TV & the Family: An Intricate Relationship

The issue of television’s influence on the construction of the family has long been a topic of discussion among prominent social theorists. How accurate is television’s portrayal of the typical family? How are real life families affected by these depictions? What sort of political and social constructions of “the family” are being delivered to us by television programs? 

What sort of narrative functions does television utilize in order to promote these messages? Which aspects of the televisual apparatus assist in bringing these images to life? As one might assume, there is a wealth of knowledge available on all of these topics. Throughout this paper, I will attempt to create a basic overview of the ways in which television narrative constructs the family, how this construction affects real people, and how certain traditional narrative devices perpetuate this system.

Who is television’s primary audience?

Though it is difficult to find a single starting place for this discussion, it seems as if John Ellis, a British television researcher, would be our best choice. Ellis wrote a series of essays in the 1980s and 90s detailing the way in which television situates the family as its primary audience. He also discusses the mechanisms by which broadcast television has centered its narratives around the interests of this group. 

“Broadcast TV dramas are constructed around the heterosexual romance in its normal and perverse forms, and the perpetual construction of standard families: wage-earning husband, housekeeping wife, two children. Situation comedies play on the discrepancies between this assumed norm and other forms of existence” (Ellis 136). Ellis continues by stating that in centering its narratives around the family, television “produces a sense of intimacy, a bond between the viewer’s conception of themselves (or how they ought to be) and the program’s central concerns” (136).