TV as Storyteller:The Breakdown of a Tradition Gary Granzberg (bio) Introduction The impact of TV upon our lives is more profound than previously imagined. A rapidly expanding body of research has detailed the way TV has transformed many of our society's institutions including, most notably, politics, communication, recreation and education. But not only has TV transformed our outer lives, it has transformed our inner lives as well. The changes it has introduced in our society's institutions are clearly implicated as factors responsible for rising levels of alienation, conflict, anxiety and insecurity. Research into TV's impact upon our educational institutions is most enlightening in this regard, especially as it focuses upon children's education. In this domain a mass of information has been compiled which has furthered understanding of such matters as how TV has transformed the kinds of models children receive, the training they get in delay of gratification and attention-span, and the cues they receive with regard to how the real world is shaped and what to expect from it. Though these are matters of undeniable importance, it appears that in the rush to document details of the changes that have taken place in our children's education, researchers may have failed to perceive a broader aspect of their work. For if the researcher were able to take a step back from his work and view the situation as a whole; and if he were able to make a broad comparison between the educational process as produced by TV and the educational process as it exists in pre-TV, indigenous or Native systems, he would see that what he has uncovered is a group of symptoms which have resulted from the breakdown of one of mankind's most important tools for the education of the young. What he is seeing, he would realize, is a breakdown of the time honored tradition of storytelling. An exploration of TV's impact from this perspective should shed new light on how TV is transforming our lives. If we recognize the traditional meanings and uses of storytelling in society, and if we realize the extent to which these meanings and usages are transformed when TV takes over as the #1 storyteller, we will more clearly comprehend the problems we are facing in promoting intergeneration linkages and social' solidarity, and in fighting alienation. [End Page 18] Storytelling in Cross-Cultural Perspective An examination of what it means to have a society in which storytelling has been taken over by TV sets may best begin, perhaps, by examining storytelling as it appears in the pre-TV context—when the storyteller is still a human being. Though this will be achieved largely by reference to material I collected while conducting field work among the Hopi and Cree Indians, I will be aiming at a characterization which I believe fairly represents storytelling in all non-urban, pre-TV societies, even our own North American society before the age of mass media. Among the Hopi and Cree, as among practically all indigenous peoples, the story is venerated as an effective entertainment and educational device. Indeed these two functions are seldom separated, and stories almost always act in both realms simultaneously. This is so much the case that Hopi and Cree are not very familiar with the concept of a story solely oriented to the entertainment function. They do come into contact with such stories in the White Man's schools and at his movie houses and TV sets, but they tend to be bored by them unless they are very concrete and cover very familiar territory (like westerns, which feature familiar old fashioned patterns in man's relation to nature, and soap operas, which feature familiar patterns of gossip and social power struggles). In such cases the stories may often be given undue credence as depictions of real and representative current or historic events. A story may be told at any place or time. There are, however, times of the year when certain kinds of stories are regarded as taboo. This tells the child that stories are very important and not to be taken lightly. A story is often evoked when a child...