posted
This may be a silly question... but people talk about how television shows affect our culture. So has anyone ever considered the sociological differences between midwesterners and people living on the east and west coasts due to the different time slots that constitute Prime Time?
I grew up in Chicago. As in the whole midwest, prime time TV is from 7-10 at night. The first hour, 7-8, is generally given to lighter shows. Shows that are more appropriate for younger viewers (in general). The third hour, 9-10, is for the most part given to the darkest and bloodiest shows. The ones for mature viewers. And the middle hour, of course, is sort of in the middle.
But on the coasts, prime time is 8-11 instead. So midwestern kids who have to go to bed at 9 (for instance) are going to see a different selection of TV than their coastal counterparts.
Generally speaking, the midwestern kids are going to get a little more in the way of violence and/or mature subjects, and the coastal kids are going to get a little more in the way of game shows and reruns of sitcoms in the 7-8 slot.
It sounds like the kind of thing the government would love to give a grant to study, which makes me a little embarrassed to even mention it, but if there's no difference at all in the populations when split that way, it surely would say something about the degree of influence that television has on people, no?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I never thought about this until I read your thread...this is really a great question! I am looking around the internet to see if someone has studied this already...
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
It's an interesting thought, starLisa. If you were going to do a study to test it, though, how would you control for other regional variables? And for that matter, what kind of variables do you think you'd have to control for?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I believe that Midwesterners all get up an hour earlier and go to bed an hour earlier than normal people. This may have something to do with the bleakness of Midwestern life.
Midwesterners are genetically susceptible to the effects of Midwestern bleakness. After all, we started out on this country on the East Coast. And, beachfront property being what it is, migrated North and South along the coast. As all the good beachfront property was taken up, there was a vast movement to head West -- to the Pacific Coast -- where there was still fabled beachfront property to be had.
People loaded up their Conestoga wagons, and headed West. Along the way, they became mired in the bleakness that is the Midwest -- as far from the desirable beachfront property as you can get. Some of these brave pioneers were able to persevere and forge ahead to a new beginning. We call their descendants "Californians". But some were overcome by the bleakness that is the Midwest, and unhitched their horses or oxen or whatever it is that pulls a Conestoga wagon, and just sat on the prairie and gave up their quest. Overwhelmed by bleakness, they just went to bed early. And since they had that extra hour of sleep in them, they got up early the next morning, to set about building their little houses on the prairie. In this way, the pattern of going to bed an hour earlier and awakening an hour earlier was set. The decendants of these folk are our current Midwesterners.
Television executives decided to accommodate their bleak lifestyle by shifting Prime Time ahead an hour.
At least that is my understanding.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Noemon: It's an interesting thought, starLisa. If you were going to do a study to test it, though, how would you control for other regional variables? And for that matter, what kind of variables do you think you'd have to control for?
For one thing, I think you'd have to have a large sample population. Enough to smooth out most minor differences.
And since I wouldn't be looking for anything in particular, I'd try and cast my net wide. Look for differences in test scores, violent crime, creativity of various sorts, membership in various different types of groups.
See, the cool thing about this is that it's not just comparing midwesterners to east coasters. Or midwesterners to west coasters. There are a lot of differences between east coasters and west coasters, so things that match between those two populations but differ from midwestern populations ought to stand out.
Sure, there are some other things that are similar between the coasts, particularly if you look specifically at NY and LA. They're both major media centers, for one thing. So suppose we exclude NY and LA from the sampling altogether. We'd be comparing San Francisco and Sacramento and San Diego and Atlanta and Boston and Cleveland to Chicago and Houston and Akron and Des Moines.
I wish I could do a study like this.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Michigan is in the midwest, there hasn't been a conestoga wagon here in more than a hundred and fifty years.
The primetime hours here are 8-11. 7-8 is when Jeopardy and Wheel are on, and Hollywood Insider. The junk pre prime time shows. Usually the comedies air at 8 and the stuff gets heavier as the night wears on.
My bed time as a kid was usually 9ish. And it was hard to sneak out of my room to watch tv, given how small our house is.
And it's Michigan, we've got coastline as far as the eye can see. I'll wager Lake Michigan against either ocean, any day of the week.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Maybe I misspoke when I used terms like midwest, east coast and west coast. I mean Eastern and Pacific time vs Central (and Mountain, I think) time.
So... there could be cultural similarities between Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Duluth and San Francisco.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I think it varies a lot from kid to kid. My bedtime as a kid (which was probably 9-9:30 or so) didn't ever have an effect on my TV viewing. Then again, I'm usually not interested in the prime time shows on from 8-10. As a kid (and even now), most of the prime time shows I watched are in the 7-8 range (with the exception of Lost now which falls in the 8-9 range).
Note: I'm in the Central time zone, so that's how my times are referenced.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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Whatever cultural gap created by the time zone differences may even out in the next five years due to the emergence of TiVo, digital cable, and P2P television.
Slight derail: This thread reminded me of Edward R. Murrow's speech regarding the promise of television.
quote:This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.
Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.
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