SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE

VIDEOCULTURE O F

THE FUTURE

By JOHN G. CAWELTI

I
n 1974, virtually every American has easy and
frequent access to a television set. TV sets are
in 90-95% of American homes and are watched
by somebody from about three to six hours a
day. This undoubtedly constitutes the largest
group of people bound together in a single
communications net in history. Perhaps even
more significantly, no large, complex society
has ever possessed the potential of continual
simultaneous communication to almost every-
one-all classes, all ages, all groups-through a medium which can
be more or less comprehended by all because it combines the two
most widely and easily grasped forms of expression: the spoken
language and pictures. Of course, the level of political, philo-
sophical, or aesthetic expression thus far transmitted through
this medium has not been more than superficial and manipulative,
except in a few major instances. Nevertheless, television has
generated a popular culture in the sense of a culture in which
most people can and do participate on an unprecedented scale.
In the very near future the massive spread of two further
developments of video technology will further extend and inten-
sify the role of television in American culture. The first of these
is inexpensive videotape recording and the second is cable tele-
vision. It seems likely that within ten or twenty years the vast
majority of American homes will be equipped with a TV set and
a videotape machine, possibly with camera, and will be hooked
into a cable system with the capacity to disseminate signals on
40-80 channels, possibly with some form of return signal. How-
ever, while it is fairly easy, on the basis of present technology, to
predict the sort of equipment that will be available,it is extremely
difficult to imgine what kind of impact these developments will
have on American culture. It is possible that the difference will
be minimal; that Americans will continue to Drefer the traditional
 VIDEOCULTURE OF THE FUTURE 991

popular entertainments, news, and sports turned out by the major networks
while the new cable and videotape developments will be used primarily by speci-
alized and elite groups. On the other hand, it is also conceivable that the new
videotechnologies will bring about drastic cultural changes by opening up a great
variety of new channels of communication and expression. In any case, the
cultural impact of new communications technology will be at least partly shaped
by our own capacity to imagine effective uses for this equipment and by the
models of a videoculture with which we approach the problem of organizing the
use and conceiving of the appropriate contents for this new medium. In this
paper, I would like to suggest some tentative problems we must consider in pre-
paring ourselves to seize upon the potential benefits and to become aware of
some of the possible dangers inherent in some of the ways in which the video-
culture may develop. To do so, I would like to consider three possible models
of such a culture.
The first is that of the global village, that striking conception of Marshall
McLuhan’s which, I think, is one of the more tantalizing and also dangerous
images of the future of human culture. The vision is that of an electronically
unified world in which the different elements are related like the components of
the central nervous system, or, in another of McLuhan’s striking images, like the
closely knit members of a primitive village, but on a world-wide scale. This
model has a certain plausibility through the assumption that communication
through television and other electronic media is different in both degree and
quality from communication through earlier media. First of all, through elec-
tronics technology-at least according to this model-all persons can be linked
in a continual communications net with all other persons. Secondly, the Mc-
Luhanites assume that video is a deeper, more involving form of communication
than other media because it evokes on a new level the complex web of feeling
once carried by speech in smaller primitive communities. Because of this, video
can be understood by all men and it has the potential to unify them psycho-
logically and spiritually. Thus the videoculture can recreate on a national or
perhaps even global scale the mystical and sacral unity which we like to think
characterized many primitive tribes.
It is easy enough to treat this model ironically as another version of the
myth of Paradise Regained, or the restoration of the Golden Age when men
lived in complete harmony with one another and the world. It is perhaps almost
too obvious to point out that before the fall there was only one human being
and that when another was created, discord immediately entered the world. But
that is, I think, unfair, for there is evidence that earlier forms of social organiza-
tion did possess a kind of mystic social unity, and there have been tantalizing
examples when television has momentarily created in the vast majority of the
American population something that many people felt as a transcendent sense
of social communion. Most strikingly this was the case with the Kennedy assas-
sination and funeral, a video drama and ritual of such profound impact that its
political and cultural implications are, I believe, still with us. It is too much to
attribute the peaceful succession of President Johnson to the ritual unity which
the video presentation of this event evoked, though there are probably few
992 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

