Chapter 9 essay

General Overview of the Chapter

Neil Postman begins chapter 9 of his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by discussing if politics is actually a spectator sport or if politics is just like the way show business is run. This chapter is titled ‘Reach out and Elect someone’, and Postman first writes about how politics is more like a "spectator sport" or, as Ronald Reagan put it, "like show business" (125).

Postman then writes about how he is more stimulated by the first simile, frightening as it may be, since in a sport, the "standard of excellence is well known to both the players and spectators" (125). We know how to watch, understand, and score a sport.

Most of a TV show’s programming is comprised mostly of commercials instead of the actual show. For example, In the US there is approximately eight or 8-1/2 minutes of commercials per half hour of broadcast television. On cable there are about 10 full minutes of commercials which is why syndicated versions of television shows are edited to remove at least 1-1/2 to 2 minutes of the show to fit in the cable channel's timeslot. Pay cable shows have no commercials and can be anywhere from 25 minutes to 29 minutes in length.

In the UK on ITV and other commercial networks there are 6 to 7-1/2 minutes of commercials per half hour, but the BBC only shows commercials for their own shows at the end of a program if there is room, so a half-hour show there can run up to 29-1/2 minutes with no commercials at all.

Overall, Postman writes about how television commercials affect almost anyone in the with a television set

Key Concepts

Postman deviates from what he was originally talking about which was the "standard of excellence" in show business is ...

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...sues they claim to represent. Postman also goes onto note that when he was a child, people voted for their party no matter the candidate because they had rationally decided that a particular party best represented their economic and social interests. However, he believes that such thinking is a diminishing commodity.

To illustrate how the idea of "image politics works on television," Postman details a famous set of Bell Telephone commercials that offer short parables about how two long out-of-touch friends reconnect and find intimacy through the telephone. The commercials do not make any claims about the telephone, but rather express, through the slogan "Reach Out and Touch Someone," an image of ourselves, as people who are not as in touch as we'd like but certainly want to be.

Works Cited

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business