ABSTRACT
It is obvious that the television set is a technical machine and that the invention of television is a marvelous engineering achievement. When in the late 1940s and the 1950s television really started to spread among the population, the widespread hope that it gave rise to was that it would have a fantastic educational and civilizing effect, that it would lead to a promulgation of knowledge among all of mankind and of raising the standard of information in society. Television is both one symbolic expression of modern culture and the machine that propels this culture forward on its course, the course towards its inherent telos. To say that television is a psychological machine implies that the effects it has are not side-effects, but intended. Television is a magnificent technological achievement. But it is much more than a technical machine for the purpose of spreading information and providing entertainment.
