Entertainment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also Entertainment (disambiguation) and The Entertainer (disambiguation)

It has been suggested that General entertainment be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

A stilt-walker entertaining shoppers at a shopping centre in Swindon, England

Entertainment is an event, performance, or activity designed to give pleasure or relaxation to an audience (although, for example, in the case of a computer game the "audience" may be only one person). The audience may participate in the entertainment passively as in watching opera, or actively as in computer games.

The playing of sports and reading of literature are usually included in entertainment, but these are often called recreation more specifically, because they involve some active participation beyond mere leisure.

The industry that provides entertainment is called the entertainment industry.

1 New theory about history of entertainment
2 Examples of entertainment
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] New theory about history of entertainment

According to what is described as a "new theory" by webmaster and author William McGaughey [1], while people have amused themselves since the beginning of time, the entertainment industry first became a dominant force in society in the 20th century with the development of new electronic technologies of recording and broadcasting. Western peoples, weary of serious purposes and mass slaughter, turned to popular culture following the two world wars. The economic basis of this new culture was advertising - the juxtaposition of free or cheap entertainment programming and unwanted commercial messages. In their heyday, television networks were powerful selling machines which, besides entertaining people, controlled both commercial and political markets by providing direct access to the mass of customers or voters. This "empire" is now threatened by the proliferation and segmentation of media and especially by the increasing importance of communication by computer which allows the consumer to seek out the informational message instead of having it broadcast to him or her. A new scheme of world history sees Americans in transition between a fourth, entertainment-based "civilization" and a future fifth civilization based on computer communication (the old print culture, which is the third civilization, having recently receded.)