what does "massive refutation of the pebble-in-the-pond theory of communication" mean? Although the desire for knowledge mounted steadily in the plane, it remained unsatisfied. Love Field was, if anything, more misinformed than Parkland Hospital. Each offered a massive refutation of the pebble-in-the pond theory of communication, the fiction that information spreads from its source in evenly spaced concentric circles. To the layman the pattern seems both aesthetic and logical, and any outsider hanging around the airport fence at 1:35 P.M. would have instinctively placed himself in an outer ring, the policemen on the runway in intermediate rings, and the 1 fuselage of 26000, glinting in the bright afternoon sunlight, in the center.