They managed to lend an aura of news to info by selecting, saving and dressing it so that the ritual digestion of international titbits regained its air of collectivity. News reports became platforms for local nationalities. The dictates of time imposed by the programers and their television guides gave one the comfortable feeling of having made a personal choice by switching on the set. Programed media presumed that the consumer as subject would naturally collaborate with the makers in giving a meaningful context to the presentation. It is when data succeed in escaping such dictates and television becomes a piece of furniture like sideboard family pictures that topical media are introduced.
Topical media appear as an interruption of the program.
Life itself is conceived of as a traffic flow that must never be interrupted. The equality between news and entertainment was restored by settling topical media on a wavelength of their own. At first, news still interrupted the regular program, but this invasion was soon allotted its own channel. But at the same time this eliminated the pretense that topical media have a universal right to all those aged 8 to 88. Every minority was delivered its own message.