The Role of Television in the History of Television

In 1997, in a new intro to the essay, Trot says that it was the role of television to establish the context of no context and then chronicle it. Can you help us understand what he means? I'm not a historian of television personally, but I've watched enough of it to have some ideas about what he means when he says that. A lot of what Tro is writing about are to do with the warping of human character under forces of marketing consumption and consumerism.