In recent decades, the development and spread of new information technologies such as satellite television have engendered many debates about the consequences of their use. One of the first writers to see the possibilities of these changes was the American writer Marshall McLuhan, who argued in the 1960s that communications technology would have two effects: first, it would create a global village where everyone and everything were accessible to the television camera and secondly, that it would become the case that ‘the medium is the message’, that is, how the message is transmitted would outgrow in importance what the message is.
Other theorists have gone further in arguing that the explosion of, and increasing dependence on, information technology have brought about profound changes in the way society is organised. Some, for example, believe that we can now describe a ‘post-modern society’, characterised partly by an information-based international division of labour that allows increasing freedom of movement. At the cultural level, distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture have disappeared as new technology transmits across class boundaries, while stylistically, form has become more important than substance, and the ubiquity of television means that everything is seen in television codes. McLuhan’s global television-led culture is now with us.
The accuracy of such a description, however, has been questioned. At one level, many people are reluctant to accept any argument that technology can lead to social and economic changes, arguing instead that the relationship is exactly the other way round. In other words, they are critical of any tendency to technological determinism. Furthermore, evidence can be cited that queries the notion that information technology has spread evenly throughout the world or even throughout Britain. This has been described as the uneven development of the information economy. Many areas of Great Britain, for example, are not yet equipped with the on-line communications systems necessary to receive technologies such as cable and interactive television, and the take-up of these technologies varies according to socio-economic factors. We are still a long way from the full-scale and comprehensive implementation of the information super-highway.
What does seem to be the case, however, is that the stereotypical image of the nuclear family sitting together in the front room cheerfully choosing their evening’s viewing from a limited range of television stations is disappearing. This is partly due to the increased number of sets per household as well as the rapid growth in the number of channels, a development mirrored by the niche marketing of magazines to a multiplicity of interest groups. The amount of time spent watching television per head has stabilised in recent years to around 27 hours a week. Women watch on average four more hours of television per week than men and all statistics show a relationship between social class and viewing.
This is not to say that diversity and choice have necessarily been achieved. It remains the case that satellite television caters for mass-appeal interests such as music, sport, news, children’s programmes and American films and light entertainment, ignoring many disadvantaged social groups. New media technologies have not empowered people in the sense that there are increased numbers of community -based television networks. In Britain, it is no less valid today to describe a mass culture based on a centrally directed mass media.
Doubts have also been raised about the ability of satellite stations to succeed in creating a global television culture. Rupert Murdoch is widely known to own substantial parts of the global media industry. A few years ago, he added a controlling share of StarTV to his collection, meaning that he gained access to 2.5 billion people in 50 countries, or forty percent of the world’s television sets, in a region stretching from Jordan to Japan. Capturing the market in India, however, and hooking the population onto hit talk shows and American mega-series such as ‘Baywatch and LA Law’, has not been as straightforward as first imagined. Cultural differences are complicated in a nation of 18 official languages and further compounded when you consider the staggering figure of 1,700 dialects. Hindi films transmitted by the state broadcasting network still rank a coveted first in the ratings table. Murdoch’s response to this realisation was to immediately buy into a local TV station as well. Indian culture, for the present at least, remains resistant to western broadcasting and highlights that the creation of a global mass culture will not be solely induced by technology.