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prophet of the lon g revolu ti on , but he makes a good dea l hang on tha t
one particul ar week. In the hi storian 's time-span it is a very fl ee ting
week indeed , not a parti cul a rl y exciting week and certa inl y not a
representa tive one. Yet Williams derives from it a typology no t onl y of
p rograms but of the institutions provid ing them . " In all their ways,
and in their essenti al combina tion ," he concl udes hi s chapter, " thi s is
the fl ow of meanings and values of a specifi c culture." To which
Barno uw, as a sensiti ve interpreter o f historical change bo th in
programming and in advertizing (Willi ams is not very revealing on the
la tter ) would surely repl y "very specific indeed ."
Willi ams's techni q ue here but not everywhere is tha t of literary
exeges is, and he notes the emphas is in the American news reportin g o f
the 1973 week on "today . . . today .. . now ... fas t ... don 't miss it ...
today ... coming out . . . today ... a t this moment . . . today ... now. "
He concludes, however, since he is above all else interested in struc–
tures, tha t " the sen se of instantaneous, simultaneous happening" was
" in general false." T he concl usion itself needs further interpreta tion .
Barnouw shows very con vincin gly tha t there have been very big
changes indeed over fift y years of broadcas ting history in the United
Sta tes in the sen se of yes terday, today and tomorrow . Indeed, he is
particul arl y successful in identifying changes of mood when there have
been no changes in structure, although no t surprisingly he does no t
always succeed in expl aining them .
Where Willi ams has the advantage is in hi s compari sons of
American and Briti sh experience. His first two model-building chap–
ters on " the technology and the society" and on "instituti ons of the
technology" are lucid and compact as well as compara ti ve; it was
sensibl e to fo ll ow them up with the limited study of the distributi on of
British and Ameri can television programs in 1973 even if the res ults are
of strictl y limited relevance. After all , much tha t has been a ttributed by
writers on communi ca tio ns to the influence of radio and television
per
se
can be p roperl y accounted for onl y in terms of broader economic,
social and cultura l forces opera ting within different societies. A
common , still-developing electroni c techno logy has been emp loyed
and assessed in very different ways in different places (the United Sta tes
and Britain, for exampl e) just as it has been empl oyed and assessed a t
different points in its develo pment in the same place (for exampl e,
Barnouw's United Sta tes over more than fifty years). In going back to
the prehistory of television , Barnouw opens promisingly with an
admirable survey in which he talks about other countries bes ides the
United Sta tes, but thereafter he drops the experi ence of other countries
except for a few occasional cross-references. He does not note, for
