Television: Technology and Cultural Form

by Raymond Williams

Television: Technology and Cultural Form was first published in 1974, long before the dawn of multi-channel TV, or the reality and celebrity shows that now pack the schedules. Yet Williams' analysis of television's history, its institutions, programmes and practices, and its future prospects, remains remarkably prescient.

Williams stresses the importance of technology in shaping the cultural form of television, while always resisting the determinism of McLuhan's dictum that 'the medium is the message'. If the medium really is the message, Williams asks, what is left for us to do or say? Williams argues that, on the contrary, we as viewers have the power to disturb, disrupt and to distract the otherwise cold logic of history and technology - not just because television is part of the fabric of our daily lives, but because new technologies continue to offer opportunities, momentarily outside the sway of transnational corporations or the grasp of media moguls, for new forms of self and political expression.

Genres: Philosophy, Sociology, History, Technology, Politics, Nonfiction, Cultural

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1974

About the author

Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist, and critic. He taught for many years and the Professor of Drama at the University of Cambridge. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts. His work laid the foundations for the field of cultural studies and the cultural materialist approach. Among his many books are Culture and Society, Culture and Materialism, Politics and Letters, Problems in Materialism and Culture, and several novels.

Reviews

[Victoria]

grad school is reading books about tv from the 70s then critiquing them for being out of date

[Elizabeth Kerns]

really interesting—and quite prophetic. this man would have Lost His Mind over the current state of the internet. skipped a chapter bc not relevant to the paper i’m writing, but enjoyed especially the first historical section.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it my first year of graduate school, referred to it repeatedly over the years. The finest discussion I've ever read of the relationship between technological properties of a medium, the social uses of the technology, and the meaning of media texts. It's specific conclusions about television have become somewhat dated as cable, TiVo, and high definition have changed both TV technology and social practices, but it remains a model for the clear-sighted, rigorous examination of these kinds of questions.

[Adam Maric-Cleaver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raymond Williams: Hey Marshall McLuhan!

Marshall McLuhan: What?

Raymond Williams: Wanna know what I think of your work?

Marshall McLuhan: I gues-

*Williams makes a bunch of fart noises and flaps his hand in front of his nose*

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 1 out of 5]

interesting only for seeing a Welsh Marxist, whine and bitch about Marshall McLuhan

200 times more interesting would be McLuhan smirking telling people what he thought of the book

.................

comments by an Ohio State guy

It seems he writes largely to counter Marshall McLuhan’s conception of technological determinism, in which the technology just kind of pops into existence and has certain effects that are largely disconnected from the culture in which the technology exists.

Williams, on the other hand, says that we need to return intention, history, and context to the discussion of television and its effects.

Williams tracks the history of the development of the technology that would lead, eventually, to television and then traces the way that other technologies were results of social needs (tele-phony/graphy as a way of communicating brief information across long distances quickly as a result of a growing desire to organize military and capitalist maneuvers) as a way of setting up how television, which is centrally produced but distributed broadly to individual homes, allows for a similar social requirement to be met.

That social requirement is the need for distribution of information (and, less importantly but still crucially, entertainment) to a people who are increasingly separated from a sense of community that had once held society together.

As societies get bigger and more spread out thanks to industrial practices and pressures, television (and radio before it) became a way to redeploy the kinds of things that might have been accomplished via town meetings or even public gatherings.

Williams then turns to examining who controls the production and dissemination of television programming, which, he notes, was always secondary to the fact that the signal existed in the first place.

It was not that there were tv shows sitting around waiting for a technology to allow them to be broadcast into people’s homes, but that once that signal existed there was then a need for something to send over it.

By looking at several British and American tv stations, he looks at what it means to have publicly owned stations and privately owned stations, both what that means for the kinds of shows that are being produced and shown on the channels and what it means for the way that the channels are being run financially.

Williams later notes that as technologies of dissemination continue to develop, these signals will soon be able to reach around the world, which will have various additional effects of cultural imperialism and further consolidation of power.

[coughs]

[fuck man, give me some history]
[not some boring cultural studies]
[obsessed about power and control]

........

He outlines how tv shows flow into one another, how within those shows there is a flow from scene to scene (or from show to commercial and back) and how within those smaller units there is still a continual flow of visual and aural information.

[oh fuck, gag me with a spoon]

This, he claims, is what makes it hard to turn the tv off, and what makes television seem insidious to those who would classify it as a means of society’s degradation.

[sigh, shut the fuck up and give me an essay on how much The Odd Couple and All in the Family really really piss you off]

Even though we might switch between channels to find alternate programming, there is still an experience of flow from one channel to the next. It’s everywhere!

.........

Williams then investigates the effects of television. Here is where he makes his strongest case against McLuhan, who he claims is treating the television as an ideology rather than a technology that has been made and used by a society.

Television isn’t pushing the things on tv, society is via the television.

Looked at this way, Williams claims, we can see how television was developed to help facilitation communication between those in power and those who have power over them, but also how others can co-opt that system for their own ends.

