would have quite altered the result of the Kennedy-Nixon 
campaign. TV is a medium that rejects the sharp personality 
and favors the presentation of processes rather than of 
products.

     The adaptation of TV to processes, rather than to the 
neatly packaged products, explains the frustration many 
people experience with this medium in its political uses. An 
article by Edith Efron in TV Guide  (May 18­24, 1963) labeled 
TV “The Timid Giant,” because it is unsuited to hot issues and 
sharply defined controversial topics: “Despite official freedom 
from censorship, a self-imposed silence renders network 
documentaries almost mute on many great issues of the day.” 
As a cool medium TV has, some feel, introduced a kind of rigor  
mortis  into the body politic. It is the extraordinary degree of 
audience participation in the TV medium that explains its