Television as a M Eans of Transport

In 1933 the art historian Rudolf Arnheim proposed that the new invention of television was best understood metaphorically, in relation to questions of physical transport – as a ‘means of distribution’ – but of images and sounds, rather than of objects or persons. To this extent, he argued, television is fundamentally related to modes of transport such as the motor car and the aeroplane – but in this case as a ‘means of transport for the mind’ (Arnheim 1933, quoted in Rath 1985: 199).