Selective Annotated Bibliography Television has been the most important social and cultural force in the United States during the past four decades. Since it come forth in the late 1940s as a nationally available means of obtaining information and entertainment, commercial television has been the primary way that Americans have viewed the world. The newest, most popular, and most influential things in America come through on the TV screen.
Television is always on the cutting edge of social, political, economic, and cultural developments.
The networks have historically dominated American television. American television is now deserting the traditional values that have been a staple from its emergence through approximately the mid-eighties. Television is not only deserting the networks but is also deserting the instructive and useful purposes of the past. Many television shows such as Cheers, The Simpsons, and Seinfeld break from past sitcoms in their ability to lack sentiment and instruction and be purely comic. There has been controversy about excessive violence, the manipulation of children, and issues like sexual promiscuity on television.