Your T.V Is KIlling You!!!!!! Maybe? Well actually, probably not..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35646508/ns/health-behavior/

MSNBC.com contributer, Linda Carroll, contends that TV is extremely harmful. According to this article, TV makes you deader, drunker, your kids pregnant, weakens your bones, and makes you less engaging. The basic message is clear: throw out your television because it is ruining your life. Hmmmm. While this article may look foolish to many people, including a college student like myself, I have a feeling there are people out here who hold Carrolls same viewpoint. If so, there are thousands of parents reinforcing their beliefs and in turn, removing the tv's from their kids bedrooms. My hope is to address this argument objectively, but I must admit I find it a bit extreme and invalid.
This article rattles off a list of arguments, supported with "studies," that argue that your television is extremely harmful. In fact, it will kill you! For a parent, contributer, scholar, hobo, whoever, they must operate under the assumption that the media are extremely powerful and persuasive. They would align themselves with media effects scholars. These scholars argue that the media holds the power in the relationship between the media and the people. TV audiences are passive and blindly accept the messages that the media disseminates.
The opposing viewpoint is what media scholars call active audience. These active audience scholars contend that media "cannot tell people what to think or how to behave in any direct way because people are not nearly as stupid, gullible, or east to dominate as the media indoctrination perspective would have us believe (Croteau & Hoynes, 2003)." This contention is weary of the power of the media and credits audience as being intelligent and autonomous. This is also an extreme view that rejects any effect that media messages might have.
So where does this leave us? Is our Tv sets really killing us? Am I getting dumber? Is your daughter really pregnant? Is all this caused my tv. Well some people may have this belief but i would argue that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of media effects and active audience theorist. I don't think that we are passive robots waiting for orders for good of ill. I also do not believe that we are totally immune to the effects that the media could potential have. What who am I? Decide for yourself.