Abstract

Public television and private TV channels in Spain have educational programs, not as many as it would be necessary, for children and for adults. However, one of the biggest problems for these kind of programs are the time they are on television, that is to say, there are many specific programs that the TV viewer cannot watch because it is working hours for adults or school hours for children or even they are scheduled late at night.

Abstract

In the audiovisual market, sheer compliance to the demand does not have to lead us to a better service as a consequence.Some populist rhetoric (e.g. «to give to the public all it wants», «to ‘pamper’ TV viewers as they deserve to be pampered») may merely act as an excuse to effectively disguise other kind of purposes (like political and economic aims). The rhetoric that idealizes the «public» in this way might, thus, have this kind of real (and hidden) agenda. Uncovering such a secret programme does not seem a minor endeavour, as far as we are concerned with education, TV and, especially, the quality of our democracies.

Abstract

The television is at the moment one of the biggest communication roads among people of a certain sociocultural context, independently of the ends of the talkative fact. In this document we express two ways to understand the television. The first, old way of conceiving the concept, as for the technical thing: the television is a complex machine, formed by many circuits and cables. The second, more current and chord with the times in that we live, is in the sense of how the contents are made that we perceive in our receivers. We will make a brief historical journey, going from the beginnings (W/B television, elements that conform the apparatus and so on) to conclude with the incidence of the TV in the society. Finally we will elaborate a series of recommendations so that we could be intelligent television consumers. At least a little more than what we are now.