we turn from the content of messages to study total effect. 
Kenneth Boulding put this matter in The Image  by saying, “The 
meaning of a message is the change which it produces in the 
image.” Concern with effect  rather than meaning  is a basic 
change of our electric time, for effect involves the total 
situation, and not a single level of information movement. 
Strangely, there is recognition of this matter of effect rather 
than information in the British idea of libel: “The greater the 
truth, the greater the libel.”

     The effect of electric technology had at first been anxiety. 
Now it appears to create boredom. We have been through the 
three stages of alarm, resistance, and exhaustion that occur in 
every disease or stress of life, whether individual or collective. 
At least, our exhausted slump after the first encounter with the 
electric has inclined us to expect new problems. However,