In the 1960s and 1970s, counter-culture video collectives extended the role of the underground press to new communication technologies. Michael Shamberg, Paul Ryan and others co-founded a video collective called Raindance Corporation.

Paul Ryan was a student and research assistant of Marshall McLuhan, who believed modern technology, such as television, was creating a global village and challenging cultural values, and coined the term "Cybernetic guerrilla warfare" to describe how the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s should use communication technology to get its message to the public. Despite a bias in the counter-culture movement towards anti-technology , people like Ryan and former Time-Life correspondent Michael Shamberg believed new technology wanted social change.

Shamberg preferred the term Guerrilla television (the title of his 1971 book), because despite its strategies and tactics similar to warfare, Guerrilla television is non-violent. He saw Guerrilla television as a means to break through the barriers imposed by Broadcast television, which he called beast television.

They urged for the use of Sony's Portapak video camera, released in 1968 to be merged with the documentary film style and television. The group later became TVTV, or Top Value Television, one of the medium's most influential video collectives.