixon-Kennedy debates, where the guy with ihe best makeup always wins.

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But the visibility of the medium extends beyond hairstyles and skin tone. When we see our politicians in the global living room of televised intimacy, we are not able to detect more profound qualities in them: not just their grooming, but their emotional antennae - their ability to connect, outfox, condemn or console. We see them as emotional mindreaders, and there are few qualities in an individual more predictive of their ability to govern a country, because mindreading is so central to the art of persuasion. Presidents make formal appearances and sit for portraits and host galas, but their day-to-day job is moiivating and persuading other people to follow their lead. To motivate and persuade, you have to have an innate radar for other people's mental states. For an ordinary voter, it is almost impossible to get a sense for a given candidate's emotional radar without seeing them in person, in an unscripted setting. You cannot get a sense of a candidate's mindreading skills by watching them give a memorised stump speech, or seeing their thirty-second ads, or God knows reading their caripaign blog posis. But what does give you ihat kind of information is the one-on one television

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intei-view format - Meet the ,Dress and Chalie Rose, of course, but probably more effeclively, Oprah, because the format is more social and free-flowing.

So what we are getiing out of the much-maligned Oprahization of politics is not boxers-or-briefs personal trivia - it is crucial information aboui the embtional lQ of a poiential President, information we had almost no access 1o until television came along and gave us that tight focus. Reading the transcript of the Lincoln-Douglas debates certainly conveyed the agility of both men's minds, and the ideological differences that separated them. Bul I suspect they conveyed almost no information aboui how either man would run a Cabinet meeting, or what kind of loyalty they would inspire in their followers, or how they would resolve an internal dispute. Thirty minutes on a talkshow, on the other hand, might well convey allthat information - because our brains are so adept at picking up those emotional cues. Physically unappealing candidates may not fare as well in this environment. (Lyndon Johnson would have a tough time of it today.) But the candidates who do pass the appearance test are judged by a higher, more diseriminating standard - not just the colour of their skin, but the content of their character.

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That is not to imply thal all political debate should be reduced to talkshow banter; there is still plenty of room for position papers and formal speeches. But we should not underestimate the information conveyed by the close-ups of the unscripied television appearance. That first Nixon-Kennedy debate has long been cited as the founding moment of the triumph of image over substance - among all those TV viewers who ihought Nixon's sweating and five o'clock shadow made him look shifty and untrustworthy. But what if we have had it wrong aboui that debate? What if it was not Nixon's lack oi makeup that troubled ihe TV watchers? After all, Nixon did turn out to be shifty and untrushr\,/orthy in the end. Perhaps all those voters who thought he had won after they heard the debate on the radio or read the transcript in the papers simply did not have access to the range of emotional information conveyed by television. Nixon lost on TV because he did not look like someone you would want as President, and where emotional lQ is concerned, looks do not always deceive. Adapted from "EveMhing Bad ls Good For You" by Steven Johnson

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Answer all the questions.

Note: When a question asks for an answer iN YOUR OWN WORDS AS FAR AS POSSIBLE and you select the appropriate material from the passage for your

answer, you must still use your own words to express it. Litfle credit can be given to answers which onli copy words and phrases from the passage.

From Passage A Paragraph 1 What does 'drip, drip, drip' suggest about the arguments and concerns in the media about specific aspects oftelevision?

pl

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Paragraph 2 Why are 'lifestyle' and 'choice' enclosed within inverted

t1l

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Paraqraph 4 Why is it 'inconvenient' to reconsicler the role of television in our jives? Use your own words as far as possible.

I2l

Paragraph 5 Why, according to the author, is it difficult ,to have an honedt look at the effects of television'? Use your own words as far as possible .

l2l

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commas?

Paragraph 6

What is the author's purpose in referring to the

induslriest

ry,

sugar and tobacco

pj

From paragraphs 7 and 8, summarise the factors that the author believes impede or hinder proper consideration of the negative effects of television.

Write your summary in not more than 120 words, not counting the opening:

"One of the facto.s that impede or hinder such proper consideration is

...',

Igl

From both passages

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Explain the meaning of the following words as they are used in the passages. Write your answer in one word or a short phrase.

a) b)

c) d) e)

covert (Passage A, line 34) envisage (Passage A, line 48) vista (Passage B, line j3) intrinsic (Passage B, tine 1B) banter (Passage B, line 67)

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From Passage B

B I 10

Paragraph 1 What does the author mean by 'the tight focus of

television'?

Paragraph 2 . Why does Johnson say ihat'the guy with the best make-up always

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wins'?

[2]

Parcgraph 4

What does 'much-maligned' say about the author's attitude towards popular TV talk shows on

politics?

t1l

From both passages

Sigman argues that television is a habit-forming medium of entertainment that has serious negative effects on society, while Steven Johnson suggests that television is educational because it helps us

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assess ihe political competencies of public figures.

Which author's view do you sympathise with more, based on your own knowledqe and experience? You may use examples from your own country to substantiate your ideas. IBl

!!

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