Impact of MTV on Today's Culture

            Watch any tweenager, teenager or young adult watching TV today and he/she will sooner or later turn to MTV or some similar station. MTV has succeeded in catering to the whims of new generations of youths in the 25 years since it launched, and it is continuing to grow. MTV Networks has kicked off 20 new channels in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa this year, alone, pushing its global tally to 112. In addition, with its new parent, MTV Networks is readying for a more visible role with plans to leverage its influential brands in new ways. The cable side, most of which comprises MTV Networks, accounted for about $5.6 billion, or about 70 percent, of what will become the new Viacom's $8.1 billion of revenue last year.

             Not everyone, however, is enthusiastic about the impact of MTV on today's culture. E.Ann Kaplan included. In 1987, she said MTV is a postmodernist phenomenon that is here to stay, and was not happy about it. Director of the Humanities Institute of Stonybrook Institute, Kaplan has mounted a negative campaign against the music clips, which produce a result drastically different from prior organizations of rock. MTV is a commercial, popular institution, and a specifically televisual apparatus (1). .

             By "televisual apparatus" Kaplan means "the technological features of the machine itself (the way it produces and presents images); the various "texts," including ads, commentaries and displays; the central relationship of programming to the sponsors, whose own texts-the ads-are arguably the 'real' texts; and, finally, the reception sites-which may be anywhere from the living room to the bathroom" (3).

             The French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard has had a major influence on Kaplan's work. She cites his model of the "hot" and "cold" universe as an example of how television has altered communication and the ways of translating images. It also acts as a distinction between the era of classic Hollywood film and that of MTV.

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