Watching Channel One

The Convergence of Students, Technology, and Private Business

Channel One, an electronic curriculum that was developed primarily to sell products in the marketplace, is cablecast daily to approximately twelve-thousand public high schools in the United States. About one quarter of our public secondary schools have been wired by Whittle Communications, a private company, for the delivery of this required news program. This translates to a captive audience for advertisements of around eight- to nine-million teens. The political, economic, social, and cognitive impact of Channel One will be vast. How did school board members and administrators arrive at the decision to include Channel One in their districts? What is the form and content of news and advertising on Channel One? Do students pay attention to the news? To the ads? Do students learn from Channel One? These questions, among others, are addressed in this book. By employing various forms of discourse analyses, critical theory, rhetorical analysis, structural and post-structural readings, descriptive case studies, and traditional-effects studies, the authors provide a thorough investigation into Channel One.

Teachers,. and. Parents. In the flurry of activity surrounding contractual
agreements and installation of equipment to support the Channel One news
broadcast, many people have neglected to ask critical questions concerning the
implementation of this innovative educational program. The program is designed
to be used as a complete, twelve-minute broadcast, but the literature on
educational media contains ample evidence showing that teachers frequently
use only specified parts of ...