Channels of Communication

This chapter describes the massive television audiences for the Super Bowl, for presidential debates, for natural disasters, for horrific mass shootings, for royal weddings, and important funerals. It emphasizes that in the present there is more than one medium other than television. It also points out the availability of messages everywhere, such as on flat screens, computer screens, phone screens, or tablet screens. The chapter clarifies how people expect everything to be at their fingertips at every moment and are largely uncertain as to how exactly the job gets done. It references scholars that argues that the proliferation of modern media has led to fragmentation and self-selection.