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Amusing Ourselves to Death

 

            
             Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
             Television has entered our homes at an alarming rate since its first conception. It has provided to the public interest - politics, news, education, religion, science, sports and a variety of entertainment as well as other information. Television has also been a tool utilized to shape our minds, alter our thoughts and thinking capacity. This alteration has all been tastefully mastered through the art of show business. .
             The television media, of today, has given us information to make informed decisions regarding our everyday lives, and it is done entertainingly. The term couch potato has been pegged to individuals who sit comfortably in their homes, with the television remote control in their hands, glued to the television, entertaining themselves. What they are viewing are ideas and thoughts, which will direct them in making their next decisions, all done without any struggle or discern. As Neil Postman observes:.
             today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration. Its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form 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. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death (3-4).
             2.
             As the entertainment industry has now became a world dominated force, its shape and form has constantly changed over the years to get to where it has arrived to this day. From print form to a visual one, the public has embraced the change without batting an eye.


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