Permission to reprint should be requested by addressing the webmaster . An enormous industry has developed around the arts, led by Hollywood and now joined by production studios in Texas and around the world. Shakespeare or Bach could not have dreamed of the profusion of entertainment products we now create each year. American entertainment products, accompanied by the values they represent, are now a major export into the rest of the world. The business person now uses modern, high-tech methods to package and distribute a multitude of artistic expressions.
Television exemplifies the results.
Hundreds of television channels bring a staggering variety of programs into millions of homes twenty-four hours a day. Our children now spend more time watching television than they spend in school. The values contained in television and other media products are supplanting church, community and even family as primary determinants of cultural norms in our society. In recent years, there has been a tragic collapse of standards of decency, morality and honesty in television, movie and popular music products. Disagreements among television and movie characters are now too often settled through violence.