Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show BusinessTelevision has conditioned us to tolerate visually entertaining material measured out in spoonfuls of time, to the detriment of rational public discourse and reasoned public affairs. In this eloquent, persuasive book, Neil Postman alerts us to the real and present dangers of this state of affairs, and offers compelling suggestions as to how to withstand the media onslaught. Before we hand over politics, education, religion, and journalism to the show business demands of the television age, we must recognize the ways in which the media shape our lives and the ways we can, in turn, shape them to serve out highest goals. |
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Page 58
... advertising to be the voice of com- merce , then its history tells very clearly that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries those with products to sell took their customers to be not unlike Daniel Webster : they assumed that ...
... advertising to be the voice of com- merce , then its history tells very clearly that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries those with products to sell took their customers to be not unlike Daniel Webster : they assumed that ...
Page 59
... advertisers to over- come the lineal , typographic form demanded by publishers.22 And not until the end of the nineteenth century did advertising move fully into its modern mode of discourse . As late as 1890 , advertising , still ...
... advertisers to over- come the lineal , typographic form demanded by publishers.22 And not until the end of the nineteenth century did advertising move fully into its modern mode of discourse . As late as 1890 , advertising , still ...
Page 60
... advertisers adopted the technique of using slogans . Presbrey contends that modern advertising can be said to begin with the use of two such slo- gans : " You press the button ; we do the rest " and " See that hump ? " At about the same ...
... advertisers adopted the technique of using slogans . Presbrey contends that modern advertising can be said to begin with the use of two such slo- gans : " You press the button ; we do the rest " and " See that hump ? " At about the same ...
Contents
The Medium Is the Metaphor | 3 |
Media as Epistemology | 16 |
Typographic America | 30 |
Copyright | |
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advertising Aldous Huxley America amusing argument audience become believe Billy Graham called celebrities Charles Finney claims classroom coherent communication conversation course created culture Diff'rent Strokes Douglas eighteenth entertainment epistemology example exposition fact Frye Huxley idea implied intellectual irrelevant Jerry Falwell Jimmy Swaggart language learning Lincoln-Douglas debates literacy Marshall McLuhan matter means medium ment merely metaphor Mimi mind movie nature newscaster newspaper nineteenth century oral Orwell Pat Robertson photograph play preachers President printed word printing press problem public discourse question radio rational readers reason religion religious Reverend Robert Schuller rock music sense serious Sesame Street show business sion social speech story symbolic tele telegraph television commercial television program television screen television show television's thing tion tradition truth typographic viewers visual Walter Ong watch writing written word York