Four Arguments for the Elimination of

Television
you really can't summarize complex information. And that television is a medium of summary or reductionism it reduces everything
to slogans. And thats one criticism of it, that
it requires everything to be packaged and reduced and announced in a slogan-type form.
But let me say this: the book is not really
four arguments, its really hundreds of arguments broken down into four categories. And
the categories have to do with a variety of effects that are not normally discussed. Most
criticisms of television have to do with the
television program content. People say if there
is less violence on television or less sexism on
television, or less this or less that, television
would be better. If there were more programs
about this or more programs about that, then
we'd have good television.
My own feeling is that that is true that its
very important to improve the program content
but that television has eects, very important
eects, aside from the content, and they may
be more important. They organize society in a
certain way. They give power to a very small
number of people to speak into the brains of
everyone else in the system night after night after night with images that make people turn out
in a certain kind of way. It aects the psychology of people who watch. It increases the passivity of people who watch. It changes family
relationships. It changes understandings of nature. It attens perception so that information,
which you need a fair amount of complexity to
understand it as you would get from reading,
this information is attened down to a very reduced form on television. And the medium has
inherent qualities which cause it to be that way.

1st edition (publ. William Morrow)

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

(1978) is a book by Jerry Mander, who argues that
many of the problems with television are inherent in the
medium and technology itself, and thus cannot be reformed.
Mander spent 15 years in the advertising business, including ve as president and partner of Freeman, Mander &
Gossage, San Francisco, a nationally-known advertising
agency.[1]

And the book is really about television considered from a holistic point of view, from a
biological point of view perceptual, environmental, political, social, experiential, as well as
the concrete problems of whether a program is
silly or not. But other people deal with that very
well. My job was to talk about television from
many of these other dimensions which are not
usually discussed.

Authors summary

In an interview with Nancho.nets W. David Kubiak,[2]

Mander summarizes his book:
Well, one of the points of the book is that
1

See also
History of television
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Luddites as an example of a social movement which
opposed specic applications of technology on political and social class grounds.
Media psychology
Social aspects of television
Television studies
The Shallows

References

[1] Mander, Jerry (1978) [First copyright 1977]. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. New York, New
York: HarperCollins. p. 375. ISBN 978-0-688-08274-1.
[2] W. David Kubiak. Nancho Consults Jerry Mander. Retrieved 2010-11-09. They give power to a very small number of people to speak into the brains of everyone else in
the system night after night after night with images that
make people turn out in a certain kind of way. It aects
the psychology of people who watch. It increases the passivity of people who watch.

External links
A review by Ron Kaufman
Arguments for the Elimination of Television part
one on YouTube a 9-minute video of Jerry Mander
talking about television
A summary, by George Karras, of the book
A review by Michael Rollins, December 28, 1998

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