Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves to Death -- Public discourse in the age of show-business"
This book is a classic: everybody knows it, and everything has been written about it. Let me write some more. Postman's 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 technology, some of it undeveloped and possibly speculative as of now. In the field of media, this has led to the hypothesis that the messages we want to communicate, and the media we choose to communicate them, are largely orthogonal issues, which is why we can analyze and quantify media, talk about the 'bandwidth' (in bits/second) of, say, a computer animation, or television viewing, or reading a book. Does it not make sense, then, to pick the medium with the highest bandwidth, and to develop media with better bandwidth, shorter access time etc.?
The main point of this book is that this hypothesis is wrong. It focuses on the shift from written text to television as the main mode of cultural communication, and tries to analyze how it affected our culture, how the means of communication influence the content that is communicated. According to Postman, it changed the way people perceive, it changed the way people are even capable of perceiving, it changed the things people think, it changed the...
In the intro of my essay, I listed vague examples about how television impacts society. Throughout my content I did not elaborate on Postman’s believed the age of typography was, and the difference between the past and the age of show business today. In addition, I lacked comparing Postman’s argument to Francis
Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century. By Kasson, John F. (New York: Hill & Wang, 2002. Acknowledgements, contents, tables and figures, introduction, notes, bibliography, index. $17.00 paperback)
The environmental influences must be considered in order to understand the behavioral of a child. Urie Bronfenbrenner was a famous Russian American psychologist who formulated the Ecological Model Systems in 1979. He believed that as a child grow and mature, the way he/she interact with the environment become more complex. The Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model Systems defines how external environments and individuals affect the development of a child. It is made up of four systems that greatly influence the development of a child. The four systems are microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old and I grew up in a broken family. My microsystem includes immediate relationship I interact with,
In the first chapter of Amusing Ourselves To Death , Neil Postman's major premise is how the rise of television media and the decline of print media is shaping the quality of information we receive.Postman describes how the medium controls the message, he uses examples which include the use of clocks, smoke signals, the alphabet, and glasses.Postman says a society that generally uses smoke signals is not likely to talk about philosophy because it would take to long and be too difficult. Postman also describes the way television changes peoples way of thinking; a fat person will not look good on TV and would less likely be elected President. On the other hand someones body is not important as their ideas when they are expressing them through the radio or print. On TV, visual imagery reigns. Therefore the form of TV works against the content of philosophy. Postman shows how the clock has changed. Postman describes how time was a product of nature measured by the sun and seasons. Now, time is measured by a machine using minutes and seconds. The clock changed us into time-watchers, then time-savers, and finally time-servers. Thus, changing the metaphor for time changed how we view time itself.
...d that television holds on us, Postman give two ideas. The first idea that he gives, he describes it as ridiculous to create programming that demonstrates how “television should be viewed by the people” (161).
Postman divides history into three types. He begins his argument with discussion of tool-using cultures. In these cultures, technology has an "ideological bias" to action that is not thought about by users. He says that this is a time of "logic, sequence, objectivity, detachment, and discipline," where historical figures such as Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and others clung to the theology of their age. This was a world with God, which was concerned with truth and not power. Postman remarks that the mass production of books and the invention of the printing pre...
The media is actually used as a channel of disseminating information to the audience. And the media influence cultural, moral, political, economic and religious values because they tend to set the agenda for its audience. Not only setting the agenda but also framing. The media tend to frame the central organizing ideas for news content, entertainment, which supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis exclusion and elaboration.
Media plays a large role in creating communal measures including news, publishing, radio, computer, television, and film, at this moment is almost everywhere in modern culture. Gender aspects, as an example, survive solely because civilization as a whole chooses to accept them, but they are maintained by the media. Noteworthy viewers must be conscious of what the media is presenting to them, and make sure they are not operatively partaking in a culture of unjust impositions or restraints. Even on young children, gender roles are being pushed through cartoons.
Any act of conscious communication always true, in varying degrees, two fundamental objectives. One is to inform, instruct and describe, and the other is to entertain or occupy. The products of the mass communication industry made that mandate the particularity that are targeted to a wide receiver, whose acceptance is intended to conquer. The intent of the act is expressed with the term broadcast (spread through mass media), which once meant to sow broadcast the farmland. The cinema, especially the US, is the great communication industry of the twentieth century. Although in recent decades seems to have given primacy to television, the information, education and entertainment on Western culture influence is undeniable.
