Social and Cultural Aspects of VCR Use by Julia R. Dobrow

Additionally, the technological developments necessary to stage direct broadcasts by satellite to domestic consumers have only come of age in the mid to late 1980s. As a consequence cable services are still comparatively underdeveloped in most Western countries (apart from the USA, Canada and Belgium). Australia's on-again-off-again experience of pay TV since 1982 is a good example of this. Thus each of the other new TV technologies have more often than not become enmeshed in complex administrative, economic and social policy making issues which are taking years to resolve.

These characteristics made the VCR unlike broadcast TV, cable and DBS, all of which required large capital outlays and new technological infrastructures, including distribution structures, and hence centralised corporate and state investment to put satellites up and maintain them, to lay the cable lines, or to regulate the industry.Īpart from the VCR, all other new TV technologies presented governments with a policy problem in advance of their appearance. A consequence of such piecemeal development was that VCR markets developed largely outside governmental purview. It could therefore develop in a piecemeal, accretive way without large initial capital outlays, and was thus suited to decentralised small business investment, at least initially. It also had the advantage of being a low level widely available and inexpensive technology able to fit readily into existing communication and transportation networks, and business structures (electrical and other retailers, cafes, and later service stations, and department stores). In most countries it was the first new TV technology in the field. The VCR had a number of advantages over its competitor new TV technologies such as cable and direct broadcast by satellite (DBS). Its diffusion internationally has caused, in the words of one major study, 'global political fallout'.

By 1990 it could be confidently claimed that 31.3% of the world's TV homes had a VCR representing some 206 million video households.

Of all the new TV technologies the most significant to date has been the VCR. Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & CultureĮdited by John Hartley From piracy to sovereignty: international VCR trends Tom O'Regan

Social and Cultural Aspects of VCR Use by Julia R. Dobrow