Videology and Utopia

Chapter 4

REGIONAL VIDEOSt Cyprien

Whereas the experiments so far reported emphasize reciprocity in communication, the cultural action we are about to describe is a set of activities connected primarily with distribution, and secondarily with sociological research. The notion of parachuting is used in a number of senses, notably in relation to centralization: it is said in the local branch of an industrial concern whose headquarters are in Paris on the arrival of a graduate engineer appointed by them, that the man has been parachuted. It may be a commonplace that many such parachute descents, including cultural ones, are made from the metropolis to the provinces, yet they are hardly ever analysed. In the present case, culture-shock is occurring ...