Amusing Ourselves For Death Public Discourse On The Age...

In Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman familiarizes his readers to his main objective for his argument right away. His strategies to convince his readers of his claim are extraordinarily well and get across to the readers easily. Postman proposes that the public, without recognizing it, is losing its â€Å"autonomy, maturity, and history†. His thesis is that television is changing the way people interact by putting all public rhetoric into on-screen entertainment. He suggests that risks are high if the public does not notice television changing the publics view and that we need to try and regain control over it. First, Postman’s anger towards the way news is televised under the media-metaphor is presented in his first chapter, The Medium Is the Metaphor. He introduces the basic concept of news in the Age of Show Business. The author states, â€Å"This idea - that there is a content called â€Å"the news of the dayâ₠¬  - was entirely created by the telegraph (and since amplified by newer media), which made it possible to move decontextualized information over vast spaces at incredible speed.†(8), saying that â€Å"the news of the day† is information given to the public that does not immediately affect the watcher’s life, but instead has little practical value. It exists only in a world associated with media, â€Å"The news of the day is a figment of our technological imagination.†(8), such as the telegraph or television. He suggests that the news andShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Amusing Ourselves To Death By Neil Postman812 Words   |  4 PagesAmusing Ourselves to Death, written by Neil Postman analyzes the true meaning of entertainment and explores how it affects our lives today. â€Å"Entertainment is the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment,† (dictionary.com). According to Postman television has had an extremely negative effect on the â€Å"public discourse of contemporary America.† Postman compares his book to Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World, which communicates that people are too amused and are becoming weak andRead MoreAmusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman1180 Words   |  5 Pages Neil Postman writes, Amusing Ourselves to Death to address a television-based epistemology pollutes public communication and its surrounding landscape, not that it pollutes everything. The book was produced in 1984 in a time where television was an emerging epidemic and other forms of communication that today have taken flight, didn’t exist. It is directed to people who have let television drag them away from their Focus and attention to comprehend as they have lost the ability to bring forth yourRead MoreNeil Postman s Exploration Of This Issue1737 Words   |  7 Pageshappening. The reason the difference is so profound is because our discourse has gradually been dumbed-down since the beginning o f the information era, and people are treating the serious issues that arise as entertainment. The most powerful culprit being television, has being accused of causing damage to the people that were raised in the TV era. Neil Postman’s exploration of this issue in his novel written in 1985, Amusing Ourselves to Death, is a crucial hint of the consequences of being immersed inRead More1984 By George Orwell Literary Analysis1625 Words   |  7 Pagestheir information overload desensitized the public into acquiescing this seemingly friendly, but not any less damaging, worldview. As the world enters a new age of modern technology, many of Huxley’s notions are beginning to become more realistic, rather than Orwell’s fears of cultural oppression. Throughout Amusing Ourselves to Death, author Neil Postman speaks in favor of Huxley’s prophetic vision of the future of popular culture and public discourse by explaining how television has vastly trivializedRead M ore We Are Living in a Corporate Dystopia Essay1495 Words   |  6 Pagestake the first bold steps down the road to the Brave New World. Ignoring this threat and treating it as either non-existent or only minimally significant is tantamount to inviting Huxleys dystopian vision into our own world. In so doing, we set ourselves up for a decidedly dark tomorrow.    To the uninitiated, the society of Huxleys Brave New World at first seems to be only pure science fiction with no visible ties to reality. After all, we have no government-controlled genetic engineeringRead MoreAmusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the AGe of Show Business570 Words   |  3 Pages Neil Postman, quot;Amusing Ourselves to Death -- Public discourse in the age of show-businessquot; This book is a classic: everybody knows it, and everything has been written about it. Let me write some more. Postmans book caused a lot of public discussion in the mid-eighties, but it is now as relevant as ever, possibly more so. Today, it has almost become an axiom of our society that the answer to the questions raised by our technological advances lie in the application of further technologyRead More`` Postman `` : Public Discourse And The Age Of Show Business2291 Words   |  10 Pageswell. This is Neil Postman s basis for his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Television and other media outlets have conditioned us to accept entertainment in every aspect of life; but most of all it masks the state of public affairs and politics. Through his book, Postman begs that we recognize the ways in which media shapes our lives and how we can use them to serve us instead of hurt us. Broken into two parts, Amusing Ourselves to Death focuses on aR ead MoreWhy It Sells : A Cultural Portrait Of Today s Youth929 Words   |  4 Pagesteaches Semiotics and Linguistic Anthropology. He is well known for his work and research in semiotics, language, and communication theory. One of his famous books is: My Son Is an Alien: A Cultural Portrait of Today s Youth. He wrote â€Å"Why It Sells† to show how the growing and comprehending of media messages are created in people’s lives. ______________________________________________________________________________ Internet Users (per 100 People). World Bank. The World Bank, 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 NovRead MoreBrave New World Analysis737 Words   |  3 Pagespopulation distract ourselves from the truth with technology and other means of diversion and that these things will ruin us. Neil Postman supported Huxley and discussed â€Å"The Huxleyan Warning† in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Postman believes that â€Å"Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us,† (Postman 1). Postman concluded his essay with, â€Å"For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are,† (4). Postman meant that peopleRead MoreAnalysis of Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves to Death1648 Words   |  7 PagesLiking Form and Function It would be easy to dismiss Neil Postman as just a grumpy old man complaining about what those young whippersnappers are up to while his generation is upholding the values of civilization, the last vanguard against the Huns. Except for the fact that he was right: Modern technologies have allowed individuals to withdraw into themselves, to avoid engaging in public discourse. This imperils democracy, according to Postman, along with a number of other social critics of the last