Impact of Television

Dana Kelly
04-27-03
ENG123

The Impact of Television

In Don DeLillo’s novel, White Noise, television has a huge impact in the character’s lives and it shapes many of their observations of the world. They spend a majority of their time in front of the television and gain much of their knowledge from it during the novel. The television screen controls each character due to its importance in each individual’s life.
The characters in White Noise are controlled by what comes on the television and believe the amount of television coverage determines the importance of an event. For example, when a man during the toxic cloud event walks around with a miniature television and shouts, “There’s nothing on the network. Not a word, not a picture. […] No film footage, no live report” (161) he feels let down since their terrible incident was not shown on television. Also, Jack’s ex-wife, Tweedy, is shocked to find the passengers of a plane that almost crashed “wen...