Turning to issues of media policy, George Gerbner delivers a stinging indictment of the way the so called "information superhighway" is being constructed. By examing the logic of globalization he shows the ineffectual nature of our present responses - such as the V-Chip - to deal with the urgent crisis of the media. Showing the real uses to which the "information superhighway" will be put by its corporate masters, he urges the citizens of the world to struggle for democratic principles in the cultural environment.

One of three videos in the Series of George Gerbner: On Media and Culture

SECTIONS: 57 Channels & Nothing On / Who will Control the 500 Channels? / Global Expansion / Public Television: An Alternative / Taxation without Representation: The commercial funding of TV / The V-Chip: The fox guarding the chicken coop / Democracy in a Media Age / Don?t Agonize: Organize

Produced & directed by Sut Jhally
Edited by Sut Jhally, Sanjay Talreja & Kim Neuman
Copyright 1997

George Gerbner (1919-2005) was Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania for thirty years. He was also Professor of Communication at Temple University, and founded the Cultural Environment Movement.

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New Television Rating System Is Extremely Flawed
This Progressive article (originally published March 10, 1998), by George Gerbner, examines the post-1997 US television ratings system, and reveals its flaws as a regulatory tool.

Is Media Violence Free Speech?
This Brain Tennis debate (originally published July 9, 1997) between Cultural Environment Movement founder George Gerbner and 1960s peace movement activist Todd Gitlin critically examines the television violence debate as a form of elitist cultural control.

The Man Who Counts the Killings
This Atlantic Monthly article (originally published May 1997), by Scott Stossel, provides background biography and analysis of George Gerbner's work with the Cultural Indicators pProject, "which is best known for its estimate that the average American child will have watched 8,000 murders on television by the age of twelve, is so alarmed about the baneful effects of TV that he describes them in terms of "fascism"."

Reclaiming Our Cultural Mythology: Television's global marketing strategy creates a damaging and alienated window on the world
In this In Context article (originally published in The Ecology of Justice, Spring 1994), George Gerbner writes, "The alienating culture of television has taken the place of other forms of communication that at one time tied us together in families and communities, and gave us all the opportunity to participate in creating and passing along our cultural story."