The Influential Link Between Network Television & Culture in the U.S

Abstract

In this study, an assessment of how television influences culture, or vice versa, will be conducted, as well as a further analysis of the presence of socio-political messages within the content of popular shows in broadcast television. Three television series' have been selected from the NBC Entertainment's primetime scripted lineup. The three shows selected for this study are The Good Place, I Feel Bad and Will & Grace, which each have a 30 minute run time. These series will be assessed via content and discourse analyses of each of the three shows. The content analysis will explain the theme of each episode, focusing on the parts with socio-political content. The discourse analysis will be used to assess the impact of dialogue that uses language that is clearly socio-political.The questions I hope to answer from this study are 1) Does television influence culture? How? 2) How does this reflect in society? 3) Does the network of focus insert socio-political content within the shows?