Television is an amazingly powerful communication tool. Its images of culture, family, relationships, and events give us opportunities to socialize, teach, and inspire both children and adults. Empowered parents and communities are responsible for guiding the placement of television in the process of human development. My awareness of television’s power and potential began when I was a child and is confirmed when I view it from two current perspectives – parent and scholar.
I enjoyed television as a child, but I had a healthy skepticism about the messages I was receiving. Still, I was very enthusiastic, even way back then, about the potential of all this “stuff ” we watch on television as a vehicle for learning. But it wasn’t until I started traveling across the country conducting teacher training that my intrigue with the pervasiveness of the media led me to a driving passion to take full advantage of its awesome
potential to build community, educate, and inspire.
In city after city, diverse groups of people whose shared experiences were often limited to their job settings became one big happy family when we engaged in media-based activities. During their recollections of catchy tunes and TV characters, they would smile and exude a powerful energy of familiarity and warmth. When I used video clips from a TV show to stimulate discussion, it was hard to keep the group on task. Participants were much more interested in their Archie Bunker memories, whom they fell in love with on the Brady Bunch, or singing the lyrics from their favorite commercials. These shared memories helped the groups bond instantaneously. Upon realizing the power of this shared knowledge, I went on to
complete a self-designed course of study in film and television production so that I could expand my collection of video content from which to choose in educating, illustrating a point, or representing a point of view.
In my workshops and speeches, I began telling my own stories. Like the night I challenged Yakini, my seven-year-old daughter to question the lyrics she sang while drying off after a bath. “Are you really still dirty because you did not use Zest? Are you really only fully clean if you’re Zestfully clean?” “Is there really a bee inside our box of Honey Nut Cheerios?” Friends said I was fanatical and needed to just relax and enjoy the
entertaining value of television. Some workshop participants argued that we could never expect anything of real value out of television because of its profit motive. Others said that anything of value that came out of television was merely a coincidence. While TV viewing will always provide sheer entertainment, that is merely one gratifying effect. There are many more that we have only begun to explore as a community.