Here lies the realm of pirate radio and tv stations, which exist fully within the boundaries of what is made possible with the technology even if they are not an intended effect of that technology.

[too obsessed with pirate radio in the UK because the BBC didn't play enough of what the kids wanted]

This kind of thing seems crucial to understanding the rest of William’s project, which projects the current (for 1974) situation of television into the future and in which Williams largely predicts the internet, in concept if not explicit detail.

[yeah yeah, McLuhan didn't predict the inter tubes, it was Williams!]

........

Who is this author debating with and why?

Williams really only explicitly debates with McLuhan, who he pretty well takes to task for his technological determinism.

[basically that's it, watch him bitch bitch bitch, and then bitch some more]

.......

[and more boring]

Other than that, the biggest bit of context is the period in which Williams is writing. About 20 years after television’s popularity began, and with an ensuing 40+ years of development that has followed had made some of his arguments a little outdated.

For instance, he writes about the technological inferiority of television as a visual medium when compared to the cinema. While that still remains true, at least on a level of scale, television is no longer so technologically inferior that it limits what can be shown on it the way it did in Williams’ time.

Indeed, televisions can now have more color information than a digital projector at a theater can. This means that tv as a way of transmitting old (or new) movies is no longer a matter of dealing with poorer picture quality for the convenience of home viewing. Still, Williams’ analysis allows room for this change to happen, and even briefly predicts it.

[blech]

............

Williams quotes:

If the technology is a cause, we can at best modify or seek to control its effects. Or if the technology, as used, is an effect, to what other kinds of cause, and other kinds of action, should we refer and relate our experience of its uses?

[I'm bored already]
[and we're at page two]

In the particular case of television it may be possible to outline a different kind of interpretation, which would allow us to see not only its history but also its uses in a more radical way.

Such an interpretation would differ from technological determinism in that it would restore intention to the process of research and development.

[gag me with TWO spoons!]

The technology would be seen, that is to say, as being looked for and developed with certain purposes and practices already in mind.

At the same time the interpretation would differ from symptomatic technology and that these purposes and practices would be seen as direct: as known social needs, purposes and practices to which the technology is not marginal but central.

[page six, and I care more if Williams owned a cat and how often he cleaned the litterbox]

[gosh, I don't need to convince you just how UNDERwhelmING he is]

The cheap radio receiver is then a significant index of a general condition and response. It was especially welcomed by all those who had least social opportunities of other kinds; who lacked independent mobility or access to the previously diverse places of entertainment and information

[please shoot me in the head]
[pull the trigger Raymond, you win]

Broadcasting could also come to serve, or seem to serve, as a form of unified social intake, at the most general levels.

What had been intensively promoted by the radio manufacturing companies thus interlocked with this kind of social need, itself defined within general limits and pressures.

[he's trying to be clever]
[and his mind-rays are not WORKING on me]

The ‘commercial’ character of television has then to be seen at several levels: as the making of programs for a profit in a known market; as a channel for advertising; and as a cultural and political form directly shaped by and dependent on the norms of a capitalist society, selling both consumer goods and a way of life based on them, in an ethos that is at once locally generated, by domestic capitalist interests and authorities, and internationally organized, as a political project, by the dominant capitalist power.

[page 36 - and now he's ranting]

[I'm finding it way more interesting that this is an 86 word single sentence, rather than how fascinating I'm supposed to be about it]

[okay he's pissed off they're selling shampoo and Frosted Flakes every 10 minutes]
[maybe that's it]

But there has never been a time, until the last fifty years, when a majority of any population had regular and constant access to drama, and used this access.

Even within the last half-century, at the peak of popularity of the cinema, figures for Britain indicate an average of less than one attendance a week per head of the adult population. It is difficult to get any precise comparative figures for television.

But it seems probable that in societies like Britain and the United States more drama is watched in a week or weekend, by the majority of viewers, then would have been watched in a year or in some cases a lifetime in any previous historical period.

[okay page fifty-six - the FIRST INTERESTING SENTENCE]

Whatever the social and cultural reasons may finally be, it is clear that watching dramatic simulation of a wide range of experiences is now an essential part of our modern cultural pattern.

Or, to put it categorically, most people spend more time watching various kinds of drama than in preparing and eating food.

[oh sure put a turd in my punch bowl at the end of the paragraph]

The flow offered can also, and perhaps more fundamentally, be related to the television experience itself. Two common observations bear on this. As has already been noted, most of us say, in describing the experience, that we have been ‘watching television’, rather than that we have watched ‘the news’ or ‘a play’ or ‘the football’ ‘on television’. Certainly we sometimes say both, but the fact that we say the former at all is already significant. Then again it is a widely if often ruefully admitted experience that many of us find television very difficult to switch off; that again and again, even when we have switched on for a particular ‘program’, we find ourselves watching the one after it and the one after that. The way in which the flow is now organized, without definite intervals, in any case encourages this.

