An Analysis Of Neil Postman

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Recommended: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)

What does the famous actor, Angelina Jolie have in common with author Neil Postman? According to IMDB.com, they both appeared July 14, 2003, on an episode of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”. To many, the appearance of Neil Postman’s on the faux news program may seem odd. Considering that in Postman’s 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, the author gives a scathing appraisal of when television news acts as entertainment. As a four-decade long New York University professor and chairperson of the department of communication arts and sciences, Postman, employs historical references of different communication media as used through time to furnish a basis for his arguments. The medium is the form …show more content…

By this, he contends language makes us human. However, when speech is a culture’s sole medium, it causes fundamental limitations in such a society (p. 9). For an example, he uses a portrayal of a trial in an African tribe with no written language. Laws, punishments, and traditions require reliance on memorization of Proverbs spoken in the past (p. 18). Consequently, this limits those people who have societal roles of wisdom in having excellent memorization skills. By the biblical reference to the wise King Solomon, who knew three thousand proverbs, Postman forges his point on the value of memorization to an oral culture (p. …show more content…

He contends that the “news of the day” was not possible until the invention and mass use of the telegraph. As the culture further embraced new electronic mediums, first radio and then television, the legitimacy of such information began to decline (p. 8). It is not that Postman is against mediums as television per say. What he calls “junk programs,” entertainment for the sake of entertainment, has value as amusement. Nonetheless, it is when subjects of a serious matter, news, politics, and religion become vehicles for amusement; there Postman sees a fundamental decline in the culture (p.

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