The Medium Is the Message
of "content" preferences, viewing time, and vocabulary counts. In a word, his approach to the
problem was a literary one, albeit unconsciously so. Consequently, he had nothing to report.
Had his methods been employed in 1500 A.D. to discover the effects of the printed book in
the lives of children or adults, he could have found out nothing of the changes in human and
social, psychology resulting from typography. Print created individualism and nation alism in
the sixteenth century. Program and "content" analysis offer no clues to the magic of these
media or to their subliminal charge.
Leonard Doob, in his report Communication in Africa, tells of one African who took great
pains to listen each evening to the BBC news, even though he could understand nothing of it.
Just to be in the presence of those sounds at 7 P.m. each day was important for him. His
attitude to speech was like ours to melody-the resonant intonation was meaning enough. In the
annaabi.ee 