Describe Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and how it impacts teacher practice. The Ecological System Theory declare that human beings development is impacted by the different types of environmental systems. For example, it states that humans jump from one stage to the next. For instance, one stage at a time like taking the stairs. However, it is an ecological system, because at the beginning a person starts interacting with their families, peers, classroom, and religious setting. Then, with school, community, etc., and lastly, culture, society, etc. Furthermore, it can impact teacher practice because teachers are part of the microsystem. Which mean that teachers are a positive influence and a role model for children’s. Moreover, teachers are part of the mesosystem and parents as well. Meaning that teachers and parents communicate directly towards their child’s goals, such as, encouraging a child’s interest in reading, or even racing a low grade. The result would be that children’s will rely on their parents and teachers to pursue their goals and this will impact a teacher’s
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory will be applied throughout this essay to delve into the reasoning behind particular behavioural issues. According to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, an individual has multiple environments known as their ecological systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Bronfenbrenner (1994) suggests that a developing child is influenced by the relationships surrounding them and the best way to understand a child’s behaviour is to look at the numerous aspects of the child’s environment and how they interact with each other. The relationships and environments that the child interacts with have been separated into layers known as the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and the overarching chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The microsystem is the environment where the child has direct face-to-face relationships such as at home, day care and school (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The relationships formed within the microsystem directly impact the development of a child (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). It is through the processes of repeated interactions with people, objects and symbols that the human develops (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The second layer in the ecological model is the mesosystem, which is the interaction between two of the microsystems such as the relationship between a parent and a teacher (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The exosystem is an external environment, with which the
To further more for a better understanding, I will explain the Bronfenbrenner 's Ecological systems model and how each level help in forming our human development. The ecological system model is a five different level model that contains people, places, and things that is believed to help a person 's develop in life. The first level is known as microsystem. The microsystem is the system that contains the closest and direct contact to a person, such as family, friends, school/work, and church. For example, my microsystem would consist of my home and work. At home, I tend to interact more with my parents and siblings. At work, I 'm more interactive with my boss, co-workers and the customers. Secondly, the next level of the ecological system is the mesosystem. The mesosystem consists of interaction between the different parts in the microsystem. For example, back in 8th grade I attended a catholic school. I had a nun as teacher and her name was Sister Anna. She was a very caring and loving teacher. I wasn 't a bad student, I just had bad habits. I tended to not do my homework while I was home, instead I rushed to do it in the morning before class. Sometimes I would finish in time and other times I would not. She would always ask why didn 't I do my homework at home and I would simply not know. So her and my parents sat down together to agree for me to stay with her after school to
Media or medium of communication has been conceptualized to effect and drive information to the greater masses because it’s the venue where information can be linear form of communication. This essay will discuss what it is meant by media according to online Business Dictionary defines as the communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated.” This may include broadcasting and narrowcasting medium such as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, telephone, fax, and internet, the Business Dictionary further includes in this definition.
The Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory focuses on how ones environment can affect a person’s development. It focuses on 5 main areas namely the Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem, Macrosystem and Chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, p. 514-515). Each system represents the setting in which they live in and how these people affect their growth. In this particular case study, Andy’s main influence is from the Microsystem and Mesosystem.
Firstly, I would like to add some critical point of view toward the study of mass media. I had an impression that their articles tend to focus rather on data or numbers than on thought or ideas, maybe because my major is not mass media in sociology, but in cultural studies or anthropology. As is often said,technology including new media had achieved rapidly‐advancing development for decades, but it is difficult to use technology properly. It is essential to study of mass media to intermediate between arts and sciences. Secondly, after studying mass media, I noticed how much media makes my world or viewpoints. What is particularly interesting for me is how media contribute to making one’s identity. Experiences of studying abroad as an exchange students are precious, but sometimes make questions about identity such as race or ethnicity. These familiar issues are worth studying. Finally, I recognized some common points between some theories of media effect and other studies such as cultural studies, but it was not clear at that time. I thought that making those points clear could end in connecting and deepening the discussions in many