The history and development of television - Essay Example

RA April 14, 2007 The History and Development of Television The concept of the Global Village purports a world in which the electronic mediaand Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have transcended all barriers of time, space and geographical distance. Without distance, there is no remoteness. The entire world becomes a single entity socially, economically, politically, culturally. The process by which all distinctions are blurred and blended is termed Globalization. The Television, in its many evolutions, has been the precursor in bringing about Globalization and creating a Global Village of the world. Simply called the TV, Telly or, adversely, the Idiot Box, this contraption that brings sounds and pictures to billions of houses across the world, has played a crucial role in transforming the world itself. This paper will: i. Trace the history and technical evolution of the Television. ii. Take a look at how new technologies and their convergence have added to the power of the Television. iii. Examine the role the Television has played in making the world what it is today. iv. Explore the future potentials of the Television. History and Technical Evolution The word television was coined by a Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi in a paper he presented at the International Electricity Congress at the International World Fair in Paris on August 25, 1900. Even before that, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, a German student, had patented the first television in 1884. It was a electromechanical device based on the photoconductivity of the element Selenium and Nipkow’s spinning disk with a series of holes of equal diameter drilled into it at equal distances. In the camera unit, as the disk spun in front of the object, each hole produced a scan line which was captured by a light detecting device behind it. The scan line was transmitted by radio wave to the reproducer or receiving unit. This basic television and other refinements that came after it were however restricted to transmission of still images and silhouettes. It was only on October 2, 1925 that the Scottish scientist John Logie Baird, who took the lead in development of the electromechanical television, achieved live transmission of moving half-tone images in his laboratory. Baird’s endeavour took the electromechanical television through a continuous phase of technical development ranging from the first transatlantic transmission between London and New York by his company in 1928, the first transmission between shore to ship, demonstratin of the first electromechanical colour, infrared and stereoscopic television to the first live transmission, of the Epson Derby in 1931 and demonstration of the ultra short-wave television in 1932. The electromechanical television technology reached its zenith with the BBC Television broadcasts at a resolution of 240 lines before giving way to the purely electronic technology. Others who contributed to the development of the electromechanical system were Charles Francis Jenkins, Frank Conard and Frank Grey and Herbert E Ives. The basic technology behind the electronic television system is the use of cathode ray tubes at both the transmitting and receiving ends. Continuous photoemission from the eye of the camera and the build up of positive charges leads to storage of the picture in the form of the ‘latent electric picture’ 1. The world’s first demonstration of an all-electronic television system was given by Philo T Farnsworth at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on August 25, 1934. His electronic television was the precursor of all modern televisions. The Russian scientist Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin, who was a contemporary of Farnsworth, had also worked on developing a television using cathode ray tubes. Even though he lost his patent case with Farnsworth, his contribution to the development of the electronic television is nevertheless acknowledged as significant. Eventually, it was Baird again who gave the first demonstration of the electronic colour television on August 16, 1944. Germany was the first to telecast regular electronic television programmes in 1935. The United States, Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France had also started regular telecasts before the Second World War. However, the first regular public telecast of modern-day acceptable resolution of 240 lines or more was made in the UK in 1936. The United States began network broadcasting in 1946. The Television had come of age and was commonly available in American homes by the 1950s. Convergence of Technologies Not only has television technology developed at a rapid rate, developments in Information and Communication Technology have also resulted in a convergence of technologies which has added entirely new dimensions to television technology. The advent of satellite communication freed television from the traditional terrestrial networks. Television signals could be beamed through satellites all across the world. This gave birth to Satellite Television and led to a proliferation of channels all over the world. The Telstar satellite was the first to relay a television signal from Europe in 1962. Orbita, the first national network of satellite television was created in the Soviet Union in 1967. Satellite Television ushered