In his writings about technology, Jerry Mander, an ecologist and former advertising executive, is on to something when he suggests that television is a training mechanism for some subtle yet invasive forms of social control.
Conventional wisdom views childhood as a set stage of life through which all human beings pass on their way to adulthood. In the west, psychology since the 19th century has attempted to discern and delimit the various stages of child development.
Living under occupation can be quite boring at times, especially during lockdowns and blockades such as those on the West Bank following last summer’s bombings in Jerusalem. But no fear, television is here to ‘occupy’ your idle hours.
In 1922, an American farmer and electronics tinkerer by the name of Philo T Farnsworth invented a scanning device that would lead to the development of television. Farnsworth's 'image dissector' solved many of the problems faced by European and American technicians who sought a way to electronically transmit images. Control of Farnsworth's invention would determine the success or failure of all television development.
THERE are apologists and then there are apologists. And then there is Sai’d Al-Ashmawy, former chief justice of Egypt’s Supreme Court and the author of 15 books on Islam.
Even as Muslims in the US were celebrating their small but significant victory in getting the US News and World Report to apologise for its willful distortion of historical facts, another magazine repeated the same lie.
