When the United Nations General Assembly declared November 21 as World Television Day in 1996, it was acknowledging a simple truth: no invention in the 20th century altered human perception, politics, culture, and consciousness as profoundly as television. Today, long after its birth, the debate continues – is television an idiot box that numbs us or a magic box that enlightens us? Perhaps it is both, as Marshall McLuhan foresaw when he declared that “the medium is the message.” Television did not merely transmit information; it transformed societies by its very existence. McLuhan famously argued that television is an extension of the human senses, especially sight and hearing, turning viewers into participants in a shared cultural experience.

He classified it as a “cool medium,” one that

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