[page 94 - and he really wants people to stop reading, or thinking that gee if it wasn't for the creepy cover, this really could be useful in the fireplace]

[I mean it might offer comfort and warmth]

I dread to go on
okay

The unique factor of broadcasting – first in sound, then even more clearly in television – has been that its communication is accessible to normal social development; it requires no specific training which brings people within the orbit of public authority. If we can watch and listen to people in our immediate circle, we can watch and listen to television.

[I'm sorry I even bothered - page 156 was not worth it]

............

There you have it, a bitchy little boring book, that offers less interesting stuff every 100 pages than McLuhan in one page.

Buy the book for the cover
and look for one amusing comment, and put it back on the shelf to peek at it a year later

Honestly, you'll remember more interesting things about opening a can of chip dip in 1976 than anything out of this book.

Maybe Williams is like the marxist form of bad recipes for dip involving one incredibly salty and nasty package of Lipton/Knorr's Onion Soup Mix, being put into a a few cups of sour cream.

You'll remember the shudder and the sickly feeling, and say, well I'm not gonna do that again, once is enough.

........

The book's only claim to fame is someone wanted to shitkick McLuhan around and do an incredibly boring and shitty job of it.

It's like reading a 1200 page essay by the French weirdo psychoanalyst Lacan about the semiotics of the TV Show, The Rat Patrol.

[aa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Television: Technology and Cultural Form by Raymond Williams


Williams starts by reflecting on the sentiment, generalized throughout society, that television has altered our world. He critiques technological determinism, which argues that technology influences culture and society rather than vice versa. He also critiques the idea he calls symptomatic technology, where technology comes to be as a reflection of the values of the society.

His problem with all these critiques is that they all assume the R&D to be neutral. There are no intentions behind the development of tech in these arguments.

He argues that powerful decision-makers in society can have more resources invested in technical solutions to their needs, but the social history of communications technology is different. The newspaper was a response to the dramatic shifts the social system and various crises within it. Early newspapers consisted of power centers conveying messages to their agents, plus news on the expanding system of trade. But as the industrial revolution progressed and the world began urbanizing, the church and school could no longer adequately explain the world. There was much background and news that had to be conveyed, and the newspaper filled that role. Similarly, photography was a way of maintaining ties in an era of migrations to cities and other places of work.

When broadcasting came in, newer technologies were already fulfilling the new society’s needs. Newspapers conveyed political and economic information, telegraphy allowed long-distance business communication, and the movie theater fulfilled curiosity and entertainment needs. Because all these technologies had different uses, and broadcasting was a conglomerate of them, it’s difficult to pin it down with a simple explanation. Only in hindsight, with the void in simple explanation, will people argue that TV and broadcasting were developed to be a form of social integration and control.

The social context that broadcasting emerged from was that of mobile privatization. Two seemingly contradictory tendencies happened in the early twentieth century. On the one hand, the world was becoming larger. The industrial revolution created a society requiring mobility, which also fostered a sense of curiosity about the world. Self-sufficient homes were not self-sufficient anymore, and required funding and supplies from outside sources. Outside conditions constantly threatened the private family, which was needed for social reproduction. So, mobile privatization served both needs.

I don’t buy his rejection of “symptomatic technology” and see his work has revitalizing “technology is neutral” arguments, even if Williams wouldn’t say just that.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Satisfied my desire to write about a contemporary society that has been too flattened for any sustained engagement with the political or even interpersonal forms of communication, its desires having been stimulated to such a point that it has become wearied of ever seeing them come true...

[Bruno Lorenzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Williams does an outstanding job of tracing the history of television, from the earliest experiments to its full integration into everyday household life. What makes the book even more remarkable is how, writing in the 1970s, he dares to envision the future of mass communication and identifies the major challenges we’d need to address in order to ensure television's power is used responsibly.

Society placed its trust in television as a central cultural vessel—and that trust comes with heavy responsibilities. Williams reflects deeply on how technological innovation should serve the well-being and progress of society as a whole. His insights feel incredibly relevant today, especially in an era where new media keep reshaping our cultural experience.

A rewarding read for anyone interested in media theory, history, or the ethical dimensions of mass communication.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great insights, but I had lots of trouble following his writing. It took me months to get through his little book.

[Mochi · Rating 4 out of 5]

CP.1 / CP.5

[Janeen · Rating 4 out of 5]

finally rating this because it feels like i have to read it for every uni course i take. just read it for like the 3rd time. scary how accurate williams’ predictions were.

[Aiden Krysciak · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s good. Outdated in some ways but fun. Not really what I feel like reading rn though so I skipped some sections

[Casey Browne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine discussion on the relationship between technological properties of a medium, the social uses of the technology, and the meaning of media texts. Its specific conclusions about television have become somewhat dated as cable, TiVo, and high definition have changed both TV technology and social practices, but it remains a model for the clear-sighted, rigorous examination of these kinds of questions.
Some great insights, but I had trouble following his writing.

[Vanobberghenwim · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the greatest books ever written. although outdated on some aspects, still makes you think about technology

[lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dated and can be summed up as post-structuralist. Good tho