THE NEW YORKER on the V-Chip

[Sean Roach]

At 12:48 AM 1/24/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote:

...
>While I think it's always useful to consider unintended (or otherwise
>unexpected) consequences, Gladwell's argument sent a shiver down my spine
>with its shameless paternalism. This bit (from roughly the middle of his
>piece) is what I found creepiest:
>
>"According to one recent study, somewhere between twenty and twenty-seven
>per cent of the parents of four-to six-year-olds never restrict their
>children's viewing hours, never decide what programs they can watch, never
>change the channel when something objectionable comes on, and never forbid
>the watching of certain programs. It has apparently never occurred to these
>parents that television can be a bad influence, and it strains credulity to
>think that the advent of the V-chip is going to wake them up. Yet their
>families - mainly lower-income, ill-educated - are the very ones most in
>need of protection from television violence. Here is a rearranging effect
>with a vengeance: not only does the V-chip make television worse, it makes
>television worse precisely for those already most vulnerable to its excesses."
>
>I understood Gladwell's point to be, in essence, that the V-chip will allow
>TV producers to generate higher levels of morally impure content which he
>fears will pollute the minds of poor children because their parents are too
>stupid to protect them from the harmful content and too poor to buy new
>televisions which will include V-chips.
...
What this means is, subsidized v-chip upgrades, and v-chips turned on by
default.
Now to watch the really good stuff you have to subscribe to "tv-un v-chipped"
Sorry, I couldn't resist the pot shot.