ABSTRACT
The business boom of the post-World War II years is essentially a new phase of the Industrial Revolution, stemming from the rise of electronics and its offspring the computer. Television is an aspect of this surge and its mightiest promotional tool. Business leaders prefer to say it differently. They prefer to say that automation liberates people for other kinds of work—new products, new markets. There is enough truth in this to have won it acceptance and endless repetition. That is understandable: the rationale comforts business leaders including media leaders, and offers a glimmer of hope to the displaced. More workers are being "liberated" for unemployment than for work in new employment—other than army service. Television- promoted convenience foods, packaged for mass distribution and long shelf-life, involve hosts of preservatives, texturizers, and dyes, some of which have proved irritants and health hazards; in some cases, substitutes have been found which have subsequently proved to be more hazardous.
