One problem with tasteless TV, said the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in May, is that it is broadcast worldwide. American TV in particular is susceptible to this criticism from the document Ethics in Communication:

“Critics frequently decry the superficiality and bad taste of media, and although they are not obliged to be somber and dull, they should not be tawdry and demeaning either. It is no excuse to say the media reflect popular standards; for they also powerfully influence popular standards and so have a serious duty to uplift, not degrade, them.

“The problem takes various forms. Instead of explaining complex matters carefully and truthfully, news media avoid or oversimplify them. Entertainment media feature presentations of a corrupting, dehumanizing kind, including exploitative treatments of sexuality and violence. It is grossly irresponsible to ignore or dismiss the fact that ‘pornography and sadistic violence debase sexuality, corrode human relationships, exploit individuals?especially women and young people, undermine marriage and family life, foster anti-social behaviour and weaken the moral fibre of society itself’ (Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Pornography and Violence in the Communications Media: A Pastoral Response, No. 10).

“On the international level, cultural domination imposed through the means of social communication also is a serious, growing problem.

Traditional cultural expressions are virtually excluded from access to popular media in some places and face extinction; meanwhile the values of affluent, secularized societies increasingly supplant the traditional values of societies less wealthy and powerful. In considering these matters, particular attention should go to providing children and young people with media presentations that put them in living contact with their cultural heritage.

“Communication across cultural lines is desirable. Societies can and should learn from one another. But transcultural communication should not be at the expense of the less powerful. Today ‘even the least-widespread cultures are no longer isolated. They benefit from an increase in contacts, but they also suffer from the pressures of a powerful trend toward uniformity’ (Toward a Pastoral Approach To Culture, No. 33).

That so much communication now flows in one direction only? from developed nations to the developing and the poor?raises serious ethical questions. Have the rich nothing to learn from the poor? Are the powerful deaf to the voices of the weak?” (No. 16)