countries in the modern world where such an assassination would not lead to
massive social disorders. However, America has peacefully survived presidential
assassinations before, and there are also the counter-instances of social violence
which have been at least partly responsive to the video presentation of events:
the King assassination, the disturbances at the 1968 Democratic convention, the
demonstrations against the war. Still, the Kennedy funeral was a new kind of
experience for most of us, and even the counter-instances I have cited might be
seen as evidence of TV’s capacity to generate profound feelings of unity in rebel-
lion among certain groups. The “global village” model clearly needs to be thought
about more carefully before we dismiss it as a McLuhanesque fantasy.
But just what might the “global village” be like? Can we conceive how
videotechnology might be used to bring about a culture of deep tribal unity and
communal involvement in a complex, diverse, and increasingly fragmented society
like that of the United States? I suspect that in such a culture we would see two
major priorities dominating the videostructure. First of all, there would almost
have to be some kind of modern analogue t o the traditional ritual year, a cycle
of annual ceremonies, games, and other rituals participated in simultaneously by
all citizens. This ritual year would give a primary structure and identity to the
culture thereby making each individual a communal participant in the flow of
time. That video might make such mass ceremonies possible seems unquestion-
able in the light of phenomenon like the Kennedy assassination, the landing on
the moon, and the Superbowls. Indeed, the television schedule has already devel-
oped some of the mystic regularities which might be associated with a ritual year.
However, while a videopresented ritual year would be an essential structure of
the global village, it would probably not be enough to create the kind of com-
munal involvement that is a central aspect of this model. In addition to the col-
lective expression of cultural unity through videoceremony, a complex web of
individual and group involvements would have to develop, parallelling the rich
web of oral interchange between the members of a tribe. One can imagine cable
TV taking this role. Its multiple channels could foster a continual dialogue
which might enable each major group to enter imaginatively into the conscious-
ness of all other groups. Videotape would probably play a very important role
here as well. Aheady experiments with social tools like videodialogue and video-
confrontation suggest the potential of videotape and cable for creating a new
kind of deep psychological and cultural communication between groups, which
have heretofore largely avoided the level of personal involvement with each
other. For example, through videodialogue the suburban middle class and the
urban ghetto dweller might conceivably enter into some richer sense of collec-
tive participation with each other.
The vision is attractive. Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to imagine
just how such a system might develop out of the present state of affairs. If the
great attraction of the global village is its social unity and harmony through
individual involvement and fulfillment in the community, such a system would
be most unlikely to develop in the very social situation where a prevailing con-
cern with fragmentation and alienation makes the model most attractive. It is
far easier to see how the videovillage could be imposed from above by a powerful
 VIDEOCULTURE OF THE FUTURE 993

