Disinformation Means Misleading Information-Misplaced, Irrelevant, Fragmented or Superficial
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"In watching American television, one is reminded of George Bernard Shaw's remark on his first seeing the glittering neon signs of Broadway and 42nd Street at night. It must be beautiful, he said, if you cannot read." John Ackermann
Neil Postman in his book,'Amusing Ourselves To Death', looks at the impact of television culture on the way we live our lives, understand our present and future and how we gather our information. We need to understand the effects of living in a television society. As he says "We are in danger of creating a trivial culture that will spawn a race of people who adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think." Once we are a television society, we have lost control. We can attempt to control television's influence when we understand the dangers. Neil Postman suggests that Americans ask 'what we are laughing about and why we have stopped thinking.' We have all heard the phrase, The Dumbing of America.
Roger Waters, of 'Pink Floyd' read Postman's book, and he was so taken with the message that one of the best CD's of this era was written. The song 'Amused To Death" tells us the story.
The little ones sit by their TV screens
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry
Down to the very last breath
Bartender what is wrong with me
Why I am so out of breath
The captain said excuse me ma'am
This species has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
Amused itself to death"
Ackerman tells us that "Television has altered the meaning of "being informed' by giving us disinformation. Disinformation means misleading information;misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information. Information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads us away from knowing. The television industry did not deliberately set out to misinform us, but when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the result."
Over the past fifty years since the advent of television, we have allowed conversation and communication to become trivial, and to lead into entertainment. TV is a medium of entertainment. TV is a series of programmed images and pictures. Unlike a book we do not have to concentrate to obtain the meaning of a picture. This is the mechanism by which TV can make any subject meaningless and trivial. It is possible to "amuse one's self to death", considering that the first thing to go will be our vision of reality and to comment intelligently. And this is why Roger Waters CD "Amused to Death" had the power to unleash our subconscious. We are living the album. We are all slowly amusing ourselves to death. We are entertaining ourselves into a stupor. The best things on television is junk, and no one is threatened by it. We do not measure a culture by its output of junk, but by what we claim as significant.
I would think that several minutes of murder and violence would be enough for many sleepless nights. We watch the news because we know that the 'news' is not to be taken seriously, that it is all in fun, so to speak. Everything about a news show tells us this; the good looking newscasters, their pleasant banter, the music that opens and closes the show, the film footage, the humorous commercials. These suggest that what we have just seen is no cause for crying. A news show, is a format for entertainment, not for education or reflection. No one goes to a movie to find out about government policy or the latest scientific advances. No one buys a record to find out the baseball scores or the weather or the latest murder. But everyone goes to television for all these things, which is why television plays so powerfully throughout our land. Television is our culture's principal mode of knowing about itself. Neil Postman says, "For the message of television as metaphor is not only that all the world is a stage, but that the stage is located in Las Vegas, Nevada."
We know that no matter how grave news may appear, we soon shall see commercials that will devalue the importance of the news. This is a key element of news and that allows us to believe that television news is not designed as a serious form of public communication. Our teenagers in particular are taught to believe that television is entertainment, so that the nightly newscast should not be taken as a serious responsibility.
This past political season is a prime example of the myriad of issues that have not been examined, but the entertainment value of the candidates has been examined ad nauseam. One reason why the political contest starts as soon as the President is sworn into office. What have we become, why are we laughing, the Dumbing of America is here.
Highly, Highly Recommended. prisrob 06-14-08
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Postman hits the mark again.
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The language of this book is quite dense in parts, and the arguments are complex, so it took me a while to get to grips with it, which, I suppose, makes me a living proof that Postman is right about what tlelvision has done to my generation. Having got over this hurdle, I found the book thought provoking and even, dare I say it, entertaining. Many of us have our suspicions about the adverse effects that television has on our society and culture. No-one articulates them better than Postman.
For 'show business' read 'television', as Postman's main beef is with TV. No doubt had he been writing this book today he would have included the internet and various other electronic means of communication. The 'public discourse' of the subtitle covers religion, advertising, news and education as well as politics. Postman's contention is that none of these are suited to being disseminated on TV, which is essentially an entertainment medium. So whereas watching 'The A Team' does us no harm at all, watching the TV news or 'Sesame Street' does.
The book has as a running theme the contrasting future dystopias presented in Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World'. Postman argues that it is the Huxleyan rather than the Orwellian future that we should fear the most. TV is now our soma. In the last chapter, he writes, 'In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours.' What a pity that Postman is no longer around to give us his thoughts on a certain Channel 4 programme.
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finely honed, hits its target
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There are alot of slim volumes that are more impactful than meandering large tomes. Amongst those I have reviewed on this site - Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord and New Elites by George Walden certainly fall into this category. Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death is certainly of this ilk - even if it is not in the same league as these truly excellent books.
It is, I think, because these slim volumes act as well-crafted-bullets to hit the targets the authors choose that they are so engaging. They are polemics and obviously more spirited than a dry media or politics textbook. This volume has resonences of Debord's thesis though little of his dialectical thinking. Milan Kundra's "book of laughing and forgetting" is another reference (if only for the title!) - if we are constantly amused by everything, how can we remember important details? Laughter is herein cast as a kind of amnesiac. A public culture founded on such diversionary laffs - (here in Britain the Sun 'newspaper' and its daily pun comes to define the day, to some extent) - is one therefore condemned to forget.
I read this sometime ago but, as with all good books, a surprising ammount has stayed with me. I remeber the section describing how citezins used to sit down and take notes for long, pre-glitter, presidential debates - a comparing this to contemporary elections reflects badly on both sides. There are also good, thought provoking, sections on the evolution of the "medium" - with thinly veiled nostalgia for the days before globilised communication. An enlightening read.
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Startling, Intriguing, COMPELLING
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A phenominal piece of work. Neal Postman deconstructs television as a valuable means of entertainement. Postman gives numerous example throughout history of the intelligence of humanity and how it has degraded, citing concrete, not incedental, examples, with the clear focus being on tv's effect on ourselves, our children, our families and ultimately our societies. The consequences of the 'immediate gratification culture' and the loss of the ability to think are explored in depth. Now with terrifying evidence being forged with TV and ADHD/ADD, this piece of work has even more relevance. What you have is a concise and effective argument against TV and its detrimental effects. BUY THIS BOOK, but most importantly READ IT!
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something special
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I read this book a while back and I was impressed. The historical backdrop/narrative woven by Postman is sublime and the arguments put forward are well structured and hard to argue with. The only thing that prevents me from giving this five stars is the limp-wristed conclusion. I mean why bother going to all the trouble of pointing out the trouble with television and resign yourself to the conclusion that you can't be bothered to do anything about it?
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