reality of both social structures and relationships on one hand and the reality of the self as a social being on the other. Individual thinking and action arise from their relationship to the environment. When the individual acts, either he or society within which he acts will be affected. That connection with society suggests that oppositions can be resolved by the shape that the relationship between individual and society assumes. Social relationships can be seen as power relationships, with the power of the institutions with which the individual communicates bound to predominate.
The functionalist view of television would be that it fosters common social values by reason of the power of the broadcast image to establish standards of behavior, speech, and attitudes. Even though in the age of cable there are multiple television sources to appeal to a variety of demographic segments, the mainstream and standard of the television industry lies with the three traditional broadcast networks, which are the benchmarks of social norms. In that regard they are followed by other outlets of national scope, notably the news networks and C-SPAN. In times of crisis or other nationally shared experiences, these outlets also serve as the clearinghouse for meaning and information. For example, the networks and the news channels focus on everything from terrorist incidents to natural disasters to state funerals. In that way, they make of local incidents (e.g., an earthquake in California) shared experiences, such that the entire nation functions as a community.
The conflict view of television must emphasize the social divisions that only the mass media can emphasize. In particular, the talking-heads approach of so-called "news" programming stresses the polarized and polarizing views informing public-policy debate. Thus even though the mass population may have moderate or centrist views of cultural and/or political issues, the deliberately content...