Beyond Statistics

Abstract

Senior citizens in Reading, Pennsylvania are programming, operating and financing their own two-way TV system using the local cable television operation. For two hours each weekday, local people can turn to Channel Three to participate in the only TV system of its kind in the world. Senior citizens are not only responsible for operating the system, they are pioneering the exploration of a medium which is radically different from broadcast television. The results that have been achieved and the interest that the programs have created are in striking contrast to society’s stereotypes of older people.

“There are two principles inherent in the very nature of things — the spirit of change and the spirit of conservatism. There can be nothing real without both — mere conservatism without change cannot conserve — mere change without conservatism is a passage from nothing to nothing.”

Alfred North Whitehead