Easy Citizenship: Television's Curious Legacy

Abstract

This article argues that television has reduced the burdens of citizenship for the average American and that that reduction is dangerous. Television does all of this by overwhelming viewers with the sights and sounds of governmental life and by supersaturating them with political information. All too often, however, this tumult creates in viewers a sense of activity rather than genuine civic involvement. In addition, television constantly tells the story of specific persons in specific situations, thereby producing a kind of highly individuated, cameo politics that distracts viewers from common problems and public possibilities. Television does this work, and much more, in a highly entertaining fashion and is often genuinely informative. But television also produces an overwhelming passivity in viewers even while making them feel politically involved. The article argues that the American polity needs real, not hypothetical, involvement if it is to meet its civic obligations.