The world is celebrating this day, November 21 as the World Television Day, since it was declared in 1996, by the United Nations general assembly to be acknowledged.
In order to discuss the growing significance of television in today’s changing world and to consider how they might enhance their mutual cooperation, on 21 and 22 November 1996 the United Nations held the first World Television Forum, where leading media figures met under the auspices of the United Nations.
Another reason for this day was borne out of the fact that there are a plethora of roles Television plays in the world.
The medium of communication was acknowledged as a major tool in informing, channelling and affecting public opinion.
There is no doubt that it is a symbol of communication and globalization that educates, informs, entertains and influences our decisions and opinions as Its impact, presence and influence on world politics could not be denied.
But this medium of communication cannot be discussed without going memory lane, making reference to 21-year-old inventor, named Philo Taylor Farnsworth invented the world’s first electronic television In 1927.
Interestingly, he lived in a home without electricity until he was 14 years old. In high school, he began to think of a system that could capture moving pictures, change them into a code, and then move those images with radio waves to different devices.
He was years ahead of the mechanical television system as his structure captured moving images using a beam of electrons. Farnsworth later famously transmitted the image of a dollar sign using his television.
Since then, television has been used in promoting the spread of global information.
World Television Day is not so much a celebration of the tool, but rather the philosophy which it represents. Television represents a symbol for communication and globalization in the contemporary world.
