Tube for the World
Rubin, Ronald I.
Tube for the World TELEVISION : A WORLD VIEW, by Wilson P. Dizard. Syracuse University Press. 349 pp. $7.95. Reviewed by Ronald I. Rubin W ITHIN THE next decade or two, a television...
...ET V represents the growing network of community and school educational stations...
...Dizard's scholarly analysis avoids issues peripheral to the rise of international television, such as technical production questions and moral rights of the viewer to reply to program transmissions...
...MICHAEt D. REAGAN is a professor of political science at the University of California in Riverside...
...Yet the world-wide use of television raises issues of political potency...
...HORACE M. GRAY is an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Illinois...
...Tube for the World TELEVISION : A WORLD VIEW, by Wilson P. Dizard...
...the lack of large cities to provide a necessary audience base...
...It should be mentioned in this context, however, that some of television's "stars" are the products of poorer nations...
...UHF stands for the ultra-high frequency broadcast band capable of adding thousands of chan nels to the very-high-frequency band now used chiefly for commercial broadcasting...
...A career Foreign Service officer with the U.S...
...Although the work is not polemical as such, Dizard's detailed account of the use of television as a political instrument, even by second-rate powers, leaves one with the conclusion that the United States must strengthen its position in this area of communication...
...He is the author of "Politics, Economics, and the General Welfare...
...During the first months of his regime, the Havana television studios literally became Castro's seat of government...
...Despite the mounting prominence of television as a political transmission system, Dizard's survey shows that hardly any uniform pattern exists regarding program content, commercial operations, and script regulation...
...Information Agency, Dizard argues the thesis that his countrymen have failed to realize the relevancy of television to international politics...
...This challenge is reflected in three sets of initials: UHF, ETV, and STV...
...This development may conjure up prospects of peace, brotherhood, and understanding, or merely a wider dissemination of Hollywood B movies...
...Fidel Castro was the first modern revolutionary leader to use television as a medium of influence and control...
...Gray has contributed articles to numerous scholarly journals and is co-author, with Walter Adams, of "Monopoly in America...
...Internationally, television has spurred the growth of political communication, making it possible for leaders of a single country now to reach universal audiences...
...Television will be one of the forces—probably more important than the printed word—in international communication...
...His book is an excellent account of how the small screen contributes to the big world's turbulence...
...Wilson P. Dizard's study is the most comprehensive descriptive treatment to date of the political role of international television...
...THE REVIEWERS C. W. GRIFFIN JR...
...RONALD I. RUBIN, formerly a legislative assistant to Representative Jonathan B. Bingham, teaches political science at the City University of New York...
...The absence of international agreement on these points stems from indigenous attitudes towards con-, cepts of free expression, pluralism, and the importance of- competition...
...STV is subscription television, the system for supplying special programs to home receivers on a closed circuit for a fee...
...According to Dizard, network broadcasting will continue to dominate U.S...
...Reviewed by Ronald I. Rubin W ITHIN THE next decade or two, a television antenna will rise in the most isolated village in Africa...
...is a free lance writer and critic...
...Many countries, especially underdeveloped ones, face unique problems relating to the role of mass media in cross-cultural societies...
...broadcasting, but a new diversification of resources will be available to the public...
...then there will be no remote place on earth...
...Thus, certain African countries are doubly plagued: the issue of operating several channels for a multilingual operation...
...In the coming decades, millions of men will weigh the political alternatives available to them...
Vol. 31 • March 1967 • No. 3
