I first became interested in the impact of television in the late 1960's when I worked in Washington for the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General on a study of the impact of television violence on children (Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behaviour, 1972; Murray, 1973). In this report, I will use that early research as the starting point and context for considering the ways in which our society deals with the issue of television violence.

To begin at the beginning, the official starting date for television in the United States was 1939, at a World's Fair. At the time of the debut, there were mixed reactions to television because it was a little green screen with a constant flicker. There was little to watch and some thought TV would never go anywhere, while others thought it was a marvellous invention. One observer and social critic who captured this divergent view was E. B. White, who wrote in Harper's magazine in 1938: "I believe that television is going to be the test of the modern world, and in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our own vision, we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television, of that I am sure." (White, 1938, cited in Boyer, 1991, p. 79)

Well, White was right, we would either win or lose. But, most social scientists paid very little attention to television, and so we have little research available in the United States on the immediate effects of the introduction of television. But, television did not wait for the researchers to begin their studies. The first license was issued by the Federal Communications Commission on July 1, 1941, although development was held in abeyance by World War II. The first licenses were issued for commercial television stations -- I stress that these were commercial stations, not public broadcasting. This is important because television broadcasting in virtually every country in the world, except for the United States, began first as a public system -- government-owned or government-sponsored television. Television in the United States began as a commercial enterprise to sell goods and services, while providing entertainment. Only about 20 years later did public broadcasting begin as educational television and then PBS. I will contend that we began this communication medium as a vehicle for selling goods and services, not as a vehicle for informing, enlightening, or broadening horizons, and we have paid a "price" for this decision in the lack of specialised programming for children.

The first stations were licensed in 1941, but broadcasting as we think of it now did not take shape until the late 1940's. There were a few commercial networks; NBC and the DuMont Network were among the early broadcast systems. However, by the mid 1950's, we evolved the structure that we have in the commercial broadcasting system today, at least the main characteristics of it, into three broadcast networks -- NBC, ABC, CBS, to which we have now added a fourth network, FOX. Despite the slow start, broadcasting took off in the late 1940's and diffused throughout the United States in ways that no other invention ever created to date has so diffused. In 1949, only 2% of American households had TV. By 1955, 64% of American households had at least one television set. By the mid 1960's, 93% of American households had a television set. Today, there are very few people (only 2%) who do not have television. In the 1960's, the main reason for not having TV was the fact that they lived in places that could not possibly receive a television signal. That is not the case today; there is not a corner of this country, or a corner of this globe, where a television signal is not available, either by over-the-air broadcast, by cable, or by satellite direct broadcast (see Andreasen, 1990).

But, as television rapidly expanded through the population, so did concern about the effects of television. There were numerous concerns that emerged all at once: concerns about the amount of time spent with television, concerns about violence, and concerns about school performance. One of the most famous concerns that I remember, and one that still floats in mythology, was the concern about television's effect on eyesight. I can remember my mother saying, "Don't sit so close to that television, it's going to ruin your eyesight." And, mothers and fathers still say that today -- I found myself saying that to our sons when they were much younger. I am happy to report that the reason I am wearing trifocals has nothing to do with television, and this early concern proved to be harmless. However, the concerns about violence, as well as concerns about the way men and women are portrayed, about how ethic minorities are portrayed, and various concerns about advertising and other content issues, have continued to this day. But, the concern that we are focused on -- and the one that was among the very first concerns to surface -- is the issue of TV violence.