United States

Yet television itself is, of course, no one thing, nor, despite the many efforts since the time of the Canadian philosopher Marshall Mcluhan to define its essence, has it been shown to have a single nature that deforms the things it shows. Television can be everything from Monday Night Football to the Persian Gulf War’s Operation Desert Storm to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The curious thing, perhaps, is that, unlike motion pictures, where unquestioned masters and undoubted masterpieces and a language of criticism had already emerged, television still waits for a way to be appreciated. Television is the dominant contemporary cultural reality, but it is still in many ways the poor relation. (It is not unusual for magazines and newspapers that keep on hand three art critics to have but one part-time television reviewer—in part because the art critic is in large part a cultural broker, a “cultural explainer,” and few think that television needs to be explained.)

When television first appeared in the late 1940s, it threatened to be a “ghastly gelatinous nirvana,” in James Agee’s memorable phrase. Yet the 1950s, the first full decade of television’s impact on American life, was called then, and is still sometimes called, a “Golden Age.” Serious drama, inspired comedy, and high culture all found a place in prime-time programming. From Sid Caesar to Lucille Ball, the performers of this period retain a special place in American affections. Yet in some ways these good things were derivative of other, older media, adaptations of the manner and styles of theatre and radio. It was perhaps only in the 1960s that television came into its own, not just as a way of showing things in a new way but as a way of seeing things in a new way. Events as widely varied in tone and feeling as the broadcast of the Olympic Games and the assassination and burial of Pres. John F. Kennedy—extended events that took place in real time—brought the country together around a set of shared, collective images and narratives that often had neither an “author” nor an intended point or moral. The Vietnam War became known as the “living room war” because images (though still made on film) were broadcast every night into American homes; later conflicts, such as the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War, were actually brought live and on direct video feed from the site of the battles into American homes. Lesser but still compelling live events, from the marriage of Charles, prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer to the pursuit of then murder suspect O.J. Simpson in his white Bronco by the Los Angeles police in 1994, came to have the urgency and shared common currency that had once belonged exclusively to high art. From ordinary television viewers to professors of the new field of cultural studies, many Americans sought in live televised events the kind of meaning and significance that they had once thought it possible to find only in highly wrought and artful myth. Beginning in the late 1960s with CBS’s 60 minutes, this epic quality also informed the TV newsmagazine; presented with an in-depth approach that emphasized narrative drama, the personality of the presenters as well as the subjects, and muckraking and malfeasance, it became one of television’s most popular and enduring formats.

By the turn of the 20th century, however, the blurring of the line between information and entertainment in news and current affairs (that is, between “hard” and “soft” news) had resulted in the ascent of a new style of television program, infotainment. Infotainment came to include daytime talk shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show (later Oprah; 1986–2011), entertainment news programs such as Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, and talking-head forums such as Hannity & Colmes (1996–2009; featuring Sean Hannity), The O’Reilly Factor (with Bill O’Reilly), and The Rachel Maddow Show, whose hosts and host networks (especially the Fox News Channel and MSNBC) revealed pronounced political biases. Among the most-popular infotainment programs of the first two decades of the 21st century was The Daily Show, a so-called fake news show that satirized media, politics, and pop culture.

Political commentator and TV host Rachel MaddowMSNBC—NBCU Photo Bank/AP

Scene from the television series Seinfeld, with actors (from far left) Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, and Jerry Seinfeld.© Castle Rock Entertainment; all rights reserved

Cast members of The Sopranos (from left to right): Tony Sirico, Steve Van Zandt, James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli, and Vincent Pastore.© 1999 HBO