ruling group seeking t o enhance its power by reducing social diversity to the
expression of a single ritual cycle and by forcing the expression of varying points
of view into a system of continual surveillance of all members of the community
in order t o identify and suppress any signs of dissent. The Nazis consciously
employed the media in these ways in the 1930’s and were able to achieve a sort
of national d a g e or tribe to a considerable extent. Orwell imagined an even
more thoroughgoing system of this kind and in his brilliant dystopia we can see
how plausible it is that the global village might develop into the satanic form of
1984.
The problem of the global village model is the temptation it offers to men
of great conviction and power to use the intensity and distribution of video to
make their will that of the community. While it is conceivable that men might
evolve a less authoritarian form of unity and harmony through a long period of
continuous interchange, I see no reason why videocommunication should bring
about a kind of social order that no other form of communication has come near
to generating, except under conditions of dictatorial power. Of course if it is
really true that “the media is the message,” 1 am dead wrong about this. How-
ever, I have seen no evidence that this slogan is more than a provocative and
useful half-truth. Short of this, it seems t o me that the evident totalitarian impli-
cations of the global village model should lead us to seek the social values it
claims t o achieve through other means insofar as we decide they are imperative.
Another model which seems to me a far more likely possibility for the
video culture of the future could be labelled that of the computer culture or the
rationalistic utopia. In the global village, the central dynamic is the flow of atti-
tude and feeling from one person or group toward another, the ultimate result
being a transcendent Cultural unity out of great social diversity. In the computer
culture the dynamic would probably be the flow of information leading toward
the highest possible‘ degree of coordination and efficiency in performing the
various tasks necessary t o the effective operation of-the increasingly complex
machinery of society. Since ultimate efficiency lies in total coordination, this
could provide a powerful incentive for the increasing use of videotechnology for
such purposes. Indeed, a great many present-day proposals for the use of cable
TV involve a variety of such functional roles: coordination of production, direc-
tion of police and fue services, rapid exchange of business and medical informa-
tion, etc. I would guess that to imagine the further developments of videoculture
in terms of this model, we need only extrapolate such present-day tendencies.
Thus, the computer culture would be one in which the resources of the elec-
tronic media would be primarily employed for the processing, storage and circu-
lation of information. In such a society, each individual and group would pre-
sumably have instant access t o all the relevant information not only about their
own activities, but about the intersecting activities of all other individuals and
groups. Such a culture would n o doubt achieve a considerable degree of order
and harmony based on, one would hope, the priority of the most efficient pro-
duction and distribution of goods and services possible within the limits of eco-
logical stabilization. There are, of course, other less attractive possibilities for
the computer culture, depending on whether or not a particular group seizes
994 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

control of the flow of information and uses it for its own advantage against
other groups. On an international scale, such a development might well lead to
the rise of a set of super<fficient warfare states. However, since one evident
consequence of such a state of affairs would be the further improvement of a
technology of destruction already adequate to total annihalation, we would
probably not have to worry about the consequences of such a development for
very long. One hopes that the human race has enough residual survival instinct
to avoid such a fate. If so, the computer culture is much more likely to move
toward maximum distribution of the goods and services necessary to create an
adequate material existence for all men.
To accomplish this, it will obviously be necessary to develop means of
psychological control and coordination along with the increasing rationalization
of the processes of production and distribution. In order to make the flow of
information effective in ordering the manufacture and circulation of goods and
services, men will have to learn to overcome their present-day individualistic
competitiveness, irrationality and ethnocentrism and to accept the imperatives
of reason. Such a state of affairs may not be as utopian as it would seem from
our present-day perspective. If B. F. Skinner is correct in his analysis of human
psychology, the development of a “technology of behavior” may well evolve
along with the intensification of the video culture. In this case, the proliferation
of electronic technology could lead to the development of a videoenvironment
capable of delivering what Skinner calls the “schedules of reinforcement”-i.e.,
the system of learning and incentives-necessary to the rational control of be-
havior. Since the videoenvironment could be centrally controlled by specialists
to a degree that the traditional learning environments of family, secondary groups,
schools, and other social institutions dependent on the vagaries of large numbers
of individuals have never been able to, the systematic application of a technology
of behavior on a national scale may become possible for the first time.
It is difficult to decide just how one feels about the computerculture or
rationalistic utopia. Major utopian thinkers in the nineteenth century-the
Fourierists, Robert Owen, Edward Bellamy in his Looking Backward-viewed
the possibility with a good deal of hopeful anticipation, though they did not
generally envision the technological developments which would make such a
society on a large scale more than a utopian dream. Many experiments on the
small-scale level of utopian communities were tried but all floundered on the
inability of such a culture to exist within a larger society with different institu-
tions and priorities. However, in the twentieth century, most intellectuals’
attitude toward the computer culture model has been negative. Huxley’s Brave
New World is the classical analysis from this point of view. Our sense that con-
temporary social and technological developments could easily evolve toward
the computer culture is backed up by Huxley’s own recent argument in Brave
New World Revisited that many of the phenomena he imagined in his original
dystopia have actually emerged in modern industrial America. Huxley’s criti-
cism of the computer culture derived from three implicit assumptions: a) that
human reason is too limited, fallible or perverse to be entrusted with the power
of planning a total society; b) that autonomous choice is the essence of human
 VIDEOCULTURE OF THE FUTURE 995

