Dot, Bourdieu

Throughout his essay, Bourdieu's central argument remains that of the power television has over our society. He makes it very clear how ruling television really actually is, leaving little room for us to question otherwise. Many of the things he presents in his article can be easily related to everyday life, making his argument even stronger. 

While reading his essay, I was able to recognize areas of his argument in my own life. One thing he presents is the way in which television is able to diffuse information to mass quantities of people. In our society, most people own or have access to a television and If they do not readily watch it, they more than likely absentmindedly listen to what is being said when it is turned on. People who do not have time to sit down and read the newspaper can turn on the television and listen to the news while they are doing other things. This is one reason why I believe television has the power that it does. In today's world, everyone runs from appointment to appointment and rarely takes time to relax. They count on being able to quickly turn on the television to find out what is going on in the world rather than having to set out time to read about it. 

Our society also has a mindset of being told what to do. Bourdeiu also discusses this in his essay in relation to the way television has come to have so much power. He states that television tells us what we "should think", I believe that because of this, people have stopped thinking for themselves and have begun to rely on television programs to do it for them. Having this control definitely puts television in a high ruling position in our society.

If one day all the televisions in the world stopped working, or at least the news stations stopped broadcasting, what would people do? Would our society know how to function without television telling us how to? Could we really be a technologically -devoid society?