Disciplinary Myopia?
Neuman’s criticism of Raymond Williams’ Television appears to me to be a classic case of disciplinary myopia, and a fundamental misread of the author’s actual scholarly intentions. Neuman is looking for the definitive review of television in modern society, implying an inherent academic failing within Williams’ work: “(Williams) critique lacks the sophistication and focus necessary to have a constructive influence on the design and execution of research on television” and Neumann attributes this to “Williams’ uneasiness with… the whole notion of gathering data to test ideas.” This criticism appears to be specifically aimed at chapter four, “Programming: Distribution and Flow.” Looking at the contents of this chapter from the perspective of a social scientist, Williams’ methodology is fundamentally flawed, performing what could be best described as a pedestrian approach to comparing commercial and public television content on English and American networks, and indicating how structural time allotments for commercials change the very meaning of the programs aired. No self respecting social scientist would attempt to combine so many variables in a single study, and they would certainly not test themselves to gather their empirical data.
However, I fundamentally disagree with Neuman’s social scientist perspective as the sole means of evaluating the text. I do not believe that Williams’ goal in writing Television was to provide a single definitive work on television, and I would be incredibly wary of any social scientist that would claim that they have undertaken such an endeavor. Nor was Williams’ task to provide social scientists with the necessary methodologies, metrics, and research tools to conduct quantitative research on television. Furthermore, I question Neuman’s belief that there can in fact be a “definite” or definitive scholarly work on television itself. Rather than hoping for a definitive study, I read Television as a prophetic text. If one views Television as being written from the perspective of a social commentator or cultural critic, rather than a social scientist, Williams’ text offers profound insights into a powerful and utterly pervasive medium. He accurately predicts such contemporary inventions as VCRs, DVD players and recorders, High definition television, TIVO, and new distribution networks of content be they Netflix or YouTube. Williams predicts the further expansion of cable stations into a multi-channel universe of 24/7 broadcast days, and even predicts the expansion of satellite radio and television broadcasts. Monopolistic, commercial entities such as Clear Channel, and the death of local television and radio programming are also predicted. Williams notes the inherent political tensions and threats that will occur with this expansion. I would argue that the essential message of his text is that we are not subject to technological determinism and we should not be willing to relinquish our human agency over technology because of that very technology. Williams offers a humanistic riposte to Marshall McLuhan’s statement that the “medium is the message” unfortunately Williams’ prediction that “McLuhan’s theory of communication is unlikely to last long” (p. 131) was one of the few insights that unfortunately have not passed the test of time. But in everything else, his words are prophetic and should be read as such.