TV Turnoff Week 2006 : Adbusters.org:
TV Turnoff is no ordinary social ritual. Sure, it’s a statement against the dead-end couch culture. But when millions of people let the screen fade to black, they also help build the Media Carta movement – the human rights battle of our information age.
Fewer and fewer people control the media that shapes our worldview. And nowhere does this play out worse than on our televisions, where the corporate agenda reigns supreme. With TV Turnoff and the Media Carta movement, we’re fighting back – for the right of all citizens to access society’s most powerful forms of communication.
I’m sure there are some who find TV edifying or at least useful. I am not one of them. I know there are things worth watching but they are rarely available without costs (ie, a cable package that comes with a lot of other unwanted junk that supposedly justifies the cost but actually makes it not worth getting).
I can’t say I have watched enough to know if it’s good or bad, but from the conversations I hear and the pop-culture references I catch, I don’t think it’s better. And when I consider how much of the pop-culture japes come from the under 10 set, I’m even less impressed.