You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Television has had a significant influence on the culture of many societies. To what extent would you say that television has positively or negatively affected the cultural development of your society?
Use your own knowledge and experience and support your arguments with examples and relevant evidence.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer 1
It has been many years since television was first introduced to people and people today still have mixed views on whether it has a positive or a negative influence on society.
Many people believe that television damages culture. It promotes the stronger cultures of countries such as Britain and North America and weakens the cultures of less wealthy countries. This is because the stronger, wealthier countries can assert their own culture by producing more programs that are shown widely around the world. These programs then influence people, particularly young people, in the countries where they are shown.
Also, because television networks need to attract large audiences to secure their financial survival, they must produce programs which are interesting to a broad range of people. In many countries, this range is extensive because we are a multicultural society and people of all ages like to watch television. To interest all these different people, most television programs are short in length, full of action and excitement, do not require much intelligence or knowledge to understand and follow universal themes common to all cultures, such as love and crime. Television programs which concentrate on or develop themes pertinent to one particular culture are not so successful because they interest a smaller audience.
Nevertheless, we acknowledge that television does have some positive effects on the cultures within a society as well. People who do not live within their own culture can, in a limited way, access it through multicultural station on television. For example, Aboriginal children who have grown up in white families, or migrants and international students living in a foreign country, can watch programs from their own culture on the television.
In conclusion, I hold the view that television promotes and strengthens those cultures that are wealthy and influential while it weakens the cultures that are already in a weakened position.
Sample Answer 2
Television always had a significant role in cultures of many societies and it still has a great influence. Whatever we see in societies these days is some way or other impacted or influenced by what we see on television. The influence of television can be both positive and negative.
To look at the positive influence of television on society, it gives us knowledge about many things being its different culture, different regions of the world, their habitat and more other information. It gives us news about what happening worldwide and catches up on current affairs. It makes you aware of what is happening nearby and around the globe. As televisions and it networks being readily available in even remote parts, it’s a great medium to create awareness about many social issues among people and asking them to perform their part to make a better society.
But again we do see so much negative influence of television on people these days.
Kids getting exposed to many things at very young age, and people seeing crimes happening on television lead them to wrong doings. It’s very much known that we see many of the crimes happening these days are one way or another is influenced by what people see on TV.
As it’s said, an excess of everything is bad. Similarly, in a controlled manner with a proper supervision and regulation on what people are exposed to on television will always do good to society. It will help gaining an enormous amount of good knowledge and will be helpful in one or another way.
To aware people on many social issues, programmes via television will create a great impact and make the world a better place to live.
Sample Answer 3
Television is one of the most widely used modern technologies in this time. Television is a great source of information and entertainment. There are many programs and lots of channels that people can view and choose from. Some of the programs that televisions provide have both good and bad impacts.
To begin, television shows many film programs and news that are interesting to watch. It gives information which is mostly up to date, so we will know about the new information. With many learning programs, children can learn more about anything or probably know about another country although they have never gone there.
In addition, the advertisement in television programs can help some of housewives to improve their knowledge about cooking, housekeeping, gardening, travel etc. Because of that for a housewife who loves cooking sometimes they can learn through watching television programmes.
Furthermore, besides good information and other valuable information and entertainment that the television provides us, it could be a terrible problem to some people as well. For example, someone who really likes watching TV sometimes does not feel satisfied with their lives, because they want to be an actress or actor in TV, this condition shows that they are addicted to television. Also, children will have a low concentration with their subject in school. Many people get addicted watching TV, and that is harmful to them. The news presented on a TV is not always fair and many of biased news can cause great chaos among people.
In conclusion, television is an essential technology for every people today. Because it provides much information that really improves our knowledge, we can know anything about this world without even visiting there. But we must manage our time to watch TV and prudently schedule out the timing for TV. Parents must be cautious and take more control of their children’s TV schedule.
Sample Answer 4
It is said that television has a great power to influence people’s mind. To some extent, I do agree with this statement. The main con of television is that it has created the status system in our society. Today, companies are hiring celebrities to promote their products. Advertising products glamorously will create greed in the hearts of those who can’t afford that expensive product. For example, I have a friend who watches movies a lot. He was very much fascinated with the lifestyle which is nowadays shown on television. He does not have enough money to live that lifestyle so he starts practising illegal ways of achieving that lifestyle. He started the robbery.
Today, people are frustrated and depressed for not being able to have a luxurious life. Everyone is working hard to earn a lot of money, for which they must sacrifice their social and personal lives.
On the other hand, if we look at the positive aspect of this issue, we can observe that television is also a source of information. By watching informative channels, one can enhance his knowledge. One can improve his language by watching a particular language channel. For example, My friend has improved his listening skills of English by watching English movies and dramas. Moreover, I have a friend who is very much fond of taking dowry. He stated that he will marry a girl only who will give him a lot of dowries but by watching different shows which teaches him that taking dowry is one of the most horrible things one can do, he started neglecting the idea to take dowry.
All in all, everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. It totally depends on a person to what to learn from something. On the one hand, television is a source of knowledge for those people who want to learn something in their life and on the other hand television is the most horrible thing for those who want to remain uneducated for their entire life.