Substitution Effects

The low figures for the value of equipment provided are indeed quite surprising. I wonder if Channel One may have distorted its numbers in some way that has come back to bite them.

I would question the study’s decision, though, to consider the time spent watching Channel One’s content (as opposed to its advertising) as a cost to schools, rather than a benefit. If someone gave the schools free textbooks, it would seem odd to count time spent reading from them as a cost, rather than a benefit, to the school. This classification of Channel One’s content necessarily implies a judgment that none of the content is instructional. That may indeed be true, but it’s not clear from the study.

I remember seeing a documentary done by the adbusters organization on FSTV or one of those religious tv stations (yeah o.o weird) a few months ago. wish I knew the name of the documentary. but it escapes me.

I agree with Maureen and tom t – in pursuit of this project I watched a lot of Channel One in a one month period last year. It compares favourably with our local news, and a good deal of national news, frankly (and I DO mean to damn with faint praise, there). Sawicky and Molnar consider the content valueless because there is a (pseudo-ad-free) alternative available for free — from CNN. They then consider the time spent watching it as a cost because of the opportunity costs (cost of teachers time etc). I think that’s wrong, for numerous reasons — the issue is ‘what would the students otherwise ACTUALLY have been doing?’ — and if the answer to that is, as bob suggests it is, nothing very different, then the opportunity cost is zero. And, of course, most kids are saturated with commercials — so I doubt that exposure to yet more is directly very harmful (though I’ll be furious if my coemmercial-free kids are forced to watch them). I make all these points in my paper. I focus on my critique on the problem that bob and Russell raise — that administrators have grossly inappropriate views of what should be happening in the classroom and what the ethos of the school should be. So, unlike most leftist critiques which attack Channel One but excuse the administrators on the grounds that they are ina tight spot with money, I aggressively pursue the administrators.

countermeme — if it comes back to you please please please tell me.

Channel One was introduced during my senior year and I too found the “news” coverage to be mediocre and the commercials much ado about nothing. It ranked up there MTV News which at the time as I recall kept running the same story about Paula Abdul getting an award from a bricklayer’s association for the second or third year in a row. ;)

I like the idea about playing it during lunchtime in the lunchroom where the students can watch or ignore it as background noise as they see fit although some might object to how televisions have taken the central place of conversation in many households during mealtime. IMNHO that may be of greater concern than having to play a commercial or two in order to get “free” television equipment but I don’t think that Channel One is going to make much of difference either way.

I forgot to record it, and it’s not strictly relevant, but I saw an article in the last couple of days claiming that people who give money to churches are less likely to turn up at services.