Book Description
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 controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding book - must read.......2007-09-27
One of the best books on the danger posed by entertainment to our civic community.
Important read.......2007-09-04
This book asks questions that we need to be asking but aren't. How can we not at least question the media and technology that we take in like oxygen? It's an important read and I recommend it to anyone who isn't apathetic.
The Audio Was Great.......2007-09-03
If you like people like Colin Wilson, you will love this well written and well thought out book. It is like listening to Colin Wilson without the references to literature but the lessons are intact.
Another "Thin" Classic From Postman.......2007-06-22
This is Postman's most famous and widely read book (as is attested by the more than 100 customer reviews here on Amazon) and it is, as other reviewers have suggested, a classic in the Media Studies field. The songwriter Roger Waters was inspired enough to title his album "Amused to Death" after reading Postman's book (although Postman states in one of his later works that he himself would never stoop to listening to the likes of a "Roger Waters").
Instead of giving the usual plot synopsis here as other reviewers have done, I would like instead to perform for you a Media Studies reading of the book. That is to say, instead of reviewing the book's contents, I would like to draw your attention to the medium and format of the book itself, and in doing so, point out what this reveals about Postman as a philosopher.
To begin with the most important point: there are no pictures. Anywhere. And not only is this true of Amusing Ourselves to Death, it is true of every single one of Postman's books. This should alert us to something very important here about Postman: he is iconophobic. He is engaged in a battle against images of any, and every, kind. Not even Marshall McLuhan was so antipathetic to the use of images and illustrations, for his very first book, The Mechanical Bride, is a series of commentaries upon advertisements. In the age old battle of the Word vs. the Image -- a battle which goes way, way back before the twentieth century to the Iconoclastic debates amongst the Greek Byzantines whose iconophobes were in fact influenced by the aniconism of Islam, an entire religion which, like Judaism, had been based upon a rejection of images -- Postman, in this tradition, definitely aligns himself on the side of the Word against the iconophiles, be they Catholics or Hindus or lovers of comic books, or whomever.
Also, you will not find any references to works of art of any kind in this book. Postman apparently has an antipathy to painting and imagery of any kind whatsoever, be it "classical" or electronic. It is important to point this out because it reveals, in the tradition of Harold Innis, Postman's essential "bias" in this book. Indeed, Postman's dialogue with Camille Paglia, published in an old issue of Harper's, underlines this point, for Paglia is as much an iconophile as Postman is an iconoclast. "In the beginning was the Word," Postman quotes, as though to clarify his own personal theology, before proceeding onward with his dialogue with Paglia.
The next thing to notice about the book is its brevity. It is very short, as in fact, are all Mr. Postman's books, for Postman has been quoted as saying that he does not believe in writing long books, and that if one cannot express oneself in two hundred pages or less, then one has no business writing a book. The bibliography, accordingly, is also short, and so apparently Mr. Postman did not feel the need to read many books in order to write this book.
For Postman really only has a single point to make here, and it is an important point which he argues persuasively and eloquently: television is taking over our culture, and all our thought patterns in every aspect or division of our culture is taking its cue from the syncopated, discontinuous and ahistorical "mentality" of television. How this has affected our reading habits, and whether those reading habits still continue, albeit in a changed manner, Postman fails to address. For people have not stopped reading books; instead, they continue to read books, but their expectations of the book have changed. The brevity of Postman's book is itself perhaps an example of what happens to sustained intellectual discourse in the Electronic Age: books get shorter because our attention spans (Postman's included) have shrank. Nobody wants to wade through books on the scale and magnitude of Spengler's Decline of the West or Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit. I notice, furthermore, that the sorts of books which Postman exhibits in his Bibliography are, one and all, short books.
Thus, here is the secret of Postman's book: Postman himself suffers from the very same attention deficit disorder that he castigates others for having suffered at the hands of Electronic Society.
