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Title: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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| Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Penguin (Non-Classics) Judge a book by its cover | Just today I logged on to one of the biggest news channels' website (CNN) and on the front page under "Popular News" was the following headline: "Is that Miley Cyrus flashing her bra on the Web?" I had just finished my second reading of this book and it seemed like a stark reminder of what Neil Postman was talking about over 20 years ago, how television has drastically changed our culture and redefined everything in our society from news to politics, education and even religion. I don't know of any book written during my lifetime that is more socially relevant and whose message is more important to be read and understood by the general public.
In Chapter 6, "The Age of Show Business", Postman writes, "To say television is entertaining is merely banal. Such a fact is hardly threatening to a culture, not even worth writing a book about. It may even be a reason for rejoicing. Life, as we like to say, is not a highway strewn with flowers. The sight of a few blossoms here and there may make our journey more endurable." He goes on to point out that the problem is not that there are entertaining shows on television, but that in order to accommodate itself to the demands of television, *everything* must be presented as entertainment. In order to generate ratings, advertisers and ultimately revenue, no subject is too serious to be presented in any way other than the one that attracts the most viewers. When the local news reports about a murder, it has no relevant meaning to our lives and it's not told so much to inform us of the tragedy of a murder but because it is the most exciting and what people want to see. News producers have a motto for this, "If it bleeds it leads."
Probably the most alarming example Postman cites is how television has changed politics and political discourse. This is where the transformation from a word-based media to an image-based media is felt the most strongly. Politicians have realized that the content of what they say is now largely irrelevant compared to how they appear, how they present themselves. Postman uses the example that when Ted Kennedy made a run for the presidency, Richard Nixon offered him the following advice: "Lose twenty pounds." Nixon had been in politics most of his adult life and knew the name of the game well, that one's ideas, beliefs, actions and words are now almost completely irrelevant in a world where nearly everyone has started getting their information from television only. Before Mike Huckabee entered this political race, he lost over a hundred pounds. If you look at photographs of presidents throughout our history, you notice that most of them certainly never got anywhere in life because of their looks and some of them are downright ugly men. Political races are now completely decided in the arena of television and their coverage of it has become absurd and embarassing. This is the change that Postman has tried to point out, that a literate culture that depends on the printed word for information and communication creates a vastly different culture from one that depends on images, ten second soundbites and information that has no context or relevance to anyone's life, like what Miley Cyrus or Paris Hilton is up to.
It has been over twenty years since Neil Postman wrote this but his ideas are even more relevant today. This book should be read and understood by everyone but it mostly falls on deaf ears. I think it was Mark Twain who said that the man who doesn't read has no advantage over the man who can't read. Television is now an integral part of life not only in America but in Europe, China and pretty much any other developed nation. This would not be a problem but, as Postman points out, one of the nasty side effects of television is that it has degraded literacy rates, so that every year we hear that people are reading less and less. People and specifically children spend an alarming amount of their free time watching television and to get them to read you practically have to force it upon them. Once in a while a book like Harry Potter will become a hit but for many children and even adults that was the only book they purchased or even attempted to read in an entire year. We hear that children in this country are performing worse every year in school but the finger is never pointed at the obvious culprit because we hear about this on TV. | | Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Penguin (Non-Classics) Intrinsic Value of the Medium | Neil Postman posits that the medium of communication has value inherent and intrinsic in itself. Postman argues that the medium conveys shades of meaning that are not spelled out in any intentional communication. Sometimes the medium can convey meaning wholly independent of the message itself. The concept that the medium has value and meaning that is both dependant and independent of the communication conveyed is supremely logical.
After exploring the power of a metaphor Postman explains why the medium is like a metaphor. (Postman, 1985 p.13)"...the introduction into a culture of a technique such as writing or a clock is not merely an extension of man's power to bind time but a transformation of his way of thinking - and, of course, of the content of his culture". The technique, or the medium, transforms the very mindset or pattern of thinking by itself without any other variables like message added.
There have been other communications theorists who have put forward the concept that the medium had a value independent of the message. Most notable in my mind of these theorists is Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan took the value of the medium to heights that Postman does not attempt. McLuhan proposed and argued that the medium was in itself the message. McLuhan argued that inherent meaning of the medium was so great and overbearing that the message that was conveyed was by nature the result of the medium rather then any intent on the part of the communicator.
Postman position is in great contrast to McLuhan regardless of its similarities. Similar between the two theorists is recognition that the medium has value and meaning independent of the message itself. Also similar is the concept that medium changes the culture and the individual mindset. (McLuhan 1964, p.151)"The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message." Postman argues a very similar thought when says (Postman, 1985 p.11)"In Munford's great book Technics and Civilization, he show how, beginning in the fourteenth century, the clock made us into time-keepers, and then times-savers, and now times-servers." Both philosophers argue the medium conveys a message. The difference is that McLuhan argues that the medium is the primary message Postman argues that understanding the meaning and message inherent in the medium allows us to control the message.
