television and fairy tales
television and fairy tales.Television has significantly influenced the production and reception of the fairy tale during the latter half of the 20th century. Like other technologies—from the printing press and graphic illustration to film and radio—television provided a new medium for the adaptation, presentation, and consumption of the genre. Just as the technology of print publication produced the classical fairy tale and promoted the oral tale from folklore to the literary canon, so television's wide distribution of fairy tales has made the genre an enduring part of late 20th‐century popular culture. A 1976 German survey confirms that contemporary knowledge of fairy tales comes mainly from television.
Before television, the reception of the classical fairy tale depended to a large degree on literacy. The televised fairy tale, however, does not essentially require that its viewers be able to read. Involving principally sight and sound,...
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