dignity and therefore to live in a totally planned society is to be dehumanized

or forced to become like a machine or an animal; c) that man’s irrationality, his
capacity for suffering, and his susceptibility t o evil are primary sources of what
is most characteristic and best in human life; therefore, to eliminate pain, con-
flict, suffering and sin would make man spiritually empty. These assumptions
continue t o dominate twentieth century imaginative visions of a rational utopia.
Most recently they were expressed in a powerful and extreme form in Anthony
Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange and in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation
of that work. However, B. F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity may be
the beginning of a considerable change in contemporary intellectual attitudes
toward the potentialities of a rational utopia, for Skinner eloquently argues
against the basic beliefs implicit in Brave New world and in the twentieth cen-
tury artistic and philosophic tradition of anti-utopian thinking. Even without
being at all sure that 1 understand or accept Skinner’s line of argument, I am
persuaded that we have been wrong to dismiss this cultural model as inherently
inimical to human life and values. It is both possible as a future line of develop-
ment and conceivably desirable as a solution to many of the problems which
beset us to be simply rejected in this fashion.
Huxley’s vision of the computer dystopia suggests that there would be
another important use of the new communications technology in this second
model society: the provision of exciting modes of vicarious gratification for
emotional needs which the rational activities of the computer culture would
tend to leave unsatisfied. If, as Huxley suggests, pain and suffering are the ex-
periences which give man his humanity and dignity, to eliminate the possibility
of actual tragedy will force society’s planners to find some way of giving harm-
less expression to this side of human existence. Thus, in Brave New World,
tragedy becomes pornography, works of art and ritual constructed by experts
to give maximal vicarious expression to aggressive and erotic feelings thereby
relieving the terrible boredom of a totally planned and controlled rational exist-
ence. A good Skinnerian would argue that Huxley’s view is simply a rationaliza-
tion of existing behavior patterns which would be changed in a more rational
society, and he might well be correct. However, the weight of experience would
seem to be on Huxley’s side. If we look at present-day uses of the mass media,
we can see that to a considerable extent they tend toward various forms of
pornography in this broad sense. Therefore, in the computer culture, just as
the media would be primarily controlled by functional elites in the process of
planning and directing the affairs of society, so the aspect of entertainment and
artistic expression would probably be dominated by elites who specialized in
the creation of effective pornographies of various sorts. This state of affairs
would probably be no more than an intensification of certain aspects of the
contemporary organization of the mass media and therefore might come about
quite simply.
My third model is based on the assumption that the new videotechnology
of cable and tape makes possible the development of TV as a medium of highly
diversified communication to many different, smaller publics rather than a mass
medium seeking to reach the largest possible audience with standardized forms
996 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