in Direct Broadcast Satellite or Direct-to-Home television. The coupling of satellite television with Cable Television gave a boost to the latter as never before. Traditional Cable Television had overcome the problems of poor reception by erecting large antennae on elevated ground and then providing television content to the local community in the form of radio frequency signals transmitted through fibre optics or co-axial cables. Satellite television enabled the cable operators to provide many more channels than only those available over the traditional airwaves. Not only that, they were also able to provide additional non television services such as internet access, FM radio programming, telephony, etc. over their network. The coming of the Digital Television (DTV) has opened up new avenues of transmission and reception of audio-visual signals. In DTV the moving pictures and sounds are transmitted and received by digital signals instead of the conventional analogue signals. The modulated and compressed digital data is demodulated and decompressed at the receiving end by what is known popularly as a ‘set-top box’ in a standard television set. The digital signal can be received in computer systems with the help of a TV tuner card. However, the greatest advantage in DTV is that the digital signal occupies comparatively much less bandwidth freeing the space for High-Definition TV (HDTV) or other multimedia and interactive services. Multicasting or transmission of simultaneous channels, webcasting or live transmission over the World Wide Web and WebTV have been made possible by Digital Television. Three main drivers of change have been identified in television technologies and services (Rangone, Andrea; Turconi, Alessandro; 2003:51-2): i. Introduction of digital technologies in the diffusion of television. ii. Multiplication of access technologies that can be used to deliver television to homes. (Figure 1) iii. Various technical interactions that are taking place between the Internet and Television. Figure 1 (Rangone, Andrea; Turconi, Alessandro; 2003:52) The Television Syndrome Thanks to new communication and television technologies and their coming together, the penetration and range of television have increased in an unprecedented manner all over the world. Though the divide is very evident between the rich and the poor in terms of access to television, the rate of increase has been remarkable: With a global penetration of 1.7 billion TV sets, there is roughly one set for every four human beings. In the lowest income countries (comprising 2.5 billion people), theres a TV set for every 12 people, or less than one per household. Indeed, for the poorest 50 countries (comprising 1 billion people), the $300 average price of a TV set exceeds the $295 annual GDP per capita. While most of us take it for granted, television is clearly still a luxury for millions of people around the world. Despite these wide differences, more than 150 million TV sets are sold every year--with double-digit growth rates in less developed countries. (Mougayar, William;YaleGlobal, 11 October 2002) As the reach of television increases in leaps and bounds, it effects are felt by people in different countries of the world. Television content is becoming more and more global in nature giving rise to concerns of cultural identity and economic domination. An interesting study from the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan reflects such a view: In current cultural globalization, television constitutes one of the most important phenomenons. Today, globally watched TV channels are regulated/owned by a few countries and a few people. In other words, the very product of cultural globalization itself constitutes an important part of economic globalization. In today’s world, an important part of social life is determined by global processes and media. Television plays an especially dominant role as a determining factor. As a result of the empowering dominance of international market, mass media capital, including television, has lost its national character in most of the countries. National capitals are incorporated in international capital not only in terms of ownership structure, but also in terms of production and distribution processes. In most regions of the world, including the European countries, capital-ownership compositions of the TV channels are not local or national anymore. They are becoming predominantly global. Globalization constitutes an international electronics network throughout the world. But there is no space for cultural rights and cultural equality within that network. (Huriye, Kuruoglu; 2004) It is evident that globalisation is a truly global phenomenon. In Globalisation and the Impact on Health: A Third World View - The Globalisation of Culture, Evelyne Hong, (August 2000) writes: All over the world people of all ages are exposed to the same music, the same sporting events, the same news, sitcoms, soap operas and the same glamorous lifestyle. US corporate culture is available everywhere. Satellite TV has made available viewing anytime of the night and day. More than 75 percent of the world’s population have access to daily TV reception. In South America and Asia, US films and TV programmes dominate the screens. Every week viewers in Malaysia, click with ‘Ally McBeal’, her angst in her quest for true happiness and love. Young people the world