ABSTRACT
Studies of the history of television reveal that the broadcast media have been constituted by the twin forces of democracy and capitalism in the United States. The democratic imperatives of television include the establishment of broadcasting as part of the public sector, as a public utility to be governed by the public interest. From the beginning network television has been the creation of private enterprise, and only in the United States is television so free from accountability to the public and government. This chapter explores some of the institutional structures of television and explores its key social functions and contradictory imperatives and effects. It develops a critical-institutional theory of television, which conceptualizes the multifaceted functions of television within US society and attempts to specify its complex relations with the other major centers of power—the state and business. Cultural hegemony was largely produced by schools, churches, and the family, which were the instruments by which individuals were integrated into society.
