A football match, the evening news, the last episode of a drama series, a magazine show or a breathtaking concert: thanks to television, vast ranges of people can experience it. It doesn’t matter if they are on their sofa in the living room, on the train on their way to work or on their laptop during their lunch break. People experience television every day, but do they really know what it is? By consulting different books and researching on the internet, it is possible to find the most various and original definitions; from “a device shaped like a box with a screen that receives electrical signals and changes them into moving images and sound” on the Cambridge Dictionary, to “the timid giant” in “Understanding Media” from Marshall McLuhan. Television is more than this, it’s a tool that shaped opinions, changed lives, educated and entertained generations of citizens, and to understand it correctly we need to analyse it in many different aspects. Thus, some may wonder the existence of television as a medium, technology, industry or an art form.
First of all, we can state that Television is a medium, which is “The mean through which communication takes place” Dictionary of Media and Communication, Oxford University Press, as it allows the passage of a message. Analysing the message, it is immediately evident that since the early ages of television the content going multi-purpose, it can be of many different kinds, and so it is possible to state that television allowed the passage of many different messages. This concept has been applicable since the early days of the BBC, when John Reith used to describe the idea of Public Service Broadcasting: “[…] is about to inform, educate and entertain.” We could then state that Television is not only a medium but a multi-purpose medium, as it allows different types of communications, which have various purposes, such as for inform, educate, entertain (regarding PSB) and advertise (on advertisement funded broadcasters).
Another definition that we should focus on is the one brought to us by the Dictionary of Media and Communication, Oxford University Press: “An electronic technology enabling the encoding and the decoding of moving images and synchronised sound […].” This definition implies that television is a medium, and it would be impossible to use it without at least two technological pieces of equipment: an encoding and a decoding device. Where one transforms the audio-visual signal fed by a camera into airwaves, and the other converts airwaves back into an audio-visual signal, and feeds it to a screen. These two are a basic televisual setup, in the real world, many different pieces of equipment are used to produce a more complex image, such as VTR and playout systems, mixers and graphics machines, and many more, before feeding it to the encoding device. All these pieces of equipment allow the medium to achieve its primary goal: reaching the audience. For this reason, we could say that television reaches the audience through the combination of several different technologies.
To create television, having just the production facilities is not enough. There are some other pieces of the puzzle, such as the technicians' capability to use them, people who develop new content, professionals who manage the productions and make sure that all the elements fit together, people who buy and sell television formats, and many more. There is a very significant human element in the television production process, which combined with the technologies and the television market creates the television industry. The television industry has the task of creating new content. It is most often the sender of the message that goes through the medium, and it always takes care of the functioning of the medium. For this reason, we could state that television is created by its own industry.
Most of the roles within the television industry strive on creativity, it doesn’t matter if it’s about to shape a sound, designing a set, studying how to light it, composing a shot, having a vision for the broadcast, or creating the content for it: many people must put their creative input in the final product. We are all familiar with the final product that is displayed on our screens, but which is the raw material that all these people work on to transform it into a broadcast? A television programme could be originated by many different things: it could be a sports match, a music performance, news, or simply the weather. Bearing in mind once again what John Reith said we can speculate that television has the task to interpret, and translate those elements into education, entertainment and information programmes.
Some people may argue that TV is a form of art, although art is defined as “the making of objects, images, music, etc. that are beautiful or that express feelings” Cambridge Dictionary. Focusing on the idea of television as a medium we should ask ourselves: is it the medium or its content, that is beautiful and expresses feelings? Even though many people may love television, does the main audience watch television just for the pleasure of watching television or reaching some content? Probably to reach the content, otherwise the job of people like researchers, producers, and journalists would be rendered useless. For this reason, television is not a form of art, as it is a medium. The real art is the content that goes through the medium, and the job of all the creative people who work in television is to make sure the content is shot and then displayed in the best way possible. As told by Mr. Hamish Hamilton, co-owner of the production company Done and Dusted, and director for large-scale live events on television such as the Olympic Ceremonies in London 2012, The Academy Awards and the Super Bowl Halftime Show: “When you work with someone else’s art you feel a huge burden on your shoulders”.
Even if the job of one who works in the television industry is a matter of translating messages into the televisual language, this doesn’t mean that it’s not an environment in which people can be creative, or where they can find a pleasing way to show content, as explained by Danny Boyle, Oscar-winning director: “Imagination is not the ability to invent, it’s actually the ability to disclose, or reveal what is already there”.
Another reason why television shouldn’t be considered as a form of art is that it has some specific rules that must be followed in order not to confuse the viewers. These rules are applied to all the aspects of the production: from the content point of view to the sound, to the framing of the shots, or the editing process. Many people say that rules are meant to be broken, but hardly somebody will enjoy listening to a distorted sound. Rather than a jump cut between two wide shots, or a bad framed image, so no, television is not an art form, on the other hand, it could be considered the ability to translate an event that happened in the real world into a pleasant and understandable two-dimensional moving image.
Walter Benjamin, speaking about film says that “The camera that presents the performance of the film actor to the public need not respect the performance as an integral whole,” as it “continually changes its position with respect to the performance.” This concept could be referred to television at the same time, with the only differences that the production process is faster, and that the medium aims to different purposes with similar technologies and processes. The result is the same: different viewer experience if compared to the one experienced by someone who sees the happening without using the medium. To make it better or worse is a responsibility of all those who are part of the production process, who need to put in their creativity not to create a form of art, but the best viewing experience possible.
We can finally define television as a multi-purpose medium, which reaches its audience through the combination of several different technologies and allows the passage of different kinds of contents gathered and translated into the televisual language by the television industry. Television is not a form of art itself, but can still provide a pleasing view of its content, and it can allow wide ranges of people to access several forms of art that otherwise would be inaccessible to such a significant amount of people.