This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
Author: Neil Postman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781101042625
Category: Social Science
Page: 208
View: 219
What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. "It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. “A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1, Martin Luther University (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Orality and Literacy, language: ...
Author: Julia Schubert
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 9783638441773
Category: Foreign Language Study
Page: 26
View: 380
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1, Martin Luther University (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Orality and Literacy, 17 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The central topics of the works of the writer, educator, communication theorist, social critic and cultural commentator Neil Postman have always been the media, their different forms of communication and their meanings to people, society and culture. Any of his books was built around the McLuhan-question: “Does the form of any medium of communication affect our social relations, our political ideas, or psychic habits, and of course, as he [Marshall McLuhan] always emphasized, our sensorium” (Postman: 07/30/05)? Postman was aware of the fact that a new technology and therefore a new medium may have destructive as well as creative effects. During the history of mankind there have been tremendous changes in the forms, volume, speed and context of information and it is necessary to find out what these changes meant and mean to our cultures (Postman: 1985, 160). For him, it is a basic principle that “the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation” (Postman: 1985, 8). In the book “Amusing Ourselves to Death - Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” Postman examines, from a 1980s viewpoint, the changes in the American culture caused by the shift from the Age of Reason with the printed word at its center to the Age of Show Business with television as the central medium - or in simplifying terms the shift from rationality to triviality. Twenty years later, the situation has changed again. This term paper will make an attempt to answer the question what the new media, especially the internet, did to the modern (American) culture and to its public discourse. Obviously, Postman’s provocative title “Amusing Ourselves to Death” was just the beginning of a fast moving development since nowadays the modern media world seems to shape our lives under the title “Informing Ourselves to Death” (Postman: 07/30/05) or to use one of the latest terms “Infotaining Ourselves to Death”. ..First of all, the following chapters will examine the line of Postman’s argumentation which led to the conclusion that television has significantly transformed the American society into an amusement and entertainment culture. What has happened and what was the role of the media? Was this the beginning of a “Brave New World”? As a matter of fact, Postman ́s theories and statements are not to be taken as unreflected truth. Subsequently,some critical remarks are to be made from a 21 st -century viewpoint. [...]
In this book, we have hand-picked the most sophisticated, unanticipated, absorbing (if not at times crackpot!), original and musing book reviews of "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
Author: Andrew Peak
Publisher: Lennex
ISBN: 5458898222
Category:
Page: 46
View: 104
In this book, we have hand-picked the most sophisticated, unanticipated, absorbing (if not at times crackpot!), original and musing book reviews of "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business." Don't say we didn't warn you: these reviews are known to shock with their unconventionality or intimacy. Some may be startled by their biting sincerity; others may be spellbound by their unbridled flights of fantasy. Don't buy this book if: 1. You don't have nerves of steel. 2. You expect to get pregnant in the next five minutes. 3. You've heard it all.
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Author: Everest Media,
Publisher: Everest Media LLC
ISBN: 9781669387084
Category: Social Science
Page: 17
View: 600
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 America’s symbol is now Las Vegas, a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment. Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. #2 The American culture of show business is not an exception. In America, the least amusing people are its professional entertainers. The artifice of their display is more important than the quality and usefulness of their goods. #3 The forms of human conversation that we are most familiar with are the ones that regulate and even dictate what kind of content can issue from them. This is what determines what ideas are convenient to express. #4 The information, content, or stuff that makes up the news of the day did not exist in a world that lacked the media to express it. Media such as the telegraph made it possible to move decontextualized information over vast spaces at incredible speed.
Mander, Jerry, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1978). Postman, Neil, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Viking Press, 1985).
Author: Stephen D. O'Leary
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781317488842
Category: Religion
Page: 320
View: 348
The apocalypse is a motif that lies behind many religious beliefs and practices. 'War in Heaven/Heaven on Earth' theorizes the apocalyptic as it has arisen in a variety of religious traditions, from Native American religion to Islam in Northern Nigeria and new terrorist movements. Millennial theory and history are explored from the perspective of social psychology, sociology and post-modern philosophy. The volume is unique in applying an analysis of millennial themes to a comparative study of religion.
Postman, in his book titled, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, is fascinated by literate America. His book is a lament about the loss of print-shaped America. He cites Aldous Huxley's Brave New ...
Author: Richard A. Jensen
Publisher: CSS Publishing
ISBN: 9781556735738
Category: Religion
Page: 145
View: 807
Jensen draws clues from the storytelling tradition which underlies much of Scripture to develop a carefully constructed rationale and design for narrative preaching. Chapters detail "sources for stories" and offer field-tested examples.
Abstract: Medien in ihrer historischen und technischen Vielfalt zu verstehen, das war das Versprechen, das Marshall McLuhan vor über fünfzig Jahren mit Understanding Media gegeben hatte.
Author: Till A. Heilmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 3957961165
Category:
Page: 202
View: 565
Abstract: Medien in ihrer historischen und technischen Vielfalt zu verstehen, das war das Versprechen, das Marshall McLuhan vor über fünfzig Jahren mit Understanding Media gegeben hatte. Unsere digital veränderte Gegenwart erfordert, das Buch heute erneut zu lesen und vor dem Hintergrund aktueller technischer Entwicklungen zu hinterfragen. Gegenstand des Sammelbandes sind u.a. McLuhans Idee von Medien als "Umwelten", seine eigenwillige Sprache und Argumentation sowie seine Annahme der technischen Verfasstheit von Wahrnehmung
C H A P T E R SIX 93 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Penguin, 2006), p. xix. 94 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Penguin, ...
Author: John W. Whitehead
Publisher: SelectBooks, Inc.
ISBN: 9781590799833
Category: Political Science
Page: 288
View: 905
“A NATION OF SHEEP WILL BEGET A GOVERNMENT OF WOLVES”–EDWARD R. MURROW America is fast moving into a state of lockdown. Surveillance cameras, drug-sniffing dogs, SWAT team raids, roadside strip searches, blood draws at DUI checkpoints, mosquito drones, tasers, privatized prisons, GPS tracking devices, zero tolerance policies, overcriminalization, free speech zones—these are all symptoms of the emerging police state in America. A GOVERNMENT OF WOLVES paints a chilling portrait of a nation in the final stages of transformation into outright authoritarianism, whose citizens have become little more than a nation of suspects to be cowed, corralled, and controlled. Pulling from his extensive knowledge of constitutional law, history, and futuristic films, John W. Whitehead helps readers navigate this treacherous terrain and provides them with a blueprint for hopefully finding their way back to freedom.
N. Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (United States: Viking Penguin Inc., ... H. Trenz, “Digital Media and the Return of the Representative Public Sphere,” Javnost— The Public 16.1, ...