In surveys of lie-perception levels, 75 per cent of those questioned will pick out an average lie when they hear it; 65 per cent when they read it; and 50 per cent when they see it. The reason that revolutionary change is often tied to oral language is that this remains the most accurate means of real communication. We have great difficulty disbelieving what we see. This is one of the great risks in a society increasingly dependent on electronically manipulable images.
—John Ralston Saul, Canadian essayist, novelist, and critic, The Doubter's Companion, 1994