The Medium Is the Message
Narcissus fixation, and is quite shut off from Blake's awareness or that of the Psalmist, that
we become what we behold.
Today when we want to get our bearings in our own culture, and have need to stand aside
from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only
to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or a historical period in which it
was unknown. Professor Wilbur Schramm made such a tactical move in stydying Television
in the Lives o f Our Children. He found areas where TV had not penetrated at all and ran
some tests. Since he had made no study of the peculiar nature of the TV image, his tests were
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
annaabi.ee 
