单项选择题

In the last century, we have witnessed a remarkable phenomenon—the emergence of television as a totally new medium for communicating cultures and the development of a new set of dramatic principles for it. Cultural studies approaches see television drama as a form of popular culture, where formulas determine the product and the individual artist has no place. Film, by contrast, has achieved high culture status, with numerous critics. Television has remained film’s rather vulgar relation with most academic interest focusing on network ownership and audiences, or directed at its various popular genres such as the soap opera.
Film and television’s influence on individuals and society is now so obvious that it is scarcely necessary to provide a rationale for examining their importance. Even in casual conversations, people are apt to make note of the impact of television on voting patterns, use idioms they learned from popular films, discuss relationships by referring to the similar problems of TV characters of celebrities, talk about consumer products in the language of advertising, and demonstrate that their understanding of the world around them has been shaped by the images and stories received from television news, news magazines shows, and TV and radio talk shows. The debate about whether the mass media merely reflect or more powerfully shape social values, norms and behaviors has become nearly extinct in popular culture since the late 1980s; the debaters have recognized that television has so thoroughly permeated the culture as to be inseparable from it.
The educational potential of television, in particular, has been additionally molded by television’s historic use as a leisure activity. Television’s educational potential was eclipsed by its entertainment function as early as the 1950s, when Murrow’s famous remark captured the paradoxical essence of television technology: Television can inform, it can educate, it can inspire. But only to the extent that it is used for these purposes--otherwise it’s only lights and wires in a box. Because people have grown up viewing the box in the living room as a toy--something to entertain--the culture seems resistant to the idea of considering television as anything more than simple amusement. Even today, in some classrooms, students spontaneously break into a cheer when the video cart is wheeled into the room. Why Because watching video is more effortless and enjoyable than reading, speaking, writing, calculating, discussing, or almost any activity that happens in the classroom. Students’ expectations about television have been shaped by a lifetime of using television as entertainment.
Although people do not need formal instruction in how to watch film or television, they do need instruction in how to analyze and think critically about it. Because television is seen as a transparent, simple form that unproblematically represents actuality, viewers frequently neglect to recognize the elements involved in its construction. The "willing suspension of disbelief" that operates in the realm of people’s exposure to fiction often collides with the truism of "seeing is believing", to create a powerfully emotional experience for film and television viewers that makes critical analysis difficult. And while "seeing is believing" has served humans quite well in the 35,000 years of human civilization, it has been challenged by image-based technologies since the invention of the camera in 1835. Messages made with these technologies call upon the same well-developed perceptual skills that humans use indirect experience of the world, but unlike direct experience, they are representations--a message carefully and expensively designed for our consumption.
The influence of film and television on individuals can be found in the following EXCEPT ______.