Hmm. One would expect a professor of Media Studies who was as well read and thoughtful as Postman to engage our attention for a while longer. If this book is the greatest thing Postman ever wrote, then we must confess, alas, that Postman's work does not contain a single magnum opus on the level of a Gutenberg Galaxy or an Understanding Media. Perhaps this fact in itself is evidence of a general decline in intellectual and literary ability in our culture during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The reader should not understand that I am saying that there is anything wrong with Amusing Ourselves to Death. But we should learn to understand its limitations in order to appreciate its place in the pantheon of Media Studies classics, upon which list, after all is said and done, Amusing Ourselves to Death places relatively low.
--John David Ebert, author Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society
Deserves to be Called a Classic.......2007-06-19
It seems unlikely that a book labeled "Current Affairs" could have a shelf life of more than a few years. It seems preposterous that a book dealing with television and referring to Dallas and Dynasty could have anything to see twenty two years after being published. Yet Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, now in it's "20th Anniversary Edition" continues to be read and studied and to hold influence. Even today it is used as required reading in many high school and college level courses. Though written by a man who made no claim to Christianity, few modern books written by an unbeliever have been more widely read and quoted by Christians. It truly is a remarkable little book.
Postman had that rarely quality of being able to see behind a fad, behind what was late and great. He saw the significance of the rise of the image and the fall of the word, the rise of amusement and the decline of discourse. He saw that television would soon saturate every area of our lives and taint the way we understand politics, religion, education and every other area of importance. As we now transition from a television-based culture to a computer-based culture the image remains central. Perhaps we have already amused ourselves past the point of no easy return. Television is remarkably effective at doing what it does best--entertaining. Postman had no argument with television is a tool of entertainment. In fact, the best things on television are its junk and no one is seriously threatened by this. Where television fails is in attempting to do the more serious work that has traditionally been carried by the written word.
Postman makes it his goal in this book to make the epistemology of television visible, demonstrating that television's way of knowing is hostile to typography's way of knowing, and not only that, but it is inferior to it. "Serious television" is a contradiction in terms for television speaks only in the voice of entertainment, never of serious, weighty, discourse--the kind of discourse that is essential to politics, religion and education. Television's influence has been relentless, transforming our culture so that every area is now considered a venue for entertainment.
Electronic media, led by television but being superseded by the computer, has changed the way we view the world and the way we carry on any kind of public discourse. Gone are the days when content was of overwhelming importance. Instead we deal with sound bites, with discordant images torn from any kind of context, and with style when in former days we relied on substance. Politicians win and lose election campaigns not on the basis of what they say, but on the basis of how they look when they say it.
Throughout the book is an interesting interplay between Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. In the latter an oppressive regime dominates the world while in the former the people allow themselves to be overcome by levity, by entertainment and by pleasure so that they have no need of an oppressive regime. They were controlled by their amusements. Huxley, Postman argues, had it right. And I would tend to agree.
Amusing Ourselves to Death is a good read, a disturbing read, a thought-provoking read and, dare I say it, a must-read. It deserves its status as a classic and, though already two decades out of date, it is as timely as ever.
Book Description
Changes in society, the pluralistic nature of the citizens and the geographic breadth of our nation preclude a common definition of what is indecent, profane, or obscene. What may appear to be "dirty discourse " to some may be considered to be laudable satire to others. Renowned media scholars and authors Robert Hilliard and Michael Keith examine the blue side of the airways in Dirty Discourse: Sex and Indecency in Broadcasting. This first-ever analysis of the history and nature of off-color program content explores the treatment of once-forbidden topics in the electronic media, investigating the beliefs, attitudes and actions of those who present such material, those who condemn it, and those who defend it.Written from a social and cultural perspective, Dirty Discourse concentrates on the means of greatest distribution - radio, with its phenomenal growth of "shock jocks " and rap music lyrics, and provides coverage of television and the Internet. The book shows how and why broadcasting has evolved from the ribald antics of the Roaring 20s to today 's streaming cybersex, contrasting the standards and actions of the FCC v. the First Amendment amidst the over-the-air and in-the-court battles of over-the-top radio. It examines political pressures and legal considerations, including Supreme Court decisions, and efforts to protect children from media smut.
