Television’s first century is just a blip in the course of human history when it is seen in terms of Darwinian evolution. For thousands of years, our ancestors lived in small groups (tribes), surviving in harsh conditions and not always on good terms with nearby groups. The small group instinct is deeply embedded in our psyches, even though most of us now live in large countries with centralised governments.
For the past 150 years or so, we have been heavily influenced by centralised mass media: first print, then radio, then television. These have consisted of a few controlled sources, staffed by professional managers and journalists and entertainers. Technical people play a major role, but tend to be left in the background, as was pointed out to the Royal Television Society a few years ago by the then Prince of Wales. The mass media have been well-funded and have done a fairly good job in a paternalistic sort of way. I remember the BBC’s cheerful radio programmes of the grim years during and just after World War II, and its acclaimed television coverage of the 1953 Coronation, even though colour had yet to be broadcast in the UK.
Has this centralised model fitted in well with humanity’s genetically-ingrained small group (tribal) instinct? Until recently, the answer to that question seems to have been yes. But today, thanks to new digital technology and low-cost manufacture, there is no longer any practical limit to the number of media sources. Anyone with a computer and some spare time can transmit material (print or sound or television) to the world through Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. Each website may attract a handful of people, or perhaps a few hundred ... or perhaps more. This fragmentation is having a major effect on the influence and the income of the conventional television broadcasters. Today’s internet offers thousands of choices to the consumer.
The small sender may just post family snapshots, or articles on steam trains or gardening or recipes, or perhaps on abstruse subjects like television history. So far, so good. But some outlets send “news” which can be unverified gossip, or even hate propaganda. Does this technically-driven change favour democracy—or anarchy? In an interview towards the end of his life, Lord Reith told interviewer Malcolm Muggeridge, “I was afraid of it [television] from the start.”
Fragmentation is affecting the whole television industry. Recently, the U.K.’s Royal Television Society chose as themes for its Cambridge conferences “The Fight for Attention” and “Too Much to Watch.” This calls to mind the old Latin saying, quot homines, tot sententiae, roughly translated as “there are as many opinions as there are men.” Today, talented and hardworking media people of either gender are striving to adjust to this new era—and to protect their jobs.
Back in 1936, my father had optimistically predicted that television would increase international understanding, and described it as “tomorrow’s diplomat.” In 1962, the Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase: “The Global Village." But if he were alive today, McLuhan might be writing about global villages, the countless internet outlets that cater to the small group instincts which are latent in all of us. The communications pioneer Sir Geoffrey Hinton is reported as saying that there is a 10% to 20% chance that AI will lead to human extinction in three decades.
A case can be made for a new world-scale regulatory approach that takes account of not only technology but also commercial and political ethics and (above all) human nature. Is such an approach achievable? Challenging times lie ahead not only for television and the electronic media, but for all of us.
