Television as an employee communication tool at LLL

Conference · Thu Mar 13 04:00:00 EST 1980

OSTI ID:5515756

Saunders, J

Television's great strength as a news medium is its ability to bring a story to life. Like no other medium, TV can bridge the gap between a fact and its fuller significance. On the other hand, TV has a disturbing potential to dominate viewers. It communicates in split-second images narrated in rapidly spoken words that cannot be examined. The show rolls on, with or without the puzzled viewer, whose tendency, therefore, is to acquiesce in an assertion's plausibility. Thus, the trick in organizational television, which is communication with a purpose, is to insist that the goal be to convey information, not to maximize ratings with the techniques of electronic hypnotism. The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's televised news magazine for employees, Video Journal, has an especially demanding audience. It is heavily loaded with professionals and those with a professional-level interest in technology. The LLL audience also tends to be sour on the news media, the Laboratory having been the subject of much inaccurate news coverage in recent years. Research suggests that television may be the medium best received by an audience that is suspicious of the news media generally. Writing news for a television audience is like writing news for a newspaper - but more so. Because the viewer must catch all TV news the first time through, the cardinal rules of newswriting - tight construction and focused organization - are even more important in television than in print. Copy must be geared and timed to the visual material. Numbers, unfamiliar names and complex subjects should be avoided. Finally, the subject should be one that TV can serve - an alive, animate subject.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Livermore (USA). Lawrence Livermore Lab.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 5515756
• Report Number(s): UCRL-84076; CONF-800509-2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990300* -- Information Handling
COMMUNICATIONS
EDUCATION
EVALUATION
INFORMATION
PERSONNEL
TELEVISION
USES