over aspire for the kind of adult relationships found in ‘Friends’. Young people in Third World countries are the largest consumers of the global culture and global corporations are racing to get a piece of the market, even children are not spared. Sony has developed its range of toy-like radios, kids music label and videos for this age group. With MTV, global entertainment reached its apex; today it beams daily to over 200 million households in over seventy countries. The biggest growth potential for pop music is in South America and Asia. Foreign pop brands and local versions and renditions of the same synthesised beat is imitated every where. Local artistes belt out songs popularised by the ‘Spice Girls’, and ‘West Life’ with the same stage sets, manoeuvres and costumes. In its extreme, the effect of television can be quite devastating as well as life threatening, as is illustrated in the same paper: In the Third World TV serves to heighten the stark contrasts between the poor majority and the rich few. An Indian social scientist has tried to explain the recent suicide epidemic sweeping the sub-continent as a result of social breakdown and culture induced stress. According to him, ‘economic liberalisation has further widened the gulf between the rich and the poor’. The opening up of the economy has benefited the elite further; while ‘traditional bonds of extended families have snapped, leading to the disintegration of old family support structures. Increasing westernisation of the Indian elite, the rat race for personal wealth and glory has contributed to the loss of equilibrium. The stress on material values rather than moral or spiritual values, increasing consumerism, fuelled by myriad satellite TV channels’ so that the rich now ‘drive around in foreign cars, wear branded clothes and patronise expensive discos and five star hotels have contributed to the suicide frenzy in the economically deprived communities. Dazzled by the riches of the Indian elite, the poor take increasingly to crime. When this short cut to riches fails, as in most cases it must, the poor commit suicide’. (Coomi Kapoor, 10 July, 2000). The television casts its influence at all levels from the global to within the family and down to the individual. Television content can be categorized into news, entertainment, education, general information, telecast of live events, and commercials. The contents can again be divided on the basis of age groups. The content therefore ranges from simple non persuasive or non suggestive information inputs in news to the highly persuasive and suggestive commercials. The individual is therefore subjected to a variety of information content that could have different psychological impacts. The intensity of the effect would however depend on the psychological profile of the individual and his viewing time and preferences. The effect of television viewing on members of the family has always been a matter of much deliberation and debate. The television, no doubt, provides a wide all-encompassing exposure; nevertheless the impact of such exposure would come with both its pros and cons. The effect of television on children has been a subject of intensive study. A task force appointed by the American Psychological Association in 2000 studied the effect of television commercials on children under eight. The study makes it clear that children are more susceptible to television commercials: Because young children lack the cognitive skills and abilities of older children and adults, they do not comprehend commercial messages in the same way as do more mature audiences, and, hence, are uniquely susceptible to advertising influence. (Kunkel, Dale; Wilcox, Brian, L.; Cantor, Joanne; Palmer, Edward; Linn, Susan; Dowrick, Peter; February 20, 2004:2) While television content can be made to be educative and constructive for children, the negative effects can be in the form of: i. Time Wastage: On an average American child spent four hours a day watching television. This could be spent in a much healthier way with friends and in sports. ii. Unhealthy food habits: Children who watch television tend to cultivate unhealthy food habits because of the persuasiveness of commercials. iii. Cultivation of aggressive behaviour: When a child watches 3-4 hours of non-educative television a day, he would have seen about 8,000 murders on television by the time he finishes grade school. The child may not realize that violence can hurt and inflict pain. This may induce the child to cultivate aggressive behaviour patterns. iv. Sex: The child is often exposed to adult sexual content without any warning on the harmful nature of early or risky sexual behaviour. On television sexual activity is usually portrayed as normal, exciting and fun-filled, which may lead the child to copy or mimic such action. v. Bad habits: Television commercials and entertainment content project smoking, drinking and other harmful activities as normal activities. Entertainment content sometimes inadvertently or indirectly promotes negative tendencies. Children cultivate bad habits such as smoking, drinking and drugs because of these negative portrayals. (Television and the Family, American Academy of Paediatrics) The Future New television innovations such as Interactive Television and On Demand Television loom large on the horizon. Interactive Television (iTV) is defined as ‘those applications/services that allow the user to interact with the television program content in the course of it (usually such applications are accessible through a link within the TV program).’ (Rangone, Andrea; Turconi, Alessandro; 2003:54). This allows the user to participate along with a TV game programme, choose a plot of the story being shown as in Adaptive Television, access additional programme-related information such as the recipe in a cooking programme, initiate e-commerce applications such as order a CD online of the program being shown, etc. On-Demand Television, on the other hand allows the user to build up his own schedule of programs according to his preferences from amongst an array of available programs. The user is also able to skip commercials if he wants to. ‘This represents threat for conventional broadcasters as program management (e.g. scheduling activities) is a segment of the television industry value chain (Wirtz and Schwarz, 2001) that could be soon taken over by the viewer. (Rangone, Andrea; Turconi, Alessandro; 2003:54) Extrapolation of television technology takes us to the realm of video conferencing where there is live audio-visual interaction between two parties as in point-to-point video conferencing and between multiple parties as in multiple-point video conferencing. Live interaction with simultaneous transmission of television content will bring in a new era of active user-broadcaster/producer participation in television technology. Distances will shrink even more, and the world will become smaller still. The global village may well turn into a Global Block. A very probable scenario of the future has been vividly depicted by Budd Margolis (The TV Evolution Revolution; Summer 2005) The world will soon open up and instead of a mere few hundred channels we will have to cope with several thousand channels some from well known and professional organizations and many from the amateur and even unregulated ranks. That’s not to say some will not be highly entertaining but there is a concern over content, controls and legality. Instead of browsing the EPG (electronic programme guide) or TV Guide, you will find video feeds via a Google search or DigiGuide and then stream or download content. As web sites today are affordable and easily provided for, soon many of us will host our personal broadcast stations and the major networks and programme providers will have problems trying to keep up with live night time broadcasts of Brazilian Beach Girls or California Amateur Babe Beach Volleyball. In between this dross, this there may even be some educational and, dare I say, culturally beneficial material out there as well. Companies will have their own TV stations for such mundane areas as repair and maintenance, replacement parts, history, commercials archive, PR and new products information. Universities, professors, departments and students will have the ability to record, produce, edit and play out programming. Courses are already being podcast on many campuses so missing lectures no longer has much relevance unless you had a question and that can be emailed to the professor. Government departments both national and local can communicate as well and soon council meetings will be readily available to the public. From sports teams to music groups, authors and artists will all find this medium a perfect way to make contact directly with their audience, supporters or fans and of course help to develop future fans. The possibilities are endless. Television could very well pose a threat to the individualism in human nature. Yet, it is not as simple as that. When we speak of the Global Village, we have to take the cultural dimension into consideration. Even Herbert Marshall McLuhan, the man who conceptualised Global Village, spoke of a world with a single ‘collective identity’ albeit with a “tribal base”(Wikipedia). After all, different cultures do not co-exist in the conventional ‘village’. A homogenous culture has to evolve across the length and breadth of the Global Village. Modern technology may well be able to surpass geographical barriers, but will it be able to amalgamate distinct racial and national cultures and individualism into a global blend? Works Cited 1. Andrea Rangone and Alessandro Turconi, ‘The television (r)evolution within the multimedia convergence: a strategic reference framework’ Management Decision 41/1, [2003] 48-71 2. Coomi Kapoor, ‘Sordid saga of suicides in India’ The Star, July 10, 2000, p. 25. 3. Huriye, Kuruoglu; ‘Reflections of Cultural Globalization in TV: Programmes in Kyrgyzstan’ Manas University Kyrgyzstan, UNISCI Discussion Paper, 2004. 4. Kálmán Tihanyi From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1lm%C3%A1n_Tihanyi 5. Kunkel, Dale; Wilcox, Brian, L.; Cantor, Joanne; Palmer, Edward; Linn, Susan; Dowrick, Peter; ‘Report of the APA Taskforce on Advertising and Children, Section: Psychological Issues in the Increasing Commercialization of Childhood’ February 20, 2004:p.2 6. Margolis, Budd; ‘The TV Evolution Revolution’ Summer 2005, http://www.poolonline.com/archive/issue31/iss31fea2.html 7. Marshall McLuhan. Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan#_note-24 8. Mougayar, William; ‘Small Screen, Smaller World’ YaleGlobal, 11 October 2002. http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=204 9. ‘Television and the Family, American Academy of Paediatrics’, http://www.aap.org/family/tv1.htm Read More