In “Television While You Wait,” Anna McCarthy comments on her personal disgust upon realizing how television in various waiting spaces (ex. doctor’s offices, airports, etc.) serves certain hegemonic functions. She writes, “I could not get past the initial dismay at seeing all of my worst fears about exploitation through advertising confirmed” (207). Yet she acknowledges that the people stuck in these waiting spaces are not “dupes” who consume the ideology of television uncritically (209). This tension reflects a question that we have been discussing since the start of the semester: To what extent do television spectators have autonomy, and to what extent are they indoctrinated by television’s transmission of capitalist hegemony?
At first, I wondered how the different kinds of waiting spaces might alter our understanding of this paradigm. For instance, one could argue that an airport allows for a greater degree of mobility, resistance, and escape than a doctor’s office. At a doctor’s office, you have to stay in one place and remain somewhat attentive in case the nurse calls your name. But when you are waiting at an airport gate, you can often immerse yourself in a book or a video for an extended period of time until the flight starts to board. Indeed, if the television set at the gate becomes a serious nuisance, you can also get up and walk around. I do this almost every time I’m at an airport, and the first place I usually go is the bookstore/newsstand.
Yet McCarthy’s frustration seems to be targeted somewhat less at the physical television set and somewhat more at the way it ceaselessly advertises to people in waiting spaces. Of course, McLuhan would probably have something to say about this regarding mediums and messages. But if we determine that the ceaseless advertising is the real problem, then the decision to abandon the television set at the gate and find the bookstore is really no act of escape or resistance. After all, the bookstore wants to profit off of me just as much as television does. I’m the most familiar with the Sea-Tac Airport, and their bookstore almost always has a “New York Times Bestseller” or a “Critic’s Choice” shelf. This shelf is probably meant to lend these books a certain degree of prestige and make me feel like a discerning connoisseur of literature if I decide to make a purchase. The thing is, I almost never end up actually buying a book. But I also always return every time I find myself in an airport. I wonder if Todd Gitlin’s somewhat pessimistic assessment about the inescapability of capitalist hegemony is very applicable when it comes to the various waiting spaces that McCarthy describes. After all, the content difference between the television set and the bookstore is probably irrelevant. I just happen to prefer browsing books to watching the latest Seahawks game at the gate. But at the end of the day, I fear that they’re both just trying to sell me something. I don't know if I really have a point here, just the disconcerting acknowledgement that Gitlin is probably right.
Sebastian, the mention of the careless browsing and commercialized waiting times at Sea-Tac makes me think of the ubiquitous design for check-out lines at grocery stores, department stores, really any kind of store to weave past all of the small tempting impulse purchases. I don't know how exactly this ties into the fear of being sold something, because those spaces are overtly trying to get you, the consumer, to add that $1.50 bag of gummy worms to your cart along with the latest edition of People magazine. I also don't know how this comment really connects to television either, its just a thought.
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