All in the Family

עמוד:25

Preface My father was an artist . He worked at home and made sure that we knew who Picasso was . My mother was an accountant . Every morning . she left for work with her briefcase and returned in the evening . All this seemed normal to me until I started school . Then I realized that something about my family was different . When we got our first television , I saw that the typical family was not like mine . It was then that I started to think about what families are and how they are shown on television . Through my teenage years I watched a lot of television and enjoyed talking about the different sitcoms and dramas with my friends and family . However , it wasn ' t until much later that I discovered that I could make my love of television into a career . I started looking at the ways that the media , and in particular television , portrays the family . I began investigating different programs to see what exactly was going on . The more I read and studied , the more I became convinced that what I was seeing on the television did not reflect any of the families that I knew personally . I also gradually came to realize that television has a significant impact on children . This was confirmed when I was watching TV with my own daughter . As the sitcom ended and the credits began to roll , my daughter turned to me and said , "Mom , how come our family isn ' t as cool as that family ?" In the course of my studies , I have examined why television chooses to show family life as it does and how this has changed over the past 50 years . I believe that in our efforts to understand ourselves and build our own families , we often look to television as a role model . We can all relate to the different families that we see on TV . I am convinced that the better we understand the families that we watch on TV , the more we will be able to help our own families . Television and the Family explores all these issues . Putting It Together 1 In light of what you have read in this section , consider the following questions : £ What do you think the family will look like in the future ? & Do you think that the roles of mothers and fathers will change ? Support both of your answers with information in this section . 2 Compare your answers with a partner . Then share your conclusions with the rest of the class . Additional material on Student Work Pages 6-11 .

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