Customer Reviews:
Must for professional, scholar, lawyer, or just curious.......2003-09-27
"Dirty Discourse" is a comprehensive examination of indecency and broadcasting. The authors provide interesting examples to explore the social, cultural, and legal developments of indecency in electronic media. The books is well-written and superbly researched. "Dirty Discourse" is cutting-edge reading on contemporary issues surrounding the tensions between the FCC, the First Amendment, and the vast, yet disparate audience that broadcasters strive to serve and the government seeks to protect.
dishing the dirt.......2003-06-19
DD fairly and comprehensively examines a controversial and fascinating subject. An entertaining and informative work.
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Critical Questions: Invention, Creativity, and the Criticism of Discourse and Media
William Nothstine ,
Carole Blair ,
Gary A Copeland , and
Gary Copeland
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing
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ASIN: 0072875232 |
Book Description
Critical Questions is a unique collection of original essays about the practice of media and rhetorical critics. Eighteen practicing critics offer insightful discussion of how the critical questions are formed that guide their research, and how the writing and publishing processes can alter and shape those questions. Critical Questions places these issues in their historical context and offers guidelines for beginning critics
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Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the British Press
Roger Fowler
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0415014190 |
Book Description
Newspaper coverage of world events is presented as the unbiased recording of `hard facts`. In a study of the British press, Roger Fowler challenges this perception, arguing that news is a practice, constructed by the social and political world.
Book Description
The study of media language is increasingly important both for media studies and for discourse analysis and sociolinguistics. Norman Fairclough applies to media language his "critical discourse analysis" framework which he developed in Language and Power and Discourse and Social Life. Drawing on examples from TV, radio, and the press, he focuses on changing practices of media discourse in relation to wider processes of social and cultural change. In particular he explores the tensions between public and private in the media and the tensions between information and entertainment.
Book Description
This study breaks new ground in investigating candidate behavior in American electoral campaigns. It centers on a question of equal importance to citizens and scholars: how can we produce better political campaigns? First, Simon develops the idea of dialogue as a standard for evaluating political campaigns. Second, he reveals that candidates' self-interest in winning leads to avoiding dialogue or substantive campaign discourse. Third, the text demonstrates the beneficial effects produced by the little dialogue that actually occurs and finally, pinpoints the forces responsible for these rare occurrences.
Book Description
Narrative and Genre introduces students to two key concepts in Media Studies, complementing Image and Representation published in 1998. The book covers the major narrative theorists and is illustrated with numerous case studies including The X-Files, Wuthering Heights, Se7en, and newspaper reporting. A brief history of narrative in literature surveys text from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Paul Auster's postmodern Ghost. The section on genre offers exhaustive case studies on film noir and the "hard-boiled" detective novel, the TV cop genre, and soap opera.
Book Description
Renaissance logician, philosopher, humanist, and teacher, Peter Ramus (1515-72) is best known for his attack on Aristotelian logic, his radical pedagogical theories, and his new interpretation for the canon of rhetoric. His work, published in Latin and translated into many languages, has influenced the study of Renaissance literature, rhetoric, education, logic, and—more recently—media studies.
Considered the most important work of Walter Ong's career, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue is an elegant review of the history of Ramist scholarship and Ramus's quarrels with Aristotle. A key influence on Marshall McLuhan, with whom Ong enjoys the status of honorary guru among technophiles, this challenging study remains the most detailed account of Ramus's method ever published. Out of print for more than a decade, this book—with a new foreword by Adrian Johns—is a canonical text for enthusiasts of media, Renaissance literature, and intellectual history.
Customer Reviews:
Essential for Understanding Modernity.......2006-07-30
Even though this book is not easy to read, it is essential reading for understanding modernity as it emerged in print culture in the West. As Ong argues, print culture advanced the visualist tendencies that have characterized philosophic thought in Western culture. As Ong himself generously notes (page 338), his own extensive discussion of visualist tendencies "turns" on the "discerning and profound treatment of visual-aural opposition . . . in the works of Louis Lavelle. Because the relevant works by Lavelle are not readily available today, interested readers may want to see Andrea Wilson Nightingale's _Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in Its Cultural Context_ (2004). Ong also discusses the spatialization and quantification of thought in medieval logic, and quantification of thought also advanced remarkably in modernity. These are but two themes that Ong develops in this rich study.
