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Title details for Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman - Available

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

by Neil Postman
Jeff Riggenbach
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television. And because television is a visual medium, whose images are most pleasurably apprehended