D. Stephen Heersink wrote responding to Professor Chasan:

>The more I come into contact with popular culture the more I discover
>how it seems to converge into commercialism (and all that commercialism
>entails).  Increasingly, television programs have become vehicles by which
>to watch commercials.  Popular music a means of capturing one's attention
>to a particular product.  Even sports like football have advertisements
>permeating the game.

In the American situation, our democracy, driven by its highly
capitalistic, market driven engine, has proved to be one of the most
effective devices ever conceived for inducting people into a common
experience -- the experience many now think of as being American, of having
equal access to the good life, of having the same things, the same ideas,
the same experiences.

TV tends to affirm this side of the American character that likes being
the same as everyone else.  There are some areas in which new technologies
are making it possible to produce programing designed for specific target
audiences (e.g.  the Arts & Entertainment channel) but on the whole, TV
remains the quintessential mass medium.  TV is a populist medium that
circumvents all elites, cultural, intellectual and social.

Mark