Neil Postman Amusing And Informing Ourselves To Death

Author : Julia Schubert
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638441776
Total Pages : 29 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Neil Postman - Amusing and Informing Ourselves to Death written by Julia Schubert and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2005-11-23 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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: 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. [...]

Author : Neil Postman
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9780143036531
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.3X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Amusing Ourselves to Death written by Neil Postman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-12-27 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Author : Neil Postman
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 014303653X
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Amusing Ourselves to Death written by Neil Postman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-12-27 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Author : Neil Postman
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Amusing Ourselves to Death written by Neil Postman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1986 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the effects of television culture on how we conduct our public affairs and how "entertainment values" corrupt the way we think.

Author : Neil Postman
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0143113771
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Watch TV News written by Neil Postman and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-06-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scathing and prescient look at television news' now updated for the new tech-savvy generation Television news : genuine information or entertainment fodder? Fifteen years ago, Neil Postman, a pioneer in media education and author of the bestselling Amusing Ourselves to Death, and Steve Powers, an award-winning broadcast journalist, concluded that anyone who relies exclusively on their television for accurate world news is making a big mistake. A cash cow laden with money from advertisers, so-called news shows glut viewers with celebrity coverage at the cost of things they really should know. Today, this message is still appallingly true but the problems have multiplied, along with the power of the Internet and the abundance of cable channels. A must-read for anyone concerned with the way media is manipulating our worldview, this newly revised edition addresses the evolving technology and devolving quality of America's television news programming.

Author : Neil Postman
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307797287
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Building a Bridge to the 18th Century written by Neil Postman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when we are reexamining our values, reeling from the pace of change, witnessing the clash between good instincts and "pragmatism," dealing with the angst of a new millennium, Neil Postman, one of our most distinguished observers of contemporary society, provides for us a source of guidance and inspiration. In Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century he revisits the Enlightenment, that great flowering of ideas that provided a humane direction for the future -- ideas that formed our nation and that we would do well to embrace anew. He turns our attention to Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, and to their then-radical thinking about inductive science, religious and political freedom, popular education, rational commerce, the nation-state, progress, and happiness. Postman calls for a future connected to traditions that provide sane authority and meaningful purpose -- as opposed to an overreliance on technology and an increasing disregard for the lessons of history. And he argues passionately for specific new guidelines in the education of our children, with renewed emphasis on developing the intellect as successfully as we are developing a computer-driven world. Witty, provocative, and brilliantly reasoned, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century is Neil Postman's most radical, and most commonsensical, book yet.

Author : Sherry Turkle
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465093663
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alone Together written by Sherry Turkle and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Savvy and insightful." --New York Times Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But this relentless connection leads to a deep solitude. MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Based on hundreds of interviews and with a new introduction taking us to the present day, Alone Together describes changing, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, and families.

Author : Neil Postman
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 030779735X
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Technopoly written by Neil Postman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it—with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.

Author : Michael P. Clough
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9462092699
Total Pages : 449 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Nature of Technology written by Michael P. Clough and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does technology alter thinking and action without our awareness? How can instantaneous information access impede understanding and wisdom? How does technology alter conceptions of education, schooling, teaching and what learning entails? What are the implications of these and other technology issues for society? Meaningful technology education is far more than learning how to use technology. It entails an understanding of the nature of technology — what technology is, how and why technology is developed, how individuals and society direct, react to, and are sometimes unwittingly changed by technology. This book places these and other issues regarding the nature of technology in the context of learning, teaching and schooling. The nature of technology and its impact on education must become a significant object of inquiry among educators. Students must come to understand the nature of technology so that they can make informed decisions regarding how technology may influence thinking, values and action, and when and how technology should be used in their personal lives and in society. Prudent choices regarding technology cannot be made without understanding the issues that this book raises. This book is intended to raise such issues and stimulate thinking and action among teachers, teacher educators, and education researchers. The contributions to this book raise historical and philosophical issues regarding the nature of technology and their implications for education; challenge teacher educators and teachers to promote understanding of the nature of technology; and provide practical considerations for teaching the nature of technology.

Author : Everest Media,
Publisher : Everest Media LLC
ISBN 13 : 1669387089
Total Pages : 25 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Summary of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-04-22T22:59:00Z with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.