of communication. In effect, this model predicts that TV will develop along

the same lines of diversification and specialization that have already been fol-
lowed by publishing, by radio broadcasting and even, in recent years, by film.
Structurally, the complete dominance of the airwaves by three major networks
with standardized programming would be replaced by a proliferation of cable
channels broadcasting to a great diversity of specialized interest groups and
subcultures and by the rich development of videocassette recording along the
lines of present-day book, magazine and record production and distribution.
Two major forces might provide the motive power for this development: first,
the possibility that video as a medium is capable of effective communication
to a wider range of society than any medium except speech and is conceivably
more powerful than the latter; second, the apparent trend of modern indus-
trial societies toward increasing leisure for the population, higher general levels
of education, and an increasing variety of individual interests and life-styles.
The first assumption is certainly subject to question, though it is clearly
just as rational, if not more so, than the related assertion of the unique qualities
of video made by the proponents of the global village model. If it is the case
that video is a uniquely effective medium, there seems no necessary reason to
believe that it will foster a world of universal mystic involvement. On the
contrary, why should it not simply extend to more social groups the kind of
diverse and specialized communication that print now makes possible among
these elites that are regular readers. Although it could be argued that the
standardizing tendencies of modern industrial society are against this kind of
development, it seems to me that this argument might well work the other
way. For, if we look at recent trends in some areas of modern industrial
society, it begins to seem possible that standardization is not an inherent qual-
ity of modern industrial economies, but only a necessity of the first stage of
their development. Once industrial societies have reached the point where
production has become efficient enough to outstrip demand, there may well
be a strong impetus toward the use of leisure to cultivate a variety of interests
which will in turn create demand for new kinds of products and services.
Video could become a major channel for the cultivation and satisfaction of a
vast new variety of interests, since the growth of such interests require first,
awareness of the possibility of a new interest, then, education in its appreci-
ation and practice, and finally, communication among the various individuals
who share the interest.
Perhaps the most striking consequence of this model is that it envisages
a culture that goes beyond present-day conceptions of a pluralistic culture as
emerging from the continual interplay of diverse subcultures and interest
groups. This model also implies the emergence of another kind of diversity
embodied in the complex and continual process of the choice and cultivation
of new interests and associations. In other words, an individual’s identity in
this culture would be determined not only by the traditional subcultures and
interest groups of family, ethnic subculture, occupation, locality, etc., but by
a large range of new associations made possible through his continual selection
from the manifold groupings he can plug into through cable TV and videotape.
 VIDEOCULTURE OF THE FUTURE 997

Let us call this model the society of videodiversity.

Given the present-day dominance of the principle of mass communica-
tion-i.e., use of the media to reach as large an audience as possible-the emer-
gence of a culture of manifold groupings seems, if anything, less likely than
the global village or the computer culture. On the whole, not very substantial
numbers of people have chosen to take advantage of the minimal diversity
offered by such present-day attempts to break up the uniformity of network
programming as educational TV, public broadcasting, pay-TV, or local pro-
gramming. Conceivably even the proliferation of available channels and the
eventual development of videocassette technology to the point where it is
economically competitive with paperback books will not lead the majority of
the population to change their preference for the traditional forms of mass
culture which form the major proportion of network programming. The basic
question, I suppose, is whether modern industrial societies require a mass medi-
um in the sense of a centralized and standardized network of more or less
continual rapid communication of the same basic messages to a large propor-
tion of society. It is difficult to conceive of modern society without this sort
of centralized communications network. Historically, since the 1830’s,Ameri-
can and Western European cultures have been dominated by such media,
initially in the print form of mass newspapers and then by film and broad-
casting. With the development of the more efficient mass communications
possible through broadcasting and through audio-visual media, the various forms
of print were increasingly impelled to develop more specialized and diverse net-
works of communication. Thus, our present media structure has fallen into
the pattern of mass communication through TV and more diverse and special-
ized communication through print, film, and radio.
However, there is a great difference between the need to make certain
kinds of information instantaneously available to the great mass of the popu-
lation, and the need to have a vehicle for advertising. The model of manifold
groupings assumes that however diverse a network of videocommunication
might develop, it would still be capable of instantaneous mass communication
as needed. The thing that would change in the culture of manifold groupings
would be the dominant use of video to distribute standardized formulaic enter-
tainment conceived as appealing to everyone. Presumably the traditional forms
of popular culture would still be available, but, in competition with a vast
diversity of other kinds of programming aimed at the particular needs of
specific groups. Thus, we would expect both a greater diversity of traditional
formulaic material, and the emergence of many new kinds of specialized com-
munications.
As I dimly see it, there would be four main kinds of grouping in the
culture of videodiversity: a) existing subcultures; b) political and economic
interest groups; c) biolojjcal and psychological groupings; d) new forms of
grouping along the lines of hobbies and fanship.
a) Presumably one of the most important bases of audience differenti-
ation in an environment of many different channels of communication would
be an extension of groupings that already exist. We would anticipate that the
998 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

