At the dawn of Television in the early 1950s, a broad range of powerful groups and individuals--from prominent liberal intellectuals to massive corporations--saw in TV a unique capacity to influence the American masses, shaping (in the words of the American philosopher Mortimer Adler) "the ideas that should be in every citizen\'s mind." Formed in the shadow of the Cold War--amid the stirrings of the early civil rights movement--the potential of Television as a form of unofficial gover.
At the dawn of Television in the early 1950s, a broad range of powerful groups and individuals--from prominent liberal intellectuals to massive corporations--saw in TV a unique capacity to influence the American masses, shaping (in the words of the American philosopher Mortimer Adler) "the ideas that should be in every citizen\'s mind." Formed in the shadow of the Cold War--amid the stirrings of the early civil rights movement--the potential of Television as a form of unofficial gover