RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Circumstances attribute lasting relevance to our meditations on television in general and especially its role in the struggle to achieve national independence, and efforts to preserve independence attained, ? the possibility of television contributing to a fuller acpuaintanceship between nations and countries, which is a prerepuisite to better understanding and more equal cooperation between peoples and their states. At the same time implicit to these circumstances are the reasons for organizing cooperation amongst the the non-aligned in the sphere of information activities as well to give impulse to more all-round and more substantial collaboration in the development of national television systems - cooperation which already has this veryFestival as one of its outcomes. The proceedings so far of the FirstTV Festival of the NonAlignedCountries has illustrated the level of development of the national televisioh systems, the diversity of their content, their technical level and creative accomplishments; it has also made clear the fact that the introduction and development of this medium has not been approached merely from the standpoint of its role in gathering and disseminating information in the narrow, journalistic sense of the word. Television has also been appreciated and accepted in its educational function, in mediating traditional artistic and cultural values, and values now issuing from artistic and cultural creative expression in everv countrv in which it is in operation. The charm of the festival is also the fact that it is a review not onlv of divergencies in the the level of technical development, but of idiosyncracies in expression and content The world of todav trulv is a mosaic pieced together by nature and by man, who became what he is by his drive to cultivate the natural within and about himself. Work is the common attribute of all peoplel Everything else differs - the conditions and modes of life and work, tastes, customs, beliefs, plav and song. The diversitv of national cultures enriches the spectrum of colours and tones of this mosaic. The picture brought into the home bv the small screen will not be a proper picture of the world as it is if the viewer is deprived of these natdonal tones and colours. Thus it cannot be all the same to us what the svstem of information and communication is like.