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TV is Dead - Long Live the WEB Abstract: Before the printing press, there was really only one book in the West - the bible - and it was hand-written by a bunch of monks. After the press was invented anyone could write a book and anyone could read, so catalyzing intellectual creativity as well as making possible, for the first time, general access to the collected wisdom gathered by mankind. Thus education was democratised. Today, the broadcasting companies decide who should broadcast and who the target audience should be. Invariably this is decided on the basis of either advertising considerations and/or the number of heads in front of sets, apparently without much regard for the number of brain cells involved in the exercise. In an analogous way to the printing press, the birth of the Web has democratized broadcasting - the mainstream channels no longer control the dissemination of recorded audio-visual material - individuals and groups of individuals can now make and broadcast programmes themselves and so the Internet has at last enabled audio-visual broadcasting to fulfill the promise it has always had - to be a superb educational medium. Already a wide range of exciting possibilities is being explored and mainstream TV just cannot compete with the creative potential of every individual in the world. The stranglehold on the audio-visual educational process that the media have had - usurping any socially responsible mandate they might have had to provide something in addition to entertainment - has been broken. The Vega Science Trust (www.vega.org.uk) is an experimental organisation which is pioneering ways for scientists and engineers to communicate directly on whatever matters they feel are exciting or of interest and concern and to whomsoever they wish - with this unfettered brief the latent potential of the broadcasting to inform is finally being realized. Among other things Vega is pioneering a new concept in scientific debate - participants should actually understand the subject under discussion. |
