RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

CRITICISM

Miroljub Jevtović

CRITICISM AND CRITERIA

From the very start this review has expressed the tendency to analyse the influence of broadcasting. In its pages many problems regarding the nature of radio and TV and the characteristics of their programmes were critically discussed. We have published articles by a considerable number of writers analysing programmes both from cntica! and self-critical yiewpoints. We also published the opinions of both the programme-makers and the critics who were specially polled on radio and TV reviewing. Now we start a special column devoted to criticism. Radio and TV programming sometimes appears to be a very simple process, as if the influence exerted by broadcasting were too easily accepted. However, nothing about radio and TV is either easy or simple. For the programme-makers and those who assess them fmding new paths of communication turns out to be a restless search for new ways of communication, a search for new creative formulas which defy established forms, traditional prejudices, middle-class taste, and dogmatism. It means the buildmg up of new forms of communication between the Man-m-the-studio and the Man-by-his-set. lt is obvious that a universal truth will emerge more clearly, perceptions will be sharpened, and emotions refmed by the symbolic use of ап individual and concrete example. This can be found m both radio and TV programmes and criticism, However we do not have as much of it as we would like. So from a part of broadcasted programmes we have to extract what the programme-makers have deposited in a flood of words, images and music. And the possible lack of a desire for a better tomorrow, both ш real hfe and in radio and TV programming, shouid be demasked У a c^ear_c ut critical word. The task of the reviewer should be to demonstrate how a programme evolves into a work of art or point out the dissolution of those criteria which a programme should ■satisfy, being presented as it is before an audience of millions, Criticism must encourage the tireless searchers to reach the heights and at the same time brand the sloths who eke out a bare existence - mg in programme plans without апу rhyme or reason thereby accustoming people to stare blankly at their screens or go deaf by t eir radio sets listening to nothing! It is not easy to fmd much of value m the present radio and TV flood. And as for those who bereft jof апу creative approach or sense for selection, use microphones and .cameras to entrap anything thaf s going and serve up cod as caviar ,no comment!

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