Blogger Notes

Note: My assigned topic was originally the history of TV, but I kind of think it makes more sense to look at the historical context of TV, which means asking probing questions about the future, too. If that's totally crazy, let me know.

Purpose
The purpose of my segment will be to situate the 2009 digital TV switchover in the U.S. in a historical context. What past events and trends (technological, social, financial, political) brought us to the digital TV switch? Where might the digital TV switch take us?

Elements
I'm visualizing a three-part structure: big picture, future, past.

• Television timeline - A visual timeline that combines text, statistics, and images. It could be a compilation of multiple themes or categories (international digital switch progress, technological milestones, etc.). I'm still working to narrow down the scope of this (i.e., which topics should I cover, how far back should I go).
  
• Futurists take on TV - I want to compile a collection of voices describing predictions about the future of TV (and possibly related technology). Where do different types of people involved in TV (engineers, broadcasters, viewers, maybe even some self-labeled futurists from The DaVinci Institute) see things heading? I would like this to be either an audio piece or a short video.
  
• Antique TVs - This element is still shaping in my mind, but I want to do some kind of homage to televisions of the past. This could be, as we discussed in earlier meetings, finding people who still have TVs from the 1950s in their homes, or searching through garage sales for antique TVs -- I'm not sure yet. It needs a visual element (probably photographs), but I think it could also make a nice print piece as well.

-- Jordan