RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

V ukašin Mićunović

TELEVISION - AN INSTRUMENT OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND BETTER UNDERSTANDING AND COOPERATION AMONGST THE NON-ALIGNED COUNTRIES

Televisiorfs involvement in public life spurs major changes in the prevailing mode of communication amongst people. The galloping development of technologv, the transmission of pictures, has given rise to new theories of information. The proponents of a civilization of pictures have arrived on the scene and have even predicted the end of the civilization of the written word founded with Guttenbergs invention. We have not yet reached this end. But we аге witnesses to the fact that that television’s part, not just in formation but in acpuiring knowledge and the dissemination of learning, in mediating scientific, artistic and cultural values, in entertainment and recreation, is highly significant Drawing on the results of existing information, educational, scientific and artistic institutions as well as of TV creative workers within a relatively short span of time television has grown into a powerful factor in informing, shaping and developing the consciousness and taste of milions of viewers. With its ability to picture and relate, it has also influenced viewers whose illiteracy has prevented their utilizing books and newspapers. Television is the invention of the industrial stage of our civilization’s development J ust as the process of industrialization did not and still does not flow evenly in all countries, nor is its development marked by evenness. Its development is proportional to the level of industrial development Although I do not think we

Address delivered to the Round Table held during The First TV Festival of the Non-Aligned Countries, October 1979, Herceg Novi, Vugoslavia.

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