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  3. Not so long ago television was scary. It was held to turn children into imbeciles, make men violent and corrupt political discou

Not so long ago television was scary. It was held to turn children into imbeciles, make men violent and corrupt political discou

admin2012-03-23  42
问题     Not so long ago television was scary. It was held to turn children into imbeciles, make men violent and corrupt political discourse. Books tried to alert people to the menace in their living rooms: the best of them was Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, published in 1985. Musicians vilified TV in songs like "She Watch Channel Zero" and "Television, the Drug of the Nation".
    These clays newspapers are filled with tales of Facebook stalkers, Craigslist killers, cyber-bullying and screen addiction. E-mail, bogs and YouTube, not television, are held responsible for the degradation of politics. As the Internet grabs attention, television has become more pitied than feared. A Google search on the phrase "threat from television" turns up some 500 results, many of them historical. "Threat to television" generates eight times as many.
    Much of this is misguided. People spend more time watching television now than they did when rappers attacked it with songs. As a thorough study by the Council for Research Excellence has shown, Americans spend more time watching television than they spend surfing the web, sending e-mails, watching DVDs, playing computer games, reading newspapers and talking on mobile phones put together. Television is not disappearing. But nor is it the only star in the sky.
    The Internet, both fixed and mobile, poses a growing challenge to television. It lures advertisers with promises of precision: why pay huge sums to scatter a message among millions of people when you can target the few who seem to be interested in your product? To consumers it promises choice, engagement and a low (or no) price. And the Internet has powerful backers. Despite all that hand-wringing over the dangers of technology, governments from South Korea to Sweden seem to regard universal fast broadband as a human right, to be paid for out of general taxation.
    With the important exception of sport, early attempts to deliver TV content over the web and mobile phones have proved unprofitable. The worst mistakes are now being put right. But it is doubtful that the economics of online or mobile video will ever be as attractive as the economics of traditional television. As video goes online, a world of restricted choice and limited advertising space turns into one where both are available in almost endless quantities. More supply means lower prices.
    Technology also competes for attention. Although families still gather around the TV set as they have done for decades, they now bring electronic distractions with them. Nielsen reckons that 13% of people who watched the Academy Awards ceremony this year went online during the programmed, up from 9% last year. The multitask did not appear to gravitate to entertainment websites. Google and Facebook topped the list of websites visited during the Oscars, just as they did during the Super Bowl and the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
    For the biggest TV shows, technology is a boon. Social-networking websites create chatter around reality-TV programmers, increasing awareness and drawing viewers. Television executives have long endeavored to create "water-cooler" shows which people will talk about at work the next day. Chris Silverman, president of International Creative Management, a talent agency, says Facebook and Twitter function a bit like large digital water-coolers. As audiences fragment, the big shows’ ability to draw huge numbers of eyeballs at a specific time becomes ever more valuable to advertisers.
    For shows of middling popularity, including many scripted dramas and comedies, life is harder. Big shows are crowding out smaller ones, partly because of the amplifying effects of social media and partly because of the spread of digital video recorders, which make it easy to watch nothing but hits. Online video nibbles at their audience, too. How to survive in this world of giant competitors and new distractions? One answer is to involve viewers more in programmers. Television is extremely good at creating characters and gripping stories. It is much less good at encouraging people to engage with those stories. Simon Cowbell has proved that people will vote for contestants in talent shows.
    Television is supreme at holding the attention of a large number of people for long periods. Other gadgets divert people from the box, but not nearly as much as TV diverts them from all those other gadgets. And technology has undermined some of television’s biggest competitors, notably newspapers. In a world of fragmenting audiences, if TV can combine scale with specificity, become more responsive to its audience and learn to aim adverts more precisely, it will continue to thrive.  
It can be inferred from the first two paragraphs that
选项 A、people regard television as a plague.
B、people prefer television to the Internet.
C、the quality of television programs is improving.
D、people blame the Internet for some social problems.
答案D
解析 推断题。文章首句指出“Not so long ago television was scary．”，句中的was表明这是过去的情况。第二段首句指出现状“These days newspapers are filled with tales of Facebook stalkers，Craigslist killers，cyber-bullying and screen addiction．E-mail，bogs and YouTube．not television，are held responsible for the degradation of politics．”，可见现在人们关注的是互联网造成的社会问题，故[D]符合文意。[A]与首段第一句“Not so long ago television was scary．”的时间不一致，排除；第二段第三句指出“As the Internet grabs attention，television has become more pitied than feared．”，虽然人们对互联网的批评多，但并不能说明人们更喜欢看电视，[B_为过度推断，无依据；前两段没有提到电视节目的质量问题，排除[C]。
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