If the formative power in the media are the media 
themselves, that raises a host of large matters that can only 
be mentioned here, although they deserve volumes. Namely, 
that technological media are staples or natural resources, 
exactly as are coal and cotton and oil. Anybody will concede 
that society whose economy is dependent upon one or two 
major staples like cotton, or grain, or lumber, or fish, or cattle 
is going to have some obvious social patterns of organization 
as a result. Stress on a few major staples creates extreme 
instability in the economy but great endurance in the 
population. The pathos and humor of the American South are 
embedded in such an economy of limited staples. For a society 
configured by reliance on a few commodities accepts them as a 
social bond quite as much as the metropolis does the press. 
Cotton and oil, like radio and TV, become “fixed charges” on the 
entire psychic life of the community. And this pervasive fact