In Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, published in 1985, television is said to have changed communication forever. New shows and documentaries were coming out every week at the time of publication, and the public was frenzied to consume all the added content. In the book, Postman relates television to soma, the addictive drug from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World that is meant to exclusively give citizens good experiences, showing that television may not be as good as it is thought to be. Television has constricted the view of the world by isolating the images audiences see on their television every day. Because it was published in the 1980’s, smartphones and portable audio devices were uncommon, so virtually all media was consumed at …show more content…
Newspapers, the precursor to modern television, was much more formal and serious within its discourse, but near the middle of the nineteenth century, that seriousness began to fade away. Newspapers such as “Benjamin Day’s New York Sun” and James Bennett’s New York Herald turned away from the tradition of news as reasoned political opinion. . . and filled their pages with. . . crime and sex,” exemplifying the large turn from content requiring deep thought to entertainment and amusing stories (66). With this turn came decontextualized news, tailored to a larger audience, that was not personal to any specific group of people, creating a feedback loop which amplified this ever-growing stream of useless knowledge. This trend continued even after the switch to television, as political commercials “require its form to be used in political campaigns” (129). These commercials are one of the main elements present within an entertainment-based media, Postman argues that it brings together “in compact form all of the arts of show business – music, drama, imagery, humor, [and] celebrity” (126). Multiple television shows have featured politicians such as Everett Dirksen on What’s My Line, Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger on Dynasty, and most notably, Richard Nixon on Laugh-In. Laugh-In was a one-hour television show structured as a television …show more content…
Certain content, such as weather, has remained serious, even while being televised. Postman says that meteorologists have started to make shows out of natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes, but he does not consider that the energy shown on the screen at these times may not be a performance, but rather concern and worry. Also, some content was entertaining long before it reached television. Take radio comedy shows, as before television, these were peak entertainment, and with the introduction of television only a visual element was added. Entertainment for this content is not mutually exclusive between radio and television, but its entertaining pieces came from the radio, not television. Nonetheless, television has centered itself on important cultural topics, and “television is at its most trivial and, therefore, most dangerous. . . when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations,” which it does, now carrying political content as well as emergencies, making itself one of the most used forms of communication
In Barbara Ehrenreich’s “The Worst Years of Our Lives,” Ehrenreich denounces the American population’s obsession with television and the resulting decline of activity in the 1950s. Although Ehrenreich is correct that the popularity of television causes the American public to spend more hours in front of the television, what she fails to mention is that television goes beyond cheesy sitcoms and spicy dramas, and serves a greater purpose in society by educating the public and exposing them to new experiences. Television does not turn the American public into “couch potatoes” or “root vegetables,” but rather educates and inspires the public.
In general, the effects of television and drugs cannot be compared as equivalents; nevertheless, their study is worth of consideration. They are still two mysteries to be solved: why people spend so many hours in front of a TV set instead of doing something proactive and why people seeks refuge in drugs. We may not know all of the answers but we know all the of questions. While we walk towards the light hoping to find the answers to these mysteries, there are still many things to be done. In the meanwhile, one thing must remain in our minds: we will still face many obstacles together as society, with or without television and drugs.
In “Wires and Lights in a Box,” the author, Edward R. Murrow, is delivering a speech on October 15, 1958, to attendees of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. In his speech, Murrow addresses how it is his desire and duty to tell his audience what is happening to radio and television. Murrow talks about how television insulates people from the realities in the world, how the television industry is focused on profits rather than delivering the news to the public, and how television and radio can teach, illuminate, and inspire.
Prose, Francine. “Voting Democracy off the Island: Reality TV and the Republican Ethos.” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. Boston; Bedford, 1997. 287-89. Print. 10 Mar 2014.
Neil Postman is deeply worried about what technology can do to a culture or, more importantly, what technology can undo in a culture. In the case of television, Postman believes that, by happily surrendering ourselves to it, Americans are losing the ability to conduct and participate in meaningful, rational public discourse and public affairs. Or, to put it another way, TV is undoing public discourse and, as the title of his book Amusing Ourselves to Death suggests, we are willing accomplices.
