Television Industry is Bad for Society

Since the television first entered the home it has had a gigantic influence on the way society thinks, dresses, eats, and moves. Even though society has moved away from sitting down in the family room at the same time every night to watch the evening news, televisions control many aspects of people’s lives. With the creation of the first television, an even bigger beast was created: the television industry. Filled with corruption and deceit, the television industry is comprised of workaholic, narcissistic moguls who will do anything to increase ratings, even if it means lying to the public.

The 1976 film Network takes a satirical perspective on the unethical practices of the television industry. Network critiques the television industry by showing how TV executives will go to extreme lengths to ensure their network/ program is the most successful. The lengths include exploiting the public and the employees that work for the corporation and even killing ones who get in the way of potential success.

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Ultimately, based on the film Network, the television industry results in nothing but manipulation, death, and hive mind-like thinking.

Network critiques television in several ways, but the most obvious comes halfway through the film when Howard Beale is giving one of his “prophet” speeches. Beale had just been granted his new show and was giving a very animated rant to, not only the live audience, but for the people watching at home. The premise of Beale’s speech was that people have no knowledge of anything but what the television feeds them.

He describes it as a “boredom-eliminating industry” that was created to simply influence the minds of society. Beale critiques television by comparing it to a circus and saying it contributes to the mass madness of the world.

This critique was relevant in the 1970s and is still pertinent today because the television contributes to the mass media toxicity society participates in. The television industry forces us to watch and influence our thoughts and opinions more than we think. For example, when people watch political news, they are unknowingly swayed to one side or the other. With networks like CNN and FOX, the contrast between the two is harshly polarized. Thus, producers and executives will do what it takes to sway the public in favor of the Democrats or Republicans. The television executives are the ones who foster an environment for mind games the public has been submitted to.

One of the most interesting parts about Network is the way in which it critiques or rather mocks television. The news anchor, Howard Beale, is supposed to act as the voice of the people, a modern-day prophet of sorts. Beale was a brilliant news anchor who had numerous years of experience but slipped into a psychotic state because he suffered the death of his wife and he was fired from his job. The character of Beale is interesting to watch develop throughout the film because the audience is able to see how he is basically forced into madness, exemplifying how cruel the television industry can be. The television producers and executives saw an opportunity for Beale’s madness.

So, instead of getting him the proper mental health help he so badly needed, he was subjected to the limelight. Beale’s insanity was used to get more ratings and drag Union Broadcasting System out of the ground. Once one of the producers, Diana Christensen, saw the words Beale was spewing and how much the world loved it, she pushed the executives to give Beale a show. In fact, Diana mocked Beale and what he said, even admitting that he was crazy. The only person who saw that Beale needed professional health was his co-worker and longtime friend, Max Schumacher. At least, he attempted to try to take Beale off the air. It makes the audience wonder, how can human being treat another like a circus animal? The way in which Howard Beale was treated, or rather mistreated, proves how merciless and ruthless the television is; they truly do not care about anything but money and ratings.

Because Schumacher seemed to be the only one who could see through the maliciousness and outward ignorance of UBS, he acts as a sort of “crazy” person as well. Schumacher comes off as cynical middle-age man who is quickly approaching retirement, but really he is the omniscient one. He gets what is going on with the industry and what the executives are doing with his friend. In a way, Schumacher is the epitome of what today’s society is not and what the television industry should be. He sees the unethicality of the network. In one of the last scenes of the film, Schumacher is in the process of leaving Diana and he says to her, “everything you and the industry touch is destroyed.” This statement rings true to this day because the television industry is still corrupt and still filled with corrupt employees like Diana.

The executives allowed Beale to say whatever he wished until he said the wrong thing. Once Beale started to talk about real issues that affected UBS, the executives blew up with rage and wanted to fire him. Instead of firing him though, the top executive used Beale’s mental illness against him. He got into Beale’s fragile mind and manipulated him into saying the “right” things according to UBS. Ultimately, Beale became a nuisance to the executives and the show was not doing as well as it had when it first started. Because Beale was no good to the network anymore, the executives decided to have Beale assassinated on live television.

