ABSTRACT
TV is the primary communications medium of our age. It is our entertainer, our informer, our educator, our transmitter of culture, our codifier of ideology. It sets the agenda for political debate, manipulates our attitudes to ourselves and others, suggests shared images, stereotypes and paradigms. TV programmes put in front of us role models powerful enough to alter the way we behave. Real police carry out real actions in the style of their representation on the small-screen; politicians take up catch phrases, gestures and mannerisms ascribed to them by television satires. We know how undertakers, soldiers, bricklayers, authors, airline pilots, rock stars, factory workers are supposed to behave because we-and they-have seen it on television.
