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Essay / Role of Television in 1950s America
Prompt: How did television affect American culture and politics in the 1950s?The beginning of social mediaFive years after the end of the Second World War World War II, the 1950s brought an era of economic prosperity, which changed some cultural norms and provided people with quick and easy access to information, entertainment, and other things. However, the introduction of television was not great. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, television programs, often financed by the government, broadcast propaganda about various political events. Television swept the country during the 1950s, with the number of television sets increasing from one million in 1949 to fifty million in 1959, leading Senator John F. Kennedy to declare that it "radically altered the nature of our political campaigns, conventions, voters, candidates and costs. in 1959. This would eventually cause every American citizen still alive to see the program. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayThe advent of television gave the public access to instant information and the government began broadcasting propaganda about communism and the Cold War. tensions to the public through these channels. Just like after World War I, the American government was afraid of the spread of communism throughout the world; this caused the first Red Scare. After World War II, this old Red Scare was elevated to the point where people were literally afraid of the Russians, or as they were called at the time, the Soviets. The American fear of communism and the development of the atomic bomb was at the origin of the Cold War with the USSR. Since the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Nagasaki, countries around the world realized what America could do to their enemies and began developing their own bombs. One country in particular has left Americans fearing for their lives. Seeing this, some politicians exploited this fear by releasing certain propaganda advertisements that would eventually make the children of the time hate Russians and Soviets. In addition to targeting children to hate the Soviets, television helped establish a new cultural phenomenon such as social media. and entertainment. Networks such as NBS, CBS, and ABC all launched around this time. The 1950s saw the creation of iconic television sitcoms such as "I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners," "The Adventures of Superman" and the predecessor to all modern talk shows, "The Ed Sullivan Show." With the invention of these shows, the way people went about their daily lives changed. It used to be that men worked in factories, women stayed home while the kids were at school, and then they all came home, had dinner, read a book/listened to a radio show, and went to bed. Thanks to television, there was daytime television and evening television, or otherwise known as television that children watched before bed/after coming home; the TV that the father watched late at night; and the TV that the mother watched when she came home. AKA: cartoons, soap operas, news, late night shows and sitcoms for the whole family. Families spent their nights huddled together in front of the television instead of going out to socialize, as they did before the advent of television. It also led to the Golden Age of Hollywood. Being an actor/actress has become a profession.