SOURCE: "Television and the Crisis in the Humanities," in Journal of Popular Film and Television, Vol. 19, No. 3, Fall, 1991, pp. 98-105.

In the following essay, Burns defends television against criticism that it is responsible for a decline in American cultural literacy and champions media studies as a legitimate subject of academic inquiry.

Comes now TV Guide complaining that "54 percent of Americans know that Judge [Joseph] Wapner runs The People's Court but only 9 percent know that Justice William Rehnquist heads the Supreme Court." Lest readers miss the point of this supposedly shocking allegation (drawn from an unidentified survey), TV Guide solemnly concludes: "That's a sad commentary on the public's legal savvy."¹

Of course, one could look at it another way and say that it is a sad commentary on the Supreme Court. The "legal savvy" of Americans has probably increased as a result of The People's Court—more people probably...