the telegraph. If it is asked, “What is the content of speech?”, it 
is necessary to say, “It is an actual process of thought, which 
is in itself nonverbal.” An abstract painting represents direct 
manifestation of creative thought processes as they might 
appear in computer designs. What we are considering here, 
however, are the psychic and social consequences of the 
designs or patterns as they amplify or accelerate existing 
processes. For the “message” of any medium or technology is 
the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into 
human affairs. The railway did not introduce movement or 
transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it 
accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human 
functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of 
work and leisure. This happened whether the railway functioned 
in a tropical or a northern environment, and is quite 
independent of the freight or content of the railway medium.