Postman: Rant or Reason? Essay -- Essays Papers

immune carrier Rant or fountain? In his novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, author Neil Postman describes to the reader, in detail, the spry and future dangers of television. The arguement starts out in a logical manner, explaining first the differences among todays media-driven society, and yesterdays typographic America. Postman goes on to discuss in the mo half of his book the effects of todays media, politics on television, religion on television, and finally televised fosteringal programs. All, he says, are making a unwholesome imprint on our society, its values, and its standards. Postman explains that the media consists of fragments of news (100), and politics are on the whole a fashion show. Although Postmans arguments regarding the brevity of the American attention span and the impotence of todays mass media are logical, his opinion of televisions inability to educate is severely overstated. Neil Postman is right on the mark when he states that television is having an overall nix effect on our society It promotes short attention spans. Postman takes as example for this argument the seven famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. In that time, Postman explains, audiences would cheerfully accomodate themselves to seven hours of oratory (44). This is a concept entirely unknown to todays society. In no stretch of the imagination would a ample crowd possibly willingly subject themselves to such a protracted activity. The causation for this anomaly is television. A brief peek at either private television broadcasting station will show the reason Were having entertainment fed to us in tiny portions. During each 30 or sixty minutes, our favorite sit-com family winds its way throug... ...not one posed by television, but by the potential for the public to overlook the positive qualities of television. Televised education has, despite its need for a short leash, a fair essence of useful applications. Postman must look past th e negative encounter of television-zombie children in order to see the true potential beneath. That said, it is safe to extend that network television would still benefit greatly from large handful of additional Postman-influence.Works CitedFowles, Jib. Advertisings Fifteen Basic Appeals. Common Culture, 3rd Edition.Ed. Petracca, Michael, and Sorapure, Madeleine. newfangled Jersey Prentice Hall, 2001. 60-77. Lasn, Kalle. Culture Jam. immature York William Morrow and Company Inc, 1999. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York Penguin Books, 1985. Schwartz, Tony. Media The Second God. New York Random House, 1981.