RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Communication productions саше into being with pre-teievision technologies and could not be made to serve on-going political information practice for all the reasons already discussed at length. Television, therefore, brought something new of cardinal importance into communication as understood within the bounds of traditional concepts of communication practice. Television appeared and revolutionized communication practice, altering the definition of the communication production, the show or aesthetic message. TV productions today communicate the content of living political, economic and social events. Specific mention has been made of the two social-psychological mechanisms, identification and projection, because these are the mechanisms which establish communication between the recipient, on the one side and the TV event and its actors, on the other, at the level of subconscious and rationally uncontrolled communication. A message experienced in this way has different implications for the conduct of the subjects of the communication act than those resulting from the reception of semantic messages disseminated by, say the press. This is the кеу Unk in the chain of innovations brought by TV as a communication technology. TV technology gives communication a framework allowing interpretations of political economic and social events which are actually happening with the expectation that the value judgements involved will flow into the consciousness of and be absorbed by the recipient, whether he wants it or not, through subcounscious mechanisms, subliminally. This is the reason why TV can be considered a "dangerous invention” as well, a communication medium of immense possibilities and powerful impact on the behavior of the subjects of communication practice. But this is not the occasion for a deeper discussion of this area. It remains for us to conclude that TV is one more medium for the production of artistic communications but the only one of these mediums which can also be incorporated into the processes of day-to-day, on-going political and social communication, living communication. This was never a feasible combination for earlier communication technologjes.

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