This is a scientist operating scientific equipment, or a model posing as a scientist showing off the capabilities of a shiny new piece of informational display equipment.
It’s an oscilloscope, an electronic device for measuring things like frequency and amplitude and wave-shapes of signals including, in the case of this model, the cathode-ray signals that create moving pictures on a TV screen. In other words, it can be used to record video — no simple thing in the age before videotape and personal computers.
I found the brochure here, on archive.org.