Book Report: Amusing ourself to death

In the first part of the book the author talks of the print-based culture and fast growth of the telegraph and the photograph culture that eventually leads to the television era. He describes the early means of getting information, print-based epistemology, and the intellectual level of the people in the past because of the print-based medium people used and how inferior television is to print.

The author gives great amount of credibility to the written word rather then the spoken word to prove his point. It does make sense in the way Postman describes

it, the fact that the print goes through several editors before it is published thus having more credential (Postman 21) and how print endures while spoken word disappears. Maybe back in the days that may have been true, but in my recent experience in TV tells me something different. The dialog in the television show also goes through several editors and authorities. The facts and information along with grammar and structure are all checked several times by different people to make sure that they are accurate and proper. I don’t think Postman is giving enough credits to the television, especially new media, for the trouble they go through.

Postman also has an extremely critical view of the news industry. He almost puts the news people in the same arena as the robots. In some sense I agree with his view. He points out that the way stories move on from another has no tie to them and they go through it like there is nothing to the story. One objective for news media is to give facts without personal bias. And much of that leads to less emotion. But also, as the author points out, our attention span is not what it was like in the past. That is one of the reasons why things move so quickly through a program. However, I don’t agree with his position in the idea that news has no value, essential seriousness and consequences and that it is a pure entertainment. As much as news stations are controlled in someway it still shows or gives valuable information locally or nationally. But, the industry is leaning much toward that way and very quickly. More and more stations are trying different things to hold audience and some programs are becoming more of an entertainment.

There is another statement by Postman that I strongly disagree with. “There is no beginning, middle, or end in a world of photographs” (Postman 74). I believe that photographs can tell many stories, from beginning to middle to end. Granted that not all photographs will do that but some do. Postman’s statement suggest that all photographs are certain way and that is a very strong generalization a

Some topics in this essay:
Ourselves Death”, print-based epistemology, , beginning middle, television television, people past, television media, goes editors, believe people, book author, spoken word, view television,