The Influence of the Cinema and the Television

"Where thousands of words fail to teach a child, a picture succeeds admirably" is a great educational truth. All irrespective of age, like to see and enjoy a beautifully printed or painted picture. In the same way the cinema, and T.V have influenced people in many ways. They are a form amusement. They are means of education. They are also a means of bringing the different lands and people closer together and in creating better international understanding. In short, the cinema and the T.V influence greatly the social, moral , intellectual, recreational and political life of a country.

The principal role of the cinema and the T.V is to provide entertainment and amusement. A worker who sweats in a factory for eight hours a day, a clerk who gets bored by his routine. job, an accountant who gets easily fatigued by his tiresome duties and even the country farmer who rarely relaxes derive a lot of pleasure and amusement by seeing a picture or watching the T.V.

To students and teachers and also to adults the cinema and the T.V provide useful knowledge. A picture on desert life or a picture like the "Ten Commandments" or a saga like "Nine Hours to Rama" which retells the story of Mahatma Gandhi or a documentary on science or technology not only provides recreation but also imparts useful knowledge which one cannot easily acquire-visual films. Novels by Dickens like "A Tale of two cities" are made more meaningful through films than by the written-word. The impact of the T.V in this respect is even greater. How fortune is a child of today who without. Leaving his home can view on a T.V screen and the latest news and happenings round the globe!!

Thanks to the cinema and the T.V the world has become closer to closer together. The customs and manners of the people all over world and their histories are no longer remote things. The cinema and the T.V have been forceful factors in bringing the East and the West together. The East is no longer the mystic land to the West; and the West is no more a land of strange beings and stranger happenings to the East.

Apart from the numerous good influences of the cinema and the T.V there are certain bad effects which can be checked if we are sufficiently vigilant. Certain film magnates are only interested in amassing riches. They, therefore, produce pictures of low taste and low morals. The so-called crime and horror pictures of the wild west create unhealthy and anti-social tendencies. These are some times suspected of aiding and abetting in the commission of crimes. It is to check this tendency that film Censor Boards are appointed in many countries. If these boards are vigilant enough, these evils can be diminished. But for his tendency , the influence of the cinema and the T.V on the young and the old is immense.