Joshua Meyrowitz is a professor of communications at the department of Communication at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. He has published works regarding the effects of mass media, including No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour, an analysis of the effects various media technologies have caused, particularly television.
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In No Sense of Place, which won the 1986 "Best Book on Electronic Media" Award of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Broadcast Education Association. Meyrowitz uses the example of the television to describe how technologies have shaped and influenced the social relations we encounter on a daily basis, proposing that television has been responsible for a significant cultural shift towards new and egalitarian social interactions. He demonstrates how television is a "secret exposing" machine which allows individuals to watch others in an unprecedented fashion. According to Meyrowitz, it is this characteristic that is responsible for television breaking down the barriers between children and adults, men and women and even humanising and demystifying the powerful.[1] The book is based on his doctoral dissertation also entitled No Sense of Place, which was completed in 1978 in the Media Ecology Doctoral Program at New York University; Christine Nystrom was Meyrowitz's thesis adviser, and the other members of his dissertation committee were Henry Perkinson and Neil Postman. In 1982, Postman published The Disappearance of Childhood, which discussed themes similar to one of the case studies in Meyrowitz's dissertation.
In the article "Mediating Communication: What Happens?", Meyrowitz explores television as providing a new form of human experience, one which distorts traditional social distinctions by discussing ideas of changed childhood, blended genders, and demystified leaders.[2]
According to Meyrowitz, television is the "secret-exposing machine", letting children in on the "biggest secret of all, 'the secret of secrecy'". Children become exposed to a variety of images and information, which "dilutes the innocence of childhood and the authority of the adults".[2] Prior to television, parents could be completely aware of what their children were reading, making the censoring of information easier, compared to the lack of control parents have when it comes to television. As children become older the level at which they were able to read increases, allowing children to gradually explore adult issues. Television blurs the boundaries between children and adults because children are now given earlier access to information about those adult issues. Meyrowitz argues that it is for this reason that children appreciate television so much, it is able to "extend their horizons of experience".
Meyrowitz postulates that television has broken down distinctions between the sexes, enabling women to become aware of public realms of sport, war, politics and medicine and conversely for men to become in touch with their emotional, private side. He claims this has led "toward more career-oriented women and more family-oriented men, toward more work-oriented homes and more family-oriented workplaces", in essence a blending of the genders.[2]
Meyrowitz states that prior to the saturation of television in society, our political leaders had been treated as a "mystified presence", at a status above the common citizen, as it was easier to control the flow of information that represented who they were and what they did.[2] Although television is a useful tool for our politicians in trying to create this status, it "tends to mute differences between levels of social class". Meyrowitz terms this "a double-edge sword", as over exposure of a political leader diminishes their power, with their continuous presence making them seem more ordinary and less mystified.[2] This over exposure is difficult to balance with under exposure, as without media presence a leader has minimal power over people, yet with exceeding presence they lose power. Because of the immediacy of information to the common citizen about all issues of society, they are now able to closely inspect the image of our leaders, creating a demystification of their presence.