Watch the first twelve and a half minutes of the Army-McCarthy hearings video below. Thomas Patrick Doherty, author of Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture (2003), explains how crucial the televised hearings were not only in hastening McCarthy’s demise, but also in establishing television’s role as a mediator of constitutional crisis in the United States. (Other examples are Watergate, Iran-Contra, Hill-Thomas, and the Clinton impeachment). Why do you think the Army-McCarthy hearings made for such gripping television in 1954?
2 thoughts on “Week 4 Day 1 Discussion Question 1”
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I think television was and is most captivating when it’s not scripted, explaining why the Army-Mccarthy hearings were so entertaining to the public. As James mentions, when the people and events being televised exist within the shared audience’s world, the viewer has a personal stake in the twist and turns of the “plot.” I think the way people indulged in the Army-Mccarthy hearings parallels how our current society indulges in news scandals of public figures and reality television in general. By convoluting what is fact and what is fiction our imaginations are able to run rampant and we are able to become the authors of our own reality. I think there was also a great deal of interest in the hearings considering prior to the years of court hearings, press conferences, and other politically related events being televised much information went unknown to the public, or the second-hand reporting of events on radio or in newspapers gave little room for listeners and readers to be skeptical or subjective considering they were not present to witness the events being reported on. Television allows for people to contextualize everything being said using body language, the viewer’s intuition, and other senses that inform the viewer’s opinion on what it is they are watching in a way that text and second-hand accounts do not.
People are captivated by television when it speaks to them personally. When the audience is drawn in and is able to form relationships with the characters. A good television show ought to be complex and have multiple levels of story at any time. Finally, television ought to present new ideas and challenge old ones. All this describes the Army-McCarthy hearings. This was not just some news or politics, but a diverse dramatic production with ridiculous accusations and noble and rotten characters alike. It was something very current in society, something happening that was shaping US relations with its citizens and other countries. Not only did it have such relevance, but it must have been very fun to watch, the kind of thing people would gossip about the next day like a new episode of their favorite show now. Person A could not believe that this person said that, but person B disagrees and thinks something different. Suddenly, everyone has an opinion and can express it since the hearings are so accessible. I can imagine they were somewhat like our last presidential debates. You start watching because you feel compelled by the subject’s importance, but continue so you don’t miss the drama, stupidity and all the conflict. Watching them must have also simply been a matter of caring about your country for some people, rather than purely entertainment.