Open AccessReading Between the Lines
Author(s) -
Andreas Fickers,
Andy O’Dwyer
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
view
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2213-0969
DOI - 10.18146/2213-0969.2012.jethc019
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , politics , calais , historiography , reading (process) , media studies , dimension (graph theory) , political science , corporation , sociology , history , law , computer science , mathematics , archaeology , world wide web , pure mathematics
In 1950 and 1952, the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) and RadioTélévision Française (RTF) realized the first transnational televisiontransmissions ever. The so called “Calais Experiment” (1950) and the “ParisWeek” (1952) were celebrated as historic landmarks in European televisionand celebrated as a new “entente cordiale” between the two countries. Thisarticle aims at highlighting some of the tensions that surrounded therealization of these first experiments in transnational television byembedding the historic events into the broader context of televisiondevelopment in Europe and by emphasizing the hidden techno- politicalinterests at stake. In line with current trends in transnational andEuropean television historiography, the article analyses transnational mediaevents as performances that highlight the complex interplay of thetechnical, institutional and symbolic dimension of television as atransnational infrastructure.