Two points:
(1) Part of his meaning is probably that what's really going on in
terms of radical politics is going on outside the purview of
television watching. This could be an admonition to stop watching TV
or to stop thinking it's the whole of reality. So the message could
mean stop being taken in by TV and/or stop watching it and
participate in something else.
(2) Aside from advances in technology, the other historical point to
remember is that TV was very narrow in its scope at the time of the
song's composition; the mainstream had not yet co-opted and
neutralized the cultural revolution of the '60s. Television only
showed a narrow slice of life. Just to take one conspicuous example:
the filth you see on network TV today would have been inconceivable
even 25 years ago.
At 11:28 AM 4/21/2008, Charles Brown wrote:
>Yeah, that's an ambiguous statement. Taken one way it is just wrong.
>First the radical power of video imagery is tremendous. Think of Chicago
>'68 and the taping of the police riot ("The whole world is watching!"
>the crowd chanted); the tape of the beating of Rodney King,
>
>^^^^
>CB; Good point. Heron wrote his line before there was mass production
>of video cameras putting them into the hands of millions.
>
>On the other hand, the rev didn't start upon the LA rebellion or
>Chicago Dem Convention of '68. They were televised, but they weren't the
>revolution. Heron might say that's why they were permitted to be seen so
>widely by the media powers that be.
>
>
>^^^^^^^^
>
>or the lone protester standing in front of the tanks in Tienanmen
>Square.
>
>^^^
>CB: On this, I didn't consider the protestors there as having a
>revolutionary agenda.
>
>^^^^
>
>Besides, unless we could somehow shut down the TV and videocams (much
>less possible than when the song was written), the revolution and
>everything else will be televised or at least put on the net and
>podcast.
>
>^^^^^
>CB: I agree that now with the explosion of video camaras, there will be
>video tapes of activities.
>
>The quote is as you say ambiguous. The half meaning that has some
>validity is that the monopoly media is not likely to show the
>revolutionary movement in a favorable light, like the television
>stations in Venezuela tried to portray the revolution there in a bad
>light. That's the sense in which the revolution will not be televised.
>The revolution will not be promoted as long as the broadcast technology
>is in the hands of the ruling class.
>
>^^^^^^^
>
>See the, er, exploits of Paris Hilton or more recently young Mosley
>with his tea and S&M, each respectively giving different kinds of sex a
>bad name. On the other hand if Scott-Heron meant that the revo is not a
>staged-for-TV event but a change in social relations, then, pace
>Baudriallard ((he of the proposition that the Iraq war, I think the
>first one, did not happen; it was a TV event) -- does anyone read
> that stuff anymore?), then he had a point.
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