New Guinea has been called "the last unknown." Its highest mountains are snow-covered and below these, in early morning, you walk through clouds, your breath visible. Yet tropical swamps lie immediately north & south.

Port Moresby, the capital of the eastern section, resembles a southern California town with air-conditioned buildings, supermarkets & drive-in theater. Four hundred miles to the west, tiny, isolated bands practice cannibalism.

The bulk of the population lies between these extremes, living in thousands of tiny villages & speaking over 700 different languages

In 1969-70, the Territory of Papua & New Guinea hired me as a communications consultant. They sought advice on the use of radio, film, even television. They wanted to use these media to reach not only townspeople, but those isolated in swamps & mountain valleys & outer islands.

I accepted the assignment because it gave me an unparalleled opportunity to step in & out of 10,000 years of media history, observing, probing, testing. I wanted to observe, for example, what happens when a person-for the first time-sees himself in a mirror, in a photograph, on films; hears his voice; sees his name. Everywhere New Guineans responded alike to these experiences: they ducked their heads & covered their mouths.

When a shy or embarrassed person in our society ducks his head & covers his mouth, we say he is self-conscious. But why does consciousness of self produce this response? Does the acute anxiety of sudden self-awareness lead man everywhere to conceal his powers of speech-thought (his breath, his soul) behind the hand, the way an awakened Adam concealed his sexual powers behind a fig leaf?

Could it be that the deeper message these media conveyed wasn't sanitation or Westminster democracy, but self-discovery, self-awareness? Could this in part explain the riots in Rabaul & Kieta, towns where radio was part of daily life? The people of Rabaul had been in close contact with Westerners since 1885, and now suddenly they were marching in the streets.

The Australian administrators were dedicated men, many of them ex-teachers & nearly all from Protestant middle-class backgrounds. They believed in democracy, cleanliness & a personal God, and they promoted these goals via radio. Yet some of those who had listened most attentively to these sermons were now in angry revolt. The administrators were puzzled & asked: what message had really come through?