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 12
... knowledge , as well as a new sense of intelligence , of audience and of posterity , all of which Plato recognized at an early stage in the development of texts . " No man of intelligence , " he wrote in his Seventh Letter , " will ...
... knowledge , as well as a new sense of intelligence , of audience and of posterity , all of which Plato recognized at an early stage in the development of texts . " No man of intelligence , " he wrote in his Seventh Letter , " will ...
Page 33
... knowledge flow , For ' tis the people's sacred right to know . 8 These people , in other words , had more than the subjection of Satan on their minds . Beginning in the sixteenth century , a great epistemological shift had taken place ...
... knowledge flow , For ' tis the people's sacred right to know . 8 These people , in other words , had more than the subjection of Satan on their minds . Beginning in the sixteenth century , a great epistemological shift had taken place ...
Page 79
... knowledge of the world , but our knowledge of ways of knowing as well . At the same time , television has achieved the status of " myth , " as Roland Barthes uses the word . He means by myth a way of understanding the world that is not ...
... knowledge of the world , but our knowledge of ways of knowing as well . At the same time , television has achieved the status of " myth , " as Roland Barthes uses the word . He means by myth a way of understanding the world that is not ...
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