Weaned on broadcast programming and advertising, the child learns to relate socially by identifying with the banal aggressions of television's pseudo-heroes. We see the cultural actualization process at work when the young person identifies with the struggles of the hero. The hero is the symbol of ego-consciousness. Consciousness develops in the path explored by the hero as the individual identifies with the injustice of the hero's plight and his heroic action. The child 'feels' his way into the value systems of society through his identification with its mythological heroes.
Broadcast programming offers dismal substitutes for hero myths and rites of passage.
For the television audience, the myths are seldom complete or fully realized. There is no sacred element, no sacrifice, no follow through and no confirmation. There is only submission to the television mystique. The television-dependent personality insulates itself from the life experience. Television's predisposition for image over substance and form over content drains complexity and richness from understanding.