The influence of television has been hotly and widely debated. From its potential impact on impressionable young people to its ability to shape political and social changes, few people have gone through life without a conversation or two exploring this unique medium’s impact. However, another interesting angle to this question looks at what influence TV has had on other creative spheres – such as literature and the internet.
In some ways, TV has clearly focused the minds of authors and web content developers in a way that no medium has for a long time, but in other ways, the relationship is flipped – and it’s other mediums which are the ones doing the exerting on TV, and not vice versa. This blog post will explore the question in more detail.
Literature
To some extent, there’s a thick wall between the practices of reading and watching – with some people even arguing that the two are incompatible, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. The relationship is obvious: television adaptations of literature are plentiful with shows like Game of Thrones and The Handmaid’s Tale beginning life as books.
Does this mean that authors are now writing books with the long-term view of having them turned into made for TV films or programmes? To a purist, this sounds unlikely or undesirable. Many authors consider their first loyalty to be to the reader rather than to a potential future viewer. It is clear that Booker-prize winning authors such as Margaret Atwood are definitely not basing their decisions about what to write based on the prospect of an adaptation. Some have argued, though, that less well known authors might be crafting their creative output to fit potential future adaptation contracts. There are a few literary agents who claim to be multi-channel, with an eye towards helping clients secure both publishing deals and also adaptation deals. The idea that this is widespread, though, is of course hard to prove.
Others claim that TV has refocused the tastes of readers. The popularity of superstars on TV like Oprah Winfrey, who take on thorny personal and social issues, has arguably fuelled the rise in demand for the sort of literature that explores trauma. The rise in “autofiction”, which is a style of fiction that reads like a memoir, could perhaps also be attributed in part to TV’s capacity to tell highly personal stories in a very compelling way.
The internet
In the typical story of media development, the internet is often described as having had a serious impact on television. This is a tempting conclusion to draw given that chronologically the internet came later than television did. After all, internet formats have revolutionised the way the TV industry works. Netflix and other streaming services are prime examples of how the web can disrupt the normal flow of work within an established industry. Look at online bingo as to how this has happened elsewhere (here are some of the best online bingo sites uk).
However, what this view often ignores is the impact the other way around. Some of the internet’s most popular websites, such as the video sharing site YouTube, would never have been popular if the video capture functions that propelled television to ubiquity did not exist. Sites like YouTube and Dailymotion have even borrowed the lexicons of television and chosen TV-related words like “channel” to signpost around their sites.
While Netflix may have changed the form, duration or style of television programmes, it has not changed the content. Genres which were popular on television, like drama and documentary, form some of the most popular programmes on services such as Netflix – showing that television is far from dead when it comes to cultural taste-making. This extends to other non-streaming web-based leisure services too. Take the example of casino-themed dramas: shows like Sneaky Pete, which features a storyline about a casino robbery, have no doubt played a role in the explosion of quality online casinos that sites such as Superlenny.com can help you find.
Ultimately, it’s clear that television has played a profound role in developing and crafting other major mediums. From the way in which it has inspired websites such as YouTube to the manner in which it has shaped key literature taste-making processes, it’s clear that television has been one of the greatest innovations of modern times. Exactly what impact it will go on to have in the coming years, though, remains to be seen. Especially if the much-mooted “merger” of content consumption between the TV and the internet comes to fruition.