Global Political Fallout: The VCR’s First Decade

Almost imperceptibly, often illegally and probably irreversibly, video cassette recorders have been spreading throughout the world, with potential political consequences not known or understood but feared. For countries where tight control of information is part of the established order, as in the Soviet bloc and much of the Third World, proliferation of the VCR (easy to smuggle, to buy on the black market) represents a new challenge. This study by the Program on Information Resources Policy at Harvard brings together evidence from all over the world, listing questions for further study.