ABSTRACT
While people used to go down to the train station to have their hands shaken or their babies kissed by a presidential candidate on a whistlestop campaign, most now see and experience the presidency exclusively through the words and images of television, radio, and newspapers. While families used to create their own music at home with pianos, voices, or jugs, most now depend on radios, tapes, and CDs for musical entertainment supplied by professionals. Comedy and drama, once presented to and by live people in theaters, on vaudeville stages, and at the circus are now consumed for hours each day on television. The mass media-books, newspapers, magazines, recordings, movies, radio, TV, junk mail, computer networks-have for many people become the principal source of information about the world.
