You seem to jumping to unwarranted conclusions, young man. Where did you see in my writings the phrase "outside society?" If you believe that television = society, you seem to confuse image with reality.
Television does affect society and thus must not been ignored - but before one directs his or her attention at it, it would be useful to ask HOW it affects society. Many people, both on right and left, believe that the effect of tv is that of the "hypodermic needle" (a metaphor often used and abused in the media theory) i.e. the televised content being pumped into docile subjects with little or no cognitive processing. The hypodermic needle approach alse serves a straw man to propose more sophisticated views that concentrate, inter alia, on the agenda setting of the media, interaction between media and community in decoding the meaning of media contents or the selective reception of the contents aka "uses and gratifications."
My own views tilt toward the cognitive approach viewing the media as the conveyor belt of interpretative schemata that stay in the brain and control the interpretation of facts in everyday life (the agenda setting approach and beyond). In that role, media shows are mere allovariants of a small number of archetypes - most of them conveying the conservative interpretative schemata, but not exclusively.
The conservative interpretative schemata include the outside world as a confusing and dangerous place, strict macho types as defenders of order against that dangerous and outside world, the use of force as the only effective means of defending that order, a hierarchy of being with indefensible white male on the top and the descending order of women, people of color, animals and monsters. The liberal interpretative schemata, in turn, include the world as an interdependent nexus of beings, mutual responsibilities, and open and honest communication as the most effective means of conflict resolution and creation of order, an nurturing, non-hierarchical human relations.
Most of tee-vee shows fall into one of these categories - one does not need watch all of them to get the "message" i.e. the right interpretative schema that the show projects. You need to watch one gangster move to see them all -i.e. know that they project the conservative strict male as the defender of order archetype. I do not think that the same can be true about the "nurturing" progressive archetype simply because they offer a much richer variety than the strict hierarchical masculine morality - ranging from Cramer vs. Cramer featuring the archetype of the nurturing male to Home improvement ridiculing the macho archetype, and to It's a wonderful life promoting the archetype of a caring social activist. There is probably much more on the progressive side.
I already know that and watching more television would simply inundate me with different variants of the same. However, I also know of the syndrome, which I first observed in the graduate school, which for the lack of better terminology I call ersatz-study or using the study frame to engage in activities that one sees as personally troubling, intimidating, shameful or otherwise not kosher. A closet gay may use the "study" of gay community as a framework to vicariously engage in homosexual activities, professed feminists may use a study of sex industry same framework to vicariously engage in erotic or pornographic activities, others may study formal organizations or politics as the means of vicarious participation in power relations, and so on. In the same vein, many folks use the "understanding society" framework to simply engage in low brow entertainment without losing their high brow reputation as intellectuals.
Wojtek