The message of any medium (which is to say, the societal effect of any technology) is the way they "amplify or accelerate existing processes."[1]
Whereas mechanical media accelerated slowly, electric media involve an extreme form of acceleration, eliminating time and space factors entirely.[2] In other words, electric media speed up sequence to such a degree that it is no longer sequence but simultaneous.[3] This results in a reversal of explosion into implosion.[4] The reason electric media are the extreme is because "no further acceleration is possible this side of the light barrier".[5]
Examples[]
- "The railway…accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure."[6]
- "The airplane…, by accelerating the rate of transportation, tends to dissolve the railway form of city, politics, and association"[7]