Video
Ergo Sum
Jeremy Murray-Brown
| (A
paper given at a conference sponsored by The Department
of Religion and the Humanities Foundation at Boston University,
December 3-4, 1987 on "Video Icons and Values".) |
A
person born in the year that Constantinople fell to the Turks,
if he lived to be fifty, would have seen more books produced
in his life-time -- some 8 million -- than had been written
in the previous thousand years of Constantinople's existence.1
This is how Elizabeth Eisenstein dramatizes in quantitative
terms the revolution in communication brought about by the
printing press; and the print revolution, as she goes on to
argue convincingly, worked a radical transformation in Christendom
which led, among other things, to the rise of western science,
the Protestant Reformation, the voyages of discovery which
gave Europe mastery of the globe, the introduction of assembly
line production, and the idealization of Italian Renaissance
art. In short, a revolution in the technology of communication
was responsible for our civilization in matters of science,
religion, art and politics.
Some
fifty years have now passed since the first public transmission
of a commercial television program. And in these fifty years,
what an extraordinary advance television has made across the
cultural landscape! In the United States no major city is without
competing television stations, very few homes are without a
television set, many have several, three quarters of them can
choose between more than ten channels, almost half are linked
by cable. We are now in the same position in relation to this
new medium of communication as was our fifty year old person,
born in 1453. There has been an advance in the technology of
communication, who can doubt it? But can we discern the full
consequences of this advance?
It
seems to me that television has indeed turned out to be the
agent of a radical change in human consciousness, comparable
to the revolutions in communication that occurred with the invention
of alphabetic writing and print. I use the term human consciousness
in the manner defined by Walter Ong as "the individual's own
sense of presence in and to himself and in and to the world
around him."2
And I acknowledge that I have been much helped by the work of
Ong and others on the dynamics of change in human consciousness
brought about by earlier changes in the technology of communication.
It is significant that studies in these earlier revolutions
in communication history are of recent appearance, prompted
in fact by the momentous nature of the television revolution.
It's only because of what's happened with television that we've
begun to understand the specific cultural and psychological
ramifications of oral expression, writing and print.3
In
the case of television, I shall not spend time discussing the
question of evolution versus revolution, interesting though
this question is. The influence of photography, film and radio,
the tradition of the circus, the vaudeville, the theater, a
general surge of technological inventiveness, and many other
factors have gone into making television what it is. But what
it is, it is sui generis.
Much
criticism can no doubt be leveled at the commercial nature of
American television, at the pressure of advertising which spurs
networks to seek the biggest possible audience in order to increase
ratings and maximize profits. But it is these commercial incentives
that have enabled television to exploit the costly technology
that has made it a truly popular mass medium. A fundamental
psychological characteristic of television viewers is the desire
to watch of their own free choice what everyone else is also
watching. It is only through the free market process that this
desire can be met, though the British 1986 report on the financing
of the BBC, the Peacock Report, takes a somewhat different line
on this subject.4
Ninety-five percent of Americans, however, choose to watch commercial
television5
and many would argue that television in America is television
in its most natural state.6
I believe myself that the American model is destined to be followed,
eventually, everywhere in the world.
Let
us then first look at this cultural phenomenon we call television.
I come at once to a startling figure: in the western world today
(I include Japan) people are spending between a third and a
fifth of their waking lives watching television. The statistics,
of course, are imprecise and open to debate, but the main point
is clear enough. In Japan, in North America, in northern Europe,
what is significant about television is not the vast audience
for this or that program, impressive though these audience sizes
are, especially if it's a Royal Wedding or a World Cup Final.
No, what is significant is the total amount of viewing that
most people subject themselves to, day in and day out, morning,
noon and night, for most of their lives. In the average American
home, the television set will be switched on for more than six
hours a day; in Japan, for more than eight hours;7
in Britain, for at least five. In the United States, first graders
will spend the equivalent of one entire 24-hour day per week
watching television, more time than they spend in the classroom.
For most people in the United States, viewing television has
become the third most common activity after sleep and work.8
This
quantitative appraisal of the television revolution must be
set alongside the facts about illiteracy, though these facts,
too, are hotly debated -- namely, that something in excess of
sixty million Americans are wholly or functionally illiterate.9
That is to say, something like forty percent of the voting population
of the United States is unable to participate in any form of
communication that depends on literary convention. And then
there is aliteracy -- the capacity to read but disinclination
to do so, estimated by the outgoing Librarian of Congress to
be about 44% of the adult population.10
Many
of us are shocked by these figures. But they are overwhelming
in their reality. Because of them and what they imply, there
is, in my view, little point in discussing external controls.
The world wants television, and the world is going to get it.
Our culture is changed, changed utterly.
For
television is much more than an optional activity; rather, it
has become a necessary component of all of life's activities,
public and private, and its influence is evident in a thousand
different ways. Instead of suicide notes we have public figures
blowing their heads off in front of the cameras, and instead
of a letter to the newspaper we have a man barging into the
television studio with a handgun demanding that his statement
be delivered live over the air. Television has invaded territory
far from the living room, witness its increasing use in courtrooms,
or as evidence of authentic personality, as in the Bernard Goetz
trial. We now hear of videotapes for use on VHS machines which
enable pet lovers to keep an electronic dog or cat at home without
the bother of having to feed, walk or clean up after it. Likewise
an electronic wood fire with no wood to stack and no ash to
dispose of. I heard recently that the latest thing in zoos is
to install television cameras in the wild and invite visitors
to observe the animals on television screens in rooms in a central
building. And having children see themselves on television at
birthday parties is a more effective trick than producing a
live magician; visiting by means of a videotape is a more effective
boost to the morale of hospital patients than coming to the
bedside in person.