various local, regional and ethnic subcultures of the United States would find
much richer and fuller expression. Ethnic traditions, rituals and forms of nar-
rative and humor should become one major source of programming; one can
imagine local history and traditions becoming a very popular source of material
for video dramas and documentaries of compelling interest to those who inhabit
a particular locality. A whole range of programs appealing to the interests and
concerns of specific subcultural groups which now find almost no expression in
television could lead to important changes in the individual American’s sense of
identity and belonging, and to greater undertanding and sympathy between sub-
cultures.
b) Just as present-day mass media tend to blur the differences between
subcultures, they also rarely permit the articulation of the many different eco-
nomic and political interests which make up our society. This is particularly
true in the area of entertainment programming where, until the impact of “All
in the F a d y ” one would have thought from the situation comedy and drama
presented on television that America had no conflicting social interest groups.
Even the presentation of news and documentary features do not on the whole
adequately reflect our different social interests, because they are supposed to
be objective (i.e,, to reflect the general interest of a mythical middle-class major-
ity). The many channels of the culture of videodiversity will do away with the
need for “objectivity” by eliminating the present monopoly of a few groups
over the major communications networks. In consequence many different inter-
est groups will be able to define themselves, to communicate with sympathizers
and opponents and to form more or less continuous communities of interest
maintained through a flow of communications from their point of view.
c) By biological or psychological groupings I mean groupings around some
complex of needs, interests, or attitudes growing out of the circumstances of
the life cycle (e.g., youth subcultures or senior citizens communities) or out of
some widely shared psychological quality (e.g., those with a special need for the
exercise of vicarious aggression). We have already seen how important a role
the media can play in the process of age grouping for one of the central vehicles
in the formation of the contemporary youth culture has been a special kind of
popular music communicated through radio and recordings. Even the great col-
lective rituals of the youth culture have been disseminated through films and
recordings to many millions more than were able to be physically present at the
event. Certainly some of the many channels of the culture of videodiversity will
be devoted to the ideas, forms of expression and rituals which define and vali-
date the individual’s feeling of identity with an age group. Other channels will
become part of a process of psychological grouping by communicating materials
which meet various patterns of psychological needs and encourage interchange
and understanding between those of various psychic constitutions. It seems not
impossible, for example, that various forms of psychotherapy through video
might well develop to help individuals with different kinds of psychological
problems or needs. Thus, therapy groups might well grow up around some of
the channels of the culture of videodiversity.
d) A fourth kind of grouping would be neither cultural, political, biologi-
 VIDEOCULTURE OF THE FUTURE 999

