What is television?
(Sent by Paola Ruiz, a student from Buenos Aires, Argentina)

if you look up the word television, the most common definition is: a thing shaped like a box with a screen, which you use to watch programmes, but for many people it represents more than that. Although However, it has its advantages and disadvantages.

One of the main advantages is that television acts as a company for many people, not only for those that for different reasons of life are alone, but also for those who like cooking, studying or simply drink a cup of tea accompanied by the colourful images that this box shows us. Furthermore, television is a manner that people have to be well-informed about everything that happens outside their home: for example, the weather, what happened with this or that famous couple and also if the traffic is complicated or not.

On the other hand, television has some disadvantages. In spite of the fact that, it allows you to be in contact with information from the outside world, you have to bear in mind that not everything that shines is gold, so not all the information that television shows us is true. Another disadvantage is that television has the power to show us what they want. As a result, we never know if the information that we are receiving is complete or if it is only a half of it.

Taking everything into account, it seems to me that television is not a box that shows us programmes, as the definition of the dictionary says, but this box is not empty. Many people participate in the realisation production of those programmes that television shows us. In addition, those people have an enormous power to manipulate us in the way that they want. In consequence, we have to be bar in mind what kind of programmes we watch in order to be selective and not to fall in the manipulation of television.