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Television News and the Nation: The End?

Author

Listed:
  • Menahem Blondheim

    (Dpartment of History and the department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

  • Tamar Liebes

    (Carl and Matilda Newhouse Chair in Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Abstract

The golden age of television news gave a large majority of otherwise diverse Americans a unified, seamless, and clear-cut image of their nation, its central players, and its agenda. Carefully scheduled, edited, sequenced, and branded, heard and seen simultaneously across America, it provided a pretense of order to the chaos that is news. The permanence and stability of the nation, as expressed in a complex way by TV news, provided Americans with an all-important sense of existential security experienced on an unarticulated emotional level. Today, a disjointed news environment is crushing the nature of network news as a transitional object. Television news no longer reassures viewers by connecting them to a surmountable world out there but carries them on a loop from themselves to themselves.

Suggested Citation

  • Menahem Blondheim & Tamar Liebes, 2009. "Television News and the Nation: The End?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 625(1), pages 182-195, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:625:y:2009:i:1:p:182-195
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716209338574
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