cal nor psychological but aesthetic. If the productive capacities of modem

societies do in fact increase the leisure time of the majority of the population
the need for a variety of satisfying leisure activities will become a vital matter.
To some extent we see this trend already underway with the proliferation of
televised sports. In the culture of videodiversity we can anticipate many more
groupings of this sort growing up around channels which disseminate both pre-
sentation of and commentary on many varieties of sports, games, hobbies, works
of drama, music, art, etc. In t h s context, the model of the fanship group will
become an increasingly important aspect of the social structure.
The human values that are at least potentially likely to flourish in the
culture of videodiversity are those of variety, toleration and autonomy. The
individual w i l l no longer be bound by the lifestyles available to him through his
family background or local peer group. Instead, he will be able to come into
continual contact with a much wider range of groups to which he can affiliate.
But there are also real dangers lurking in this model. The negative side of video-
diversity is fairly obvious: further extension of the fragmentation, specializa-
tion, and privatization long characteristic of American culture. Even if he never
viewed any channel other than those which carried his own specialized interests,
the individual in the videodiverse culture would inevitably become aware of the
enormous variety of groups in the society. He would probably have an increas-
ingly attentuated sense of the unity or totality of the society. In consequence,
politics at the national level would probably become less and less a matter of
substantive issues and more and more a spectacle creating the image of unity
where there is none in reality. However, this effect might actually be offset by
the precision and complexity of discussion generated by the formation of many
articulate interest groups around the multiple channels and groupings of video-
diversity. Perhaps the most crucial factor in the emergence of the videodiverse
society will be whether or not the communications networks develop in such a
way as to foster a dialectic of groups as well as the greater articulation and satis-
faction of individual interests.
In addition, the intensification of diversity will cause many strains in the
social fabric. All groups will have to accept a wider range of differences in life-
styles and beliefs for these differences will inevitably find public expression
through the channels of the videodiverse society. This will be a difficult experi-
ence for many Americans accustomed to the bland uniformity of the mid-
twentieth century suburb and the restrictive moralism of the dominant white,
middle-class religiously-oriented subcultures. Because of the strain on the limits
of deviance tolerated by these subcultures the emergence of videodiversity will
be accompanied by serious political dangers, most notably the rise of a repressive
authoritarianism which will promise to suppress deviant lifestyles and restore
cultural unity by maintaining centralized control of all cultural expression. This
might well lead, as we noted earlier, to an evil form of the global village.
Because there are such dangers inherent in the model of videodiversity we
will need to develop a number of creative and technical skills to counteract them.
One such skill will involve finding means of encouraging individual autonomy
and respect for differences in lifestyles. I mentioned earlier the possible use of
1000 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

video for new forms of psychotherapy. If I am correct in thinking that increas-

ing possibilities of cultural choice will create serious psychological strains then
the development of modes of assisting people to deal with these strains without
having to resort to large-scale repression of deviance will be an important task
for future media specialists and educators. Actually, the recent flourishing of
pornographic films and the ambiguous public reactions to this development
provides us with a continuing case study of the problems inherent in a sudden
change in what is culturally acceptable on a large scale. It seems to me that the
way in which our society handles the new wave of pornography will provide an
important set of precedents for handling the increasing variety in attitude and
expression which the videodiverse society is likely to foster.
Another area where great imaginative skills will be needed is in the estab-
lishment of rich and complex dialogues between the distinctive groupings of
subculture, interest and taste which will develop. We must create forms of video
which will articulate and express diverse interests, encourage sympathetic com-
munication and understanding between different groupings, and serve as a means
of resolving the inevitable conflicts of interest which will multiply in a society
which fosters such diversity.
I would not like to claim any more than an exploratory interest for the
three models I have sketched out. In our discussions we should consider whether
these or another set of patterns are the most useful and plausible means for
speculating about the future of popular culture. I am convinced, however, that
if we can develop a useful set of such models we can not only gain some per-
spective on the structure of mass culture in our own times, but begin to think
about how we might deal more rationally with the future impact of new cul-
tural technology. In particular, it seems to me that we must begin giving more
thought to the education of the future. How are we to prepare individuals to
lead effective and fulfilling lives in the global village, the computer culture, the
world of videodiversity or whatever other new cultural structures seem likely
to develop? How are we to prepare scholars and teachers to discover and pre-
sent to their students the knowledge and skills necessary to avoid the potential
dangers and take advantage of the valuable human and cultural possibilities im-
plicit in new communications media and cultural structures. What sort of edu-
cation should be given those who will become the creators and organizers of
the new media technology? These seem to me the most important problems
that face us. I hope that by trying to cast our minds ahead to imagine the vari-
ous shapes which the popular culture of the future might take we will be able
to begin thinking effectively about these basic problems of the nature of future
scholarship and education.

Professor Cawelti is Chairman of the Committee on General Studies in

the Humanities, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.