White Noise and Impact of Television
Just how much does television shape our perception of the world around us? Don DeLillo's post modernistic novel, White Noise, offers one view concerning the huge impact television has on our lives and how it shapes our observations of the world. The television in this book is portrayed almost as a character due to its importance in the individuals' lives.White Noise contains the message that the amount of television coverage determines the importance of an event. An example of this is when the refugees from the toxic cloud feel let down when they only rate "fifty-two words by actual count- no film footage, no live report" (161) in the news. A man ponders, "Isn't fear news?" (161). Jack's ex-wife, Tweedy, is shocked to find that the passengers of a plane which almost crashed "went through all that for nothing" since "there is no media in Iron City" (92). To the characters in the novel, only media coverage brings an event into existence.Television shapes the characters' behavior in White Noise. During the "airborne toxic event", the Gladney family attempts to keep up with the currently reported symptoms caused by the event. The symptoms that Steffie and Denise suffer from during the
They feel betrayed when certain aspects of their lives do not fit in to their beliefs based on what they see in the media. For many people, their real life and the one they view through television seem to blend together at times. Television also impacts the characters' powers of imagination, and makes them imitate what they view. These things don't happen in places like Blacksmith" (114). His belief is that television is only a problem if "you've forgotten how to look and listen" (50). The submissive obeying of the citizens of Blacksmith illustrates the controlling power of the television. Its narcotic undertow and eerie diseased brain-sucking power would be gradually reduced"(16). Another co-worker states that "a forest fire on TV is on a lower plane than a ten-second spot for Automatic Dishwasher All (67)". Baudrillard states that technology causes the boundaries between the real and unreal to break down, causing what he calls a "hyperreality". Baudrillard explains, "the 'real' is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of control- and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these (632)".
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Acceptance Essays
