The Meaning of Commercial Television (1966)

The Texas-Stanford Seminar (1966)

The Texas-Stanford Seminar on “The Meaning of Commercial Television,” a gathering of television broadcasters was held by the two universities in 1966 with the ambitious goal "to help bring about the general improvement of television.” TV Guide sponsored the conference. Marshall McLuhan was one of the headliners and Stanley Donner, a professor at the University of Texas, documented the seminar for a University of Texas Press publication.  McLuhan, not surprisingly, blew the assembled minds and Stanley Donner does a nice job capturing the process. Donner reviews describes McL’s demeanor and impact on the conference with a nice freshness. The information which follows comes from Donner's work. I’ll quote Donner from here (The Meaning of Commercial Television (1966)-- pages 108-110):

Marshall McLuhan’s unusual views of the electronic media and their effects on society evoked considerable interest among the broadcasters.

The audience was particularly impressed by the concept that our present total environment is invisible and produces a nostalgia for past environments—thus the popularity of Bonanaza and, on a different level, Batman. Final judgment was suspended, although many were persuaded in part by compelling arguments and equally compelling examples from film, radio and television, and from cultural and social changes in current society. The listeners were not sure where total agreement might lead them: what kind of commitment they would be making. Also, there was the suspicion that, although McLuhan’s argument was plausible, there might be some hidden fault in the scheme which could nullify the whole theory.

McLuhan assisted this suspended belief by not requiring any particular action from the audience. In his view whether a person favors or opposes his ideas, or whether his ideas are considered helpful, is completely beside the point. We are in the midst of electronic circuitry where everything happens at once and the influences upon society are inexorable. McLuhan’s concern was the description of electronic circuitry, not its evaluation: and he described with considerable clairvoyance what is taking place in our society at present.

The discussion developed into a further explication of McLuhan’s ideas. He held the position that in the electronic age no one is responsible and he used Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood as an example. This view was disturbing to some in the audience, since its acceptance means that the development of events in time must be denied and it would no longer be possible to maintain a clear relationship between cause and effect in the fixing of guilt.

McLuhan spoke of the possible future of television in the world of electric circuitry. The television would become a work force rather than consumers of programs as is now the case. Problems of any kind could be presented to the audience and possible answers obtained through the use of technology, which is even now in experimental stage.

In response to a question McLuhan described LSD as a dislocation from environment, in a sense a medium. He did not, however, advocate its use.

To a question concerning computers, McLuhan maintained that computers are really a method of discovery. The use of computers to catalogue and categorize does not belong in the world of electric circuitry, but rather to the world of clear relationships of cause and effect of the nineteenth century. McLuhan also dismissed the rating systems and the “numbers game” as belonging to nineteenth-century cataloguing, and thus not truly relevant to television.

To another point McLuhan answered that the only audience participation in television and movies is fantasy. Reality in the old art sense of the term is meaningless in the electric world. Reality of the outside as compared to inside fantasy has disappeared, since the concept of outside and inside no longer exists.