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50 Years On, Remembering The ‘Our World’ Broadcast And What It Means Today | Cognoscenti

50 Years On, Remembering The ‘Our World’ Broadcast And What It Means Today | Cognoscenti

50 Years On, Remembering The ‘Our World’ Broadcast And What It Means Today | Cognoscenti
June 27
10:51 2017

This week marks a little-remembered but transformative anniversary. On June 25, 1967, the first live, multi-satellite-enabled, international television broadcast in history was aired.Roughly 10,000 technicians and producers worldwide wrote scripts, shot footage and coordinated transmission among four satellites across the International Date Line. Over 1.5 million kilometers of cable was used to quite literally link up the planet and enable the broadcast of “Our World,” a three-hour aggregation of short, wide-ranging documentary segments, to 31 countries on every continent but Antarctica.Multinational and democratic, “Our World” represented the birth of what media maven Marshall McLuhan dubbed in its Canadian introduction, “the global village.” He believed that the simultaneity enabled by this technology would create empathy and mutual responsibility between peoples and cultures.For the artists, technicians, and journalists involved in its making, “Our World” was not only a technical marvel, but a social elixir. Narrative voice-overs between the show’s segments offered urgent expositions of humanity’s challenges, framed in hopeful explanations of how technology would help us address them. “Our World” was to be the pixelated proof that through the efforts of “ingenious men on five continents,” led by educated humanists, mankind could transcend its political divisions and enlightened liberalism could harness our efforts to the greater good.

Source: 50 Years On, Remembering The ‘Our World’ Broadcast And What It Means Today | Cognoscenti

About Author

Martin Nethercutt

Martin Nethercutt

Martin A Nethercutt is a writer, singer, producer and loves music. Creative Director at McCartney Studios Editor-in-Chief at McCartney Times Creator-in-Chief at Geist Musik President (title) at McCartney Multimedia, Inc. Went to Albert-Schweitzer-Schule Kassel Lives in Playa del Rey From Kassel, Germany Married to Ruth McCartney

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