For further information about Ong's thought, see my entries on "Walter J. Ong" (3,150 words) and on "Orality, Oral culture, Print Culture" (4,270 words) in _The Literary Encyclopedia_ (online).
Also see the bibliographies on orality and on print culture that I have posted at my Internet homepage.
--Thomas J. Farrell, author of Walter Ong's Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (Media Ecology)
Walter Ong on Ramus is still required reading.......1999-04-10
A review of Walter Ong's famous study, Ramus, method, and the Decay of Dialogue, may seem odd now more than fourty years after the book first appeared (1958, republished 1983). Back then it was more than positively received by great renaissance scholars like Wilbur S. Howell, R.R. Bolger, Neal W. Gilbert, John E. Murdoch and others. Murdoch wrote that "anyone with the slightest interest in the Renaissance should turn, and return, to this work". The book not only gives a rich introduction to Ramus the man and his work, but also relates Ramus' writings and the socalled "ramistic movement" which it effectuated to its wider historical and intellectual context, or rather contexts: the pedagogical traditions of the West, medieval scholasticism, the dialectic of Rudolph Agricola and so forth. Ongs discussion of ramism in the light of orality/literacy-themes connected to the use of printing technology, makes the book seem strikingly modern. Certainly, the book has been turned and returned to. However, Ong's study is perhaps still in need of recommendation. It is an eloquent book, but it is not easily read. It has been criticised by scholars on renaissance rhetoric (Monfasani, Fumaroli) and/or ramism (Bruyère, Meerhoff), sometimes justly so, sometimes on the basis of a misreading or a less than kind interpretation of what the author says. Brian Vickers in his excellent and influential In Defence of Rhetoric (1988) almost gives us the impression that the book has actually been outdistanced by its critics - which it certainly has not. Even if Ong's views on spesific points have been refined (for instance by Kees Meerhoff in his discussion of ramist teachings on rhetorical figures in Ramus, Du Bellay et les autres, 1986), his voluminous study also contains insights as well as information which will be found nowhere else. To refer it would require more than thousand words. I recommend every student of rhetoric, early modern philosophy and renaissance culture to get hold of the book, and read it. I recommend the publisher to republish it. It is still wanted.
Book Description
In Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, experts offer a critical and theoretical appraisal of the uses of digital media by cultural heritage institutions. Previous discussions of cultural heritage and digital technology have left the subject largely unmapped in terms of critical theory; the essays in this volume offer this long-missing perspective on the challenges of using digital media in the research, preservation, management, interpretation, and representation of cultural heritage. The contributors--scholars and practitioners from a range of relevant disciplines--ground theory in practice, considering how digital technology might be used to transform institutional cultures, methods, and relationships with audiences. The contributors examine the relationship between material and digital objects in collections of art and indigenous artifacts; the implications of digital technology for knowledge creation, documentation, and the concept of authority; and the possibilities for "virtual cultural heritage"--the preservation and interpretation of cultural and natural heritage through real-time, immersive, and interactive techniques.
The essays in Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage will serve as a resource for professionals, academics, and students in all fields of cultural heritage, including museums, libraries, galleries, archives, and archaeology, as well as those in education and information technology. The range of issues considered and the diverse disciplines and viewpoints represented point to new directions for an emerging field.
Contributors:
Nadia Arbach, Juan Antonio Barceló, Deidre Brown, Fiona Cameron, Erik Champion, Sarah Cook, Jim Cooley, Bharat Dave, Suhas Deshpande, Bernadette Flynn, Maurizio Forte, Kati Geber, Beryl Graham, Susan Hazan, Sarah Kenderdine, José Ripper Kós, Harald Kraemer, Ingrid Mason, Gavan McCarthy, Slavko Milekic, Rodrigo Paraizo, Ross Parry, Scot T. Refsland, Helena Robinson, Angelina Russo, Corey Timpson, Marc Tuters, Peter Walsh, Jerry Watkins, Andrea Witcomb
Books:
- An Exorcist Tells His Story
- An Open Book
- And Then He Kissed Her (Avon Historical Romance)
- Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
- Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy)
- Cagney
- Cary Grant: A Celebration of Style
- Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism
- China on Screen: Cinema and Nation (Film and Culture Series)
- Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes (World Film & Television)
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