Tradition is an excellent example since the habitual customs and gestures of a community are difficult to maintain at a distance. Removed from the communities and generations of believers that have nurtured them, they are easily misinterpreted. In space-binding media, messages are not distorted much across distance, but cannot last long. They are extenders of culture, and their mode is power. Print and broadcast journalism are space-binding media that combine the easy transportability of paper with rapid electronic distribution by telephone, video and computer.
Contemporary journalism is time-shortened and ephemeral.
Unlike media crafted from messages painstakingly sedimented across centuries, like the Iliad or the Odyssey, contemporary media saturate the moment. They fill up every nook and cranny of public space. The maintenance of political units as small as tribes and as large as empires depend on media.