The lifestyle and values of families portrayed on television: Changes from 1960 to 2010

The unsustainable lifestyles of North Americans are wreaking havoc on the planet and show minimal evidence of the changes required to combat climate change and the biodiversity crises. In the US, it is estimated that 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are linked to supporting the American lifestyle (Bin & Dowlatabadi, 2005). House sizes have increased (US Census Bureau, 2023), while family sizes have decreased (Lesthaeghe, 2010). A preoccupation with wealth has become a defining feature of North American culture (Stolzenberg et al., 2019). Popular culture is a form of entertainment and a powerful socialization force that shapes our aspirations and pursuits (Greenfield, 2016). In 1960, adolescents reported watching 2.5 hours of daily television, and by 2016, that number had surged to 8 hours (Twenge, et al., 2019). This increased media consumption emphasizes the need to understand its influence on lifestyle choices. The present study explores television programming over a 50-year period as a cultural model of unsustainable lifestyles and values. To determine whether lifestyles represented on television since 1960 have primarily promoted environmentally unsustainable ways of living, two popular television programs representing American family life were selected for each decade from 1960 to 2010 and analyzed for the ecological footprint (EF) and values portrayed. To explore whether television representations have helped fuel the current culture's desire for more lavish lifestyles, the EF level represented in the programs was compared to (1) a sustainable EF and (2) per capita EF in Canada and the United States for each decade. Lifestyles represented on television were found to be substantially more resource-consumptive than a sustainable lifestyle, more consumptive than the average Canadian lifestyle at the time, but similar to the average American lifestyle. These results suggest that American television might create larger perceived discrepancies between the “normal” family lifestyles and one’s own lifestyle for Canadian than American audiences. Closer analysis of the EF measure, however, indicated an underestimation of resource use in several domains (e.g., meat consumption). Specific EF indicators, such as house size, were isolated and examined, revealing that seven of the 12 television homes were substantially larger than average American homes of the time. Therefore, with respect to house size, American audiences have been presented with greater luxury than the societal average. In addition, representations of clothing consumption increased from 1960 to 2010, and environmental actions, such as recycling, were absent from the shows. Representations of material life are one way to examine sustainable messaging within television, but characters' behaviour and dialogue reflect the value priorities of people at the time. Countries known for reducing their EF, such as Norway, embody eco-protective values of environmental and social harmony, whereas the United States and Canada embody eco-consumptive values of wealth and hedonism (Schwartz, 2012). Values analysis of the main characters of programs in 1970 and 2010 revealed that at both time periods, American television characters primarily valued hedonism and wealth and showed no interest in environmental protection. The implications of these findings for popular culture are explored.