The example of the message just being a byproduct of the medium with the metaphor of the robber and the meat, we know that McLuhan saw the stated message secondary to the medium itself. Postman on the other hand argued that the medium was important and gave meaning to the message it was more in the sense of a metaphor and could actually aid in the understanding of the message rather then hinder the message.
Postman argued further that although it was not natural with work the medium and the message can be partners rather then a either or equation. (Postman, 1985 p.14)"And yet, such digging becomes easier if we start from the assumption that in every tool we create, an idea is embedded that goes beyond the function of the thing itself."
The view of the medium that Postman offers us is by far and away the most hopeful that I have found thus far. If we can by understanding the medium clearly communicate our message then we have a clear roadmap in determining our own life and decisions. A message of personal control through knowledge and work is far more personally fulfilling then trying to realize that we have little or no impact on a situation. | | Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Penguin (Non-Classics) The Magic of Imagery | Ah! What a succinct and clear explanation of how the world of imagery has overtaken the world of writing and how this change has affected the human psyche. Postman elaborates, with hundreds of examples, how TV has changed the way we think and act in today's world. He compares it, with no small authenticity, with the words of the likes of Lincoln and Douglas and how people in those times were ready to spend an evening listening intently to speeches delivered by these great men. Not now, not today: we are slaves of the Show Business syndrome now.
Read this book and you will be 'shocked' and 'awed' by the reality it presents. | | Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Penguin (Non-Classics) Dancing around the same point | I had to read this for a journalism class, and it was torture. Postman seems to use an awful lot of words to say what could have been expressed in just a few. Yes, he's intelligent, but his point is fairly basic and should be stated so. Most people will not want to read this because many parts are hard to grasp, and he goes on and on. Was this his master's thesis or something? Totally unreadable for people of today.
Postman says a number of negative things about TV while claiming that he is not against TV. Surely he could have given the same message in an essay instead of a whole book. He's not the first to say that people don't think for themselves much anymore and are too influenced by the media. Others have said it better, though, and have it pertain more to today. | | Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Penguin (Non-Classics) Still-Relevant Warning: Dystopia Ahead! | Postman reminds us that there are two prominent 20th century dystopias -- Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World -- and argues forcefully that despite having side-stepped Big Brother we are letting Soma and the Feelies in the back door. His argument revolves around television especially, warning that this innocuous amusement carries with it the power to destroy us without even a little bit of coercion. Think about the commercial: In 30 seconds it promises a simple solution to every problem in life, suggesting that the way to paradise is 19.99. We are quite amused by these seemingly harmless commercials, but in fact they warp our view of reality to such an extent that real life is sucked out of us.
The book is a couple of decades old, so we're missing any analysis of more recent developments in entertainment media, but its prophecies have been proved true many times over since its publication. MTV culture, 24-hour cable news and political pundits, the iPod, and YouTube more than vindicate Postman's warning: We are amusing ourselves to death, soaking in so much vacuous media that we are no longer living real lives. It would be interesting to see his reaction to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, as they lambast the same ridiculous system he does, but from within the amusing medium rather than from outside it.
A particularly nice feature of the book is its media history synopsis. Postman recounts the rise of the printing press, the invention of "the daily news," the impact of the telegraph and television, and so on. Only by looking at history can we hope to imagine a world different from today's, and therefore only by looking at history can we hope to change the world.
But this history betrays what I take to be the author's overzealous loyalties to print. I accept that books (real ones, not something by Danielle Steele or Bill O'Reilly) are vastly superior to primetime tv or the latest Michael Bay flick (though maybe not to masterpieces of film), but it looks like Postman is still holding out hope for a thoroughly modernistic logocentric utopia. One of the best points of this book is that the medium itself (and the culture surrounding its use) constrains and even tells messages on its own -- anyone ever wonder why televangelists offer quick fixes for all of life's ailments, just like tv commercials? And while Postman has critiqued the message of TV -- that nothing is so bad that it can't be fixed in 30 minutes, that a mental world is more real than a physical one, and so on -- he doesn't adequately analyze books. If all we're counting on is print, which seems to be Postman's alternative to today's entertainment culture, we're still not living in the real world because we're still living disembodied mental lives rather than real, physical ones.
That criticism aside, please read this book. His analysis ranges from the Second Commandment to Sesame Street, is acceptably readable, and exposes a huge problem. Read this book and never watch the news again. | | Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Penguin (Non-Classics) Book Description | | Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. |
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