The way in which Beale is depicted in Network has similar aspects to a real-life situation that happened two years before the film was produced. In 1974 Christine Chubbuck, a news anchor for a news station in Sarasota, Florida, committed suicide during a live broadcast. Initially, audiences thought it was staged to get more ratings, but Chubbuck’s death was very much real. According to her family members, Chubbuck battled with mental illness and even talked about suicide with them and her co-workers. Chubbuck was seeing a psychiatrist prior to her death, but was something that her co-workers and bosses had no knowledge of because she was afraid she would lose her job.

Another fact that should have been alarming to Chubbuck’s network co-workers is that she asked to do a story on suicide three weeks before she died . Chubbuck’s brother was quoted saying, “That salacious part of television, Chris detested. Was her final action a raging statement against that sort of television? Yes, clearly it was.” Even though Chubbuck was clearly in distress and needed help, she was not able to get it because of the television industry and the constraints it put on her. Beale also discussed how he was going to commit suicide on the air in Network and, yet, the executives wanted to give him a reality television show. The death of Christine Chubbuck is an absolute tragedy that could have been prevented if the priority were the lives of the industry’s employees and not ratings. Television and the industry not only put a strain on the minds of the people watching, but also the ones who work for it.

Network foreshadowed the impact of reality television by showing how Beale was used as a pilot for a reality show. Beale’s show set the example of what reality television looks like today. Essentially, Beale was given his own show where the producers gave him free reign to say whatever he wanted to say. Today’s reality television shows have the same foundation as Beale’s. They follow people around and let them say anything the want in hopes of getting the highest ratings. With Beale’s reality show, the audience and producers never knew what he was going to say, creating a sense of drama. Reality shows thrive off of drama and use it to promote episodes. With the invention of reality television, came even more options for networks to combine and make a profit.

As previously discussed, the television industry is a negative entity that Network offers several critiques to. Interestingly, Edwin Baker’s Media Concentration and Democracy: Why Ownership Matters offers several critiques as well. In chapter three of his book, “Not a Real Problem: The Market or the Internet Will Provide,” Baker discusses the dangers of concentrated communicative power. This subject is relevant to the discussion of television because over the years, several networks have merged together to become giant conglomerates. Baker states,

Concentrated communicative power creates demagogic dangers for a democracy, reduces the number of owners who can choose to engage in watchdog roles, may reduce the variety in perspectives among the smaller group of people who hold ultimate power to choose specific (varying) watchdog projects, and multiplies the probable conflicts of interest that can muzzle these watchdogs…Media ownership concentration can deter major media entities from investigating or discussing major issues unless or until the issue becomes too obvious to ignore.

Baker’s arguments about media concentration directly correlate to television and how it is run. When networks combine to make more profit, they are diminishing the voices of other networks and, ultimately, the people. Journalism, especially broadcast journalism, is corrupt as it is, but once networks become more concentrated, they contribute to the hive mind way of thinking. With less networks, the information distributed becomes more filtered in the sense that only the details the executives find important are dispersed.

The concentration of communication is dangerous because it can cause the dissemination of poor news. According to Baker, cross-ownership is a poor concept because it can hurt new stations, journalists, and surrounding communities. He discusses cross-ownership as when two local news stations combine to make one and gives several reasons as to why it would not work. In one of the last points Baker makes he states, “[cross-ownership] will have reduced economic competition between these two ‘local news’ producers, possibly allowing both to get away with supplying even lower quality than before…”. Networks manipulate the news to their standard, so by cross-owning, information becomes even more blurred. Having low-quality broadcast journalism is a terrifying reality that the world already has to live with and concentrating networks only makes it worse.

The film Network takes a satirical approach to critiquing television and provides evidence as to why the television industry is bad for society. It is interesting that the film was produced in the 1970s because it means that people viewed television and the industry already as a lethal entity. From observations, TV and its industry has changed drastically but as remained just as poisonous, if not more than it was in the 1970s. Beale’s character exemplifies how the general population is manipulated by television. In a way, society is Howard Beale and the executives are the ones getting into our heads and telling us what to feel and how to act. Through the mass concentration of media, news has become even more manipulative and a poor influence on individual’s minds.