Electronic media is inferior to print media due to the fact that electronic media can be bias, selective, and evasive for the purpose of entertainment. Electronic media serves as a form of entertainment with a main goal of serving their ratings rather than serving the people. It would seem that Postman would agree with this theory since he describes electronic media as a form of entertainment rather than a reliable source of information and facts in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death.
In his novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman describes to the reader, in detail, the immediate and future dangers of television. The argument starts out in a logical manner, explaining first the differences between today's media-driven society, and yesterday's "typographic America". Postman goes on to discuss in the second half of his book the effects of today's media, politics on television, religion on television, and finally televised educational programs. He explains that the media consists of "fragments of news" (Postman, 1985, p.97), and politics are merely a fashion show. Although Postman's arguments regarding the brevity of the American attention span and the importance of today's mass media are logical, I do not agree with his opinion of television's inability to educate.
The many evils that exist within television’s culture were not foreseen back when televisions were first put onto the market. Yet, Postman discovers this very unforgiveable that the world did not prepare itself to deal with the ways that television inherently changes our ways of communication. For example, people who lived during the year 1905, could not really predict that the invention of a car would not make it seem like only a luxurious invention, but also that the invention of the car would strongly affect the way we make decisions.
Presently 98% of the households in the United States have one or more televisions in them. What once was regarded as a luxury item has become a staple appliance of the American household. Gone are the days of the three channel black and white programming of the early years; that has been replaced by digital flat screen televisions connected to satellite programming capable of receiving thousands of channels from around the world. Although televisions and television programming today differ from those of the telescreens in Orwell’s 1984, we are beginning to realize that the effects of television viewing may be the same as those of the telescreens.
In an article ' The Plug-In Drug ' the author Marie Winn discusses the bad influence of television on today's society. Television is a ' drug ' that interfere with family ritual, destroys human relationships and undermines the family.
Would you lose your journalistic integrity over one million dollars just to increase your audience base? For me personally I would decline the money and not subject my audience to an unwanted change for personal gain. Neil Postman’s book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, argues that television is all about entertainment and nothing else. Postman makes several points in his book pertaining to televised news as examples. On the evening of January 31 2018, I decided to test Postman’s arguments by tuning into the PBS NewsHour. After putting Postman’s arguments to the test I soon found that they were correct; “if it bleeds it leads”, news anchors are just actors, stories of little value get little air time, and there is an overwhelming disconnect between stories.
Technology is growing fast, as is the new generations branching off with new forms of media and devices that provide us with the news. News and politics have had difficulty when informing its public and community of the events that happen in their community. Now the media and news are growing to reform to the earlier generation’s way of receiving the news and events related to them, by using media and popular culture. According to Wodak, for politics to air and to engage and intrigue its public, it must need scandal, rumour, and speculation (45). The West Wing, is a clear example of where the news and politics enter into the world of entertainment, but still informing its audience of the political world and events they may face. I will be analyzing The West Wing television series in relation to the representations of gender, race, and politics with support from examples and scholarly sources.
Dictionary.com defines a quest as a search or pursuit made in order to find or obtain something. In The Odyssey, an epic poem by Homer, Odysseus is in a long pursuit to reach his family. On his 10-year journey back to his home after the Trojan War, he faces countless obstacles, including temptation, challenges sent by Greek gods, and mythical creatures. Women in The Odyssey showcase ancient Greek traits, including loyalty, intelligence, and power. When Odysseus was on his voyage, he encountered many women.
From the beginning days of the printing press to the always evolving internet of present day, the media has greatly evolved and changed over the years. No one can possibly overstate the influential power of the new media of television on the rest of the industry. Television continues to influence the media, which recently an era of comedic television shows that specialize in providing “fake news” has captivated. The groundbreaking The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its spin-off The Colbert Report have successfully attracted the youth demographic and have become the new era’s leading political news source. By parodying news companies and satirizing the government, “fake news” has affected the media, the government, and its audience in such a way that Bill Moyers has claimed “you simply can’t understand American politics in the new millennium without The Daily Show,” that started it all (PBS).
...oen, G., & Sahin, V. (2007). No Joke: A Comparison of Substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Broadcast Television Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 51(2), 213-227.