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 129
... political ideas . It has accomplished this in two ways . The first is by requiring its form to be used in political campaigns . It is not necessary , I take it , to say very much about this method . Everyone has noticed and worried in ...
... political ideas . It has accomplished this in two ways . The first is by requiring its form to be used in political campaigns . It is not necessary , I take it , to say very much about this method . Everyone has noticed and worried in ...
Page 130
... political office in America requires the services of an image manager to design the kinds of pictures that will lodge in the public's collective head . I will want to return to the implications of " image politics " but it is necessary ...
... political office in America requires the services of an image manager to design the kinds of pictures that will lodge in the public's collective head . I will want to return to the implications of " image politics " but it is necessary ...
Page 131
... political discourse ; that is to say , we may begin to accept as normal certain assumptions about the political domain that either derive from or are ampli- fied by the television commercial . For example , a person who has seen one ...
... political discourse ; that is to say , we may begin to accept as normal certain assumptions about the political domain that either derive from or are ampli- fied by the television commercial . For example , a person who has seen one ...
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