RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

FOREWORD

Little doubt exists among communications researchers that we аге facing a new phase popularly named the information age . To be sure , the technology for such development is too a large extent already available . Computerization, satellite communications, cable television systems , telematic media and other converging technologies extend information production , distribution and consumption and penetrate all traditional human activities . Although it is a risKy business to forecast further social and technological development, a number of authors presented their (utopian) visions in the last few years , notably after Toffler's The Third Wave . What is in a way a curious with all these visions is a complete absence of radio from the ‘information society'; it seems as it were a medium of the past rather than the future. But even before the latest đevelopments in information and communication technologies , already after the appearance of television , radio has lost its prime among the media in communicatin research - in contrast to the period before and during the World War Second when both 'administrative' and 'critical' communication researchers were primarily interested in radio .

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