Reflective Essay on Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death
In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman provides a critical analysis of the media environment in 1985. He explores the role and impact of the media by addressing different sectors of society, naming religion, politics, news, and education. Although this book was written prior to 1985, its relevance is far more evident today than ever; we are living in a nation in which entertainment is the focus and aim of each sector in American society and in which our notation of truth or knowledge has been greatly redefined. That is to say, we are “on the verge of amusing ourselves to death” (4) in this 2014 contemporary media environment by being constantly exposed to the internet (i.e. Twitter, email, Blackboard, YouTube); while our notation of knowing whether something as being accurate revolves around the lines of: lets Google it.
In Postman’s novel, we are given the overall thesis with the following phrase: “we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death” (4). It is through this former phrase that Postman is able to convey his critical analysis of the media environment in 1985. His critical analysis revolves around television; he conveys how this technology has altered the way in which Americans think and carry out their daily life. He goes on further to explain how television has reshaped epistemology and has led for Americans to expect some form of “entertainment” from each sector of society. In other words, the way in which we knew something as truth, or acquired knowledge from, has been altered due to television while simultaneously causing for Americans to expect politics, religion, education, and news (just to name a few) to be “entertaining.”
Postman’s bases hi...
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...re uncommonly short, its design leans heavily on pictures, charts and other graphics, some of them printed in various colors” (111).
Postman addresses how prior to television American was based on the printed word, which appealed to coherence. Yet, with the shifted from a typographic American to a television based society, television can be said to “promote incoherence and triviality” (80). It was the introduction of television that our public discourse suffered; our way of talking and thinking about things has changed (even though our message may be the same as before television).
In short, Postman asserts how our notion of “being informed” (107) has been reshaped by television. Television is creating misinformation, or misleading information since it acts as the illusion of knowledgably of a topic and due to the news being presented as a form of entertainment.
As this suburban sprawl of the fifties took America by storm, Spiegel discusses how television provided a necessary means of escapism for frustrated families. The first television show, broadcast in 1949, was a very simple program in which a man and woman sit watching and discussing the TV. Although by today's standards this would be seen as unsurpassingly boring to audiences, this simple show provided a stress relief and easy entertainment; it seemed as though audiences enjoyed watching programs which, similar to their own situation, seemed more rewarding.
Not only educational shows accomplish these goals, but fictional television programs can often incorporate information that requires viewers to grapple with a topic using logical reasoning and a global consciousness. In addition, not to diminish the importance of reading, television reaches those who may never pick up a book or who might struggle with reading problems, enabling a broader spectrum of people to interact with cognitive topics. Veith has committed the error of making generalizations about two forms of media when, in truth, the situation varies depending on quality and content. However, what follows these statements is not just fallacious, but
“Fake” news programs, such as The Daily Show, Zinser reasonably argues, have the potential to dilute mass media and deceive viewers. The Daily Show has been straightforward about its lack of legitimacy as a hard hitting news program, but “the show’s content and guest list suggest otherwise” (Zinser 367). Zinser indicates that The Daily Show should hold itself to higher standards because “people might well think they’re being fully or sufficiently informed while watching” (367). In other words, Zinser believes that if viewers tune in with the expectation of becoming informed and The Daily Show’s content consists of significant topics, the creators ...
In the intro of my essay, I listed vague examples about how television impacts society. Throughout my content I did not elaborate on Postman’s believed the age of typography was, and the difference between the past and the age of show business today. In addition, I lacked comparing Postman’s argument to Francis
In the first chapter of Amusing Ourselves To Death , Neil Postman's major premise is how the rise of television media and the decline of print media is shaping the quality of information we receive.Postman describes how the medium controls the message, he uses examples which include the use of clocks, smoke signals, the alphabet, and glasses.Postman says a society that generally uses smoke signals is not likely to talk about philosophy because it would take to long and be too difficult. Postman also describes the way television changes peoples way of thinking; a fat person will not look good on TV and would less likely be elected President. On the other hand someones body is not important as their ideas when they are expressing them through the radio or print. On TV, visual imagery reigns. Therefore the form of TV works against the content of philosophy. Postman shows how the clock has changed. Postman describes how time was a product of nature measured by the sun and seasons. Now, time is measured by a machine using minutes and seconds. The clock changed us into time-watchers, then time-savers, and finally time-servers. Thus, changing the metaphor for time changed how we view time itself.
On the Halloween of 1938, H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds premiered on the radio in America, causing panic and confusion on a national level. To illustrate, Huxley’s theory that entertainment will impact a society on how its citizens think, how they record and display information, and how they communicate with one another is best displayed by the aforementioned incident. This incident arose because this radio drama (intended to entertain) was presented in a decontextualized and abrupt manner—stating that aliens had invaded the earth— and most people indubitably believed it. In addition, this situation can be supported by Postman’s term, “news of the day,” forming an image that society’s media can control its citizens to form opinions and emotions rather than take immediate action when presented with unorthodox news or
Electronic media is inferior to print media due to the fact that electronic media can be bias, selective, and evasive for the purpose of entertainment. Electronic media serves as a form of entertainment with a main goal of serving their ratings rather than serving the people. It would seem that Postman would agree with this theory since he describes electronic media as a form of entertainment rather than a reliable source of information and facts in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death.
In his novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman describes to the reader, in detail, the immediate and future dangers of television. The argument starts out in a logical manner, explaining first the differences between today's media-driven society, and yesterday's "typographic America". Postman goes on to discuss in the second half of his book the effects of today's media, politics on television, religion on television, and finally televised educational programs. He explains that the media consists of "fragments of news" (Postman, 1985, p.97), and politics are merely a fashion show. Although Postman's arguments regarding the brevity of the American attention span and the importance of today's mass media are logical, I do not agree with his opinion of television's inability to educate.
...d that television holds on us, Postman give two ideas. The first idea that he gives, he describes it as ridiculous to create programming that demonstrates how “television should be viewed by the people” (161).
Neil Postman’s thoughts toward television and education would sadly not change after thirty years, but more technologies such as laptops, tablets, cell phones, and even social media would be added to the curriculum. Neil Postman would most likely be appalled at the amount of information I learn through the internet, and the formats that I learn the information in. For example, BuzzFeed News is an application on my cellphone that give information through videos, music, and images. All the formats that television used, but quicker.
In “Wires and Lights in a Box,” the author, Edward R. Murrow, is delivering a speech on October 15, 1958, to attendees of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. In his speech, Murrow addresses how it is his desire and duty to tell his audience what is happening to radio and television. Murrow talks about how television insulates people from the realities in the world, how the television industry is focused on profits rather than delivering the news to the public, and how television and radio can teach, illuminate, and inspire.
Paul S. Boyer. "Television." The Oxford Companion to United States History. 2001. Retrieved November 24, 2011 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-Television.html
In Steven Pinker’s article, “Mind Over Mass Media” he argues that every advance in media technology has charge of declining intelligence and morality. Pinker supports the idea that there are intellectual benefits obtained from mass media and that there are positive effects of new media technologies on mental development using some great examples related to our daily life.
Postman wrote three different commandments emphasizing why television debilitates the rules that are applied I schools, and colleges. These three commandments are “Thou shalt have no prerequisites” which he explains as not needing any previous education nor continuity to watch a show, also a viewer can watch when ever they desire to do so without punishments being implied if they do miss an episode. The second commandment is “Thou shalt induce perplexity” which postman defines as a learning that does not remember or cares for the content of the show. And the last commandment is “ Thou shalt avoid exposition like the ten plagues visited upon Egypt” which means that as long as the content in television is placed in a theatrical manner in which music has to be playing in the background, it has to be written as a story, and it has to include drama, action, or emotions then television will never be educational instead just way of
Vande Berg, L.R., Wenner, L.A., & Gronbeck, B. E. (1998). Critical Approaches to Television. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.