part of the figure. The thing you see is figure; the thing that affects you is ground, and that’s what I mean by the medium is the message. The medium is hidden; the message is obvious. But the real effect comes from the hidden ground, not from the content, not from the figure. It comes from the ground, which is never noticed. Nobody in the history of the telephone has ever mentioned that on the telephone you do not have a physical body. There is a recent book by Ithiel de Sola Pool—a ridiculous name and a ridiculous book—because it’s called, The Social Effect or Impact of the Telephone , and about which he knows nothing. I mean, a whole group of people did this study on the social impact of the telephone; they didn’t know what an effect was.

Forsdale: By which I think you mean that they did studies of