Amusing Ourselves to Death
In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues thatAmerica is moving from a print based culture to a video based culture.Postman notes that text based media force the reader to learn and considerinformation, while video is primarily a visual and entertaining medium.Further, he argues that this movement to a video-based culture has reducedpublic and political discourse to a form of entertainment. While Postman'sanalysis is largely convincing, he fails to provide meaningful solutions tothe problems he notes, and his analysis often goes too far. Postman doesnot seem to give Americans enough credit for being aware and cynicalobservers of visual media. In addition, his claims can be countered byarguing that more Americans than ever before are literate, and that readingis a common, everyday activity. Postman further fails to note theimportance of the Internet, which contains large amounts of text, thusdamaging Postman's assertion that America is moving from a print based Postman's arguments are generally thought-provoking and seeminglyvalid. He argues that in earlier generations, Americans were raised withthe written word. From colonial pam
0% of Americans were illiteratein 1870, 6. It is important to qualify that text on the Internet is different from thatin a book or magazine. He argues forcefully and rather convincinglythat a visual media is turning American public discourse into alaughingstock, and yet he says little about how to improve the situation. The result is that weare now a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death" (4). For example, relatively little text can fit on a webpage as compared to a book or magazine's page. Further, theemergence of the Internet has provided Americans with an almostunprecedented amount of text-based information. Today, America isalready a culture whose primary media is television. Further, people tend toread less content on Web pages than in books or magazines, and often tendto move quickly and scan through web content. He argues that video,simply by the virtue of its characteristics, cannot carry as muchmeaningful information as print media. In fact, Iwould argue that this claim does not go far enough. Like America in general, Las Vegas "proclaims the spirit of aculture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form ofentertainment. Importantly, his analysis of the media of video suggests that videocan never be used successfully to convey meaning. He blames the appearance of visual media thatfocus on entertainment for the "dissolution of public discourse and itsconversion into the arts of show business" (5). As such, Postman even suggests thatputting more educational programs on television is not likely to improvepublic discourse. Clearly, public discourse has been changed by the emergenceof video, a primarily a visual and entertaining medium, as Postman claims.
Common topics in this essay:
Postman Americans,
Internet Internet-,
Las Vegas,
LimiTV Postman's,
Neil Postman's,
Ultimately Postman,
Neil Postman,
Wayne's World,
Education Statistics,
Department Education,
based culture,
public discourse,
america moving print,
culture video based,
culture video,
america moving,
print based,
moving print,
video based,
postman argues,
video based culture,
based culture video,
moving print based,
visual media,
assertion america,
|
Acceptance Essays
