电视节目的社会价值与审美评价——以英国电视节目为例

Social Value and Aesthetic Judgement:Television in the UK

社会主义批评(socialist critic)的关键不在于对作品进行简单地排名,而在于批判性地探究作品对待现实的方式和对观众态度的潜在影响。关于艺术作品的严肃研究必须认识到,虚构的内容和有根据的明确描写一样具有强大的社会影响力。电视节目所展现的对待事物的单一视角最终会影响观众对于现实世界的认知。资本主义鼓励利用科技来盈利的行为,广告商迅速察觉到电视节目的现实主义力量,开始挖掘其中的巨大潜力。当权者为达到控制社会大众的目的,着力寻找各种不同的操控图像的方法。大众最初可能认为电视呈现的是一种事实而非一种建构之物,毕竟所见可能为真的意识相当普遍,正如老话所说的"眼见为实"。但我们必须警惕作品的"精神鸦片"属性,即它满足了人们对于新奇刺激的渴求却掩盖了那个它假意应对的现实。此外,我们还必须认识到,在当下这一历史阶段,文艺作品鼓励人们对现实提出质疑,或许比提供一种意识形态立场更有价值。

The point for the socialist critic is not simply to rank works but to explore critically their treatment of reality and its potential to shape audience attitudes.Serious study of artistic products must recognise that fantasy can be as potent a social force as the most explicit depictions of concrete conditions.TV’s narrowing of the perspective of the world ultimately affects the material world.Capitalism,of course,encourages the employment of technology for profit.The power of television’s realism was quickly recognised by advertisers and they began to exploit its tremendous potential.Authority had to find different ways of manipulating the images to control society.Probably what was shown on the screen was accepted initially as a reality rather than a construction,but there is also a sense that if you can see it,then it probably is true-"seeing is believing",as the old expression has it.We have to challenge productions that are opiates—that satisfy cravings for excitement while obscuring the actual reality that they pretend to deal with.And we must also recognise that productions that encourage people to question their reality serve a function that,at this point in history,may be more valuable than offering an ideological position.