Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Blue Skies
Why do you think that Thomas Streeter titles his essay the way he does? What do “blue skies” and “strange bedfellows” have to do with 1960s discussions about the possibilities of cable television? Does the language used around cable at that time sound similar to the way new media technologies are discussed today? Explain.
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The thing is that new technologies always seem to be revolutionary, yet they’re not. New technologies just add onto an already existing technology, just like Apple does every year to its iPhone. The “blue sky scenario” is when a technology boast of revolutionizing what is already in existence. The problem is that it really does nothing to revolutionize the product. It is a “strange bedfellows” situation where cable and television consider themselves to be completely different, yet they have one decisive thing in common; they’re not really that different. Cable is simply adding more viewing options, but it’s not fixing any problems that television had or doing something new that we haven’t seen before.
ReplyDeleteI feel that it was not just television, but every new piece of technology that came out during the 1960s. In other articles that we’ve read, they write about how advertisements always boasted about how the latest washing machine would allow the housewife to have more time with her family and less on the actual house chore, but it was a lie. In some cases, they even spent more time cleaning than befores. All these new technologies weren’t improvements or something new, they were just sugar coated enough for the consumer to believe that they were actually new and innovative.
Clearly, talk of new technology back in the 1960s is the same talk we are having today about new technology. New technologies scare us, but at the same time they fascinate us. We build high hopes on these new technologies that are introduced to us, but after a while we come to realize that it’s not so different to what we had before the new technology.
The main theme of Streeter's article is skepticism in the face of technological advancement. His preoccupation seems to be less with the ramifications of the technology of cable or CATV on the television industry at large and its audience, but with who was pushing for the advancement at what time and for what reasons. His conclusion, that cable television finally saw widespread implementation after its economic benefits could no longer be ignored, is an excellent illustration of a truism in scientific progress is simplistic.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, Streeter’s criticism is more semantic than substantive. He takes issue with the tendency of writers to refer to the invention of coaxial television as a “revolution” when it was really only an improvement over over-the-air television. Sure, there would be space for new stations, but, Streeter asks, is that not more of an evolution than a revolution? But couldn’t the evolution of Homo erectus into Homo sapien be considered a revolution?
In his article, Streeter spends much time attempting to make the utopian discourse seem overly optimistic if not outright ridiculous. It begins with a quote from a 1970 article about cable television with language that Streeter implies is similar to that used when the internet is discussed. The subtext seems to be that the article quoted is immensely naïve for thinking cable television could have a massive effect on the country, and its author had his head in the clouds. However, descriptions of a large scale information network goes as far back as 1962, when J.C.R. Licklider of MIT wrote a memo "discussing his 'Galactic Network' concept. In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists were, in fact, on their way to creating an information super highway. With this new context, the seemingly naïve quote becomes more understandable. Cable television wasn’t the end-all-be-all that some journalists were advertising it as, but it was an incredible and important step in the right direction.
Streeter titles his essay the way he does for several reasons. He is noting the utopian language used by experts to describe cable TV back in the 60's. Experts used terms like "next generation" to describe cable TV in order to generate interest around it. He is also referring to the "blue sky scenario" which had a sarcastic inflection to it, referring to sky-is-the-limit profits rather than cultural change.
ReplyDeleteThese terms that experts through around like "blue skies" and "strange bedfellows" had to do with a campaign to popularize cable television. The terms used in these discussion were formed by, "fusing the mixed bag of interests, visions, and concepts behind cable in such a way as to give the impression of 'rising chorus of expert opinion" (231). This seems very similar to the terms used today for landmark technologies like the new iPhone's and new game systems like the XBox One. Companies are always trying to assert how much you need these new technologies and how they're the wave of the future. Streeter highlighted the origins of these advertising campaigns.
As other commenters have noted, the phrase “blue skies” in the title of Streeter’s essay refers to a technique used by some cable television proponents in the 60s and 70s in which they appealed to some unseen and unheard of group of experts who were assumed to have some vast knowledge of cable as a technology. These supporters would invoke the ideas of authorities such as scientists and governmental officials, linking those authorities to their own utopian ideas of cable without ever providing real evidence that those ideas had any scientific/social/political merit. Yet in their attempts to make cable in to the sort of utopian technological channel that they dreamed of, they actually ended up joining forces with other groups with contradictory goals and, ultimately, paved the way for governmental regulation of the very technology they were trying to liberate. This uneasy combination of opposing interest groups into one larger discourse is what Streeter is referring to in the second half of his title—“strange bedfellows.”
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though this sort of thing happens with any new, big technology, but I saw particular parallels with past discourse around the Internet. Towards the beginning of the Internet’s invention, people heralded it as a new force in communication, a technology with the power to bridge racial, economic and political differences, where anonymity was a blessing. Even now, people like Clay Shirky speak to the power of the Internet as a tool for collaboration, an instrument that, if used correctly, can be used to spark revolutions and topple dictators. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8505645.stm) The similarities between the languages of the two discourses are obvious.
Thomas Streeter’s article about cable television focuses around a strong use of “utopian” words when describing cables possibilities. This idea of “blue skies” is used to describe the idea that cable would not bring any negatives to the world of television. It explains that cable will benefit the TV business in all aspects: profits, consumption and viewer enjoyment. It was clear skies, nothing could go wrong and everything will go right. In the many debates that took place over the 60s and 70s, participants that were pro cable would use this sort of outlook on cable when advocating for its integration into the modern world.
ReplyDeleteThis other idea of “strange bedfellows” is referring to the fact that cable was seen as this drastic change to television, when really they were pretty much one in the same. Cable was talked about as this brand new technology that would forever change the way viewers watched television, but really it was only a mere improvement on what we already had. A lot of technology nowadays follows this model as well. More and more models of apple products come out every year promising a complete change in the way you view handheld devices. Yet, when you really look into it, it’s just the same thing with a faster computer chip or a sleeker design.