| Summary: | One of the purposes is to provide students of ·this subject with an over-all view of the current television scene throughout the globe. the work will be useful to the American television industry, particularly in enlarging its perspective of the medium's world role. For the present, the industry views overseas television almost exclusively in terms of an export market. This is a legitimate part of our national interest, but it is also a limited one. The long-range American role in international TV is going to be determined primarily by the attitudes and the action of the domestic TV industry. This work will prove useful to laymen concerned about our future in a world where the tides of social and political pluralism threaten to undermine the structure of an evolving world order. Our national ability to communicate effectively with three billion members of alien cultures is crucial in this process. Television, bringing the sights and sounds of our dialogue to Everyman's front parlor, is the most dramatic advance in mass-media technology since the invention of the printing press. Its capabilities are directly relevant to our national effort to build a stable democratic world order. The medium itself is neutral: it can be used to transmit the dialogue of free men building such an order or the commands of a dictator trying to prevent it. If my survey has any pretensions, they lie in the direction of attempting to influence a positive American response to this particular challenge.
|
|---|
