Exploring Postman's Critique on Television and Education

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931- Octomber 5, 2003) was an American author, educator, ,media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known for his seventeen books, including “Amusing Ourselves to Death”(1985). Postman’s best known book is “Amusing Ourselves to Death”. Since TV replace the written word , Postman belive that people would be more and more attracted to this, but he also argue that television is not an effective way of providing education after all. First part is spinning around of an historical analysis. He introduce the concept of the “media-metaphor”, who is found in the first chapter (The Medium is the Metaphor). Furthermore, Postman suggest for instance, that any oral culture will speak of the world differently than one that has printed language. In this first chapter we will find that Postman focus much on the

In short, Postman wishes to trace how the “Age of Typography” has turned into the “Age of Television” and how the latter age requires all communication to take the form of entertainment. My opinion is that thought language is the primary and most direct form of human communication, we communicate through several other mediums. And people are not aware of the way media affect them. Another important element in this fragment is The clock , that serves as metaphor for the way we look at the world, as one of moments turning into other moments, each disassociated from what comes before and after. We can say that the clock actually serve as conversation man has with himself through technology. Finally, Amusing Ourselves to Death is really a book that make you think if all the words of Neil Postman are true and if they are true we need to realize that we are living in a world who is submitting to “television age”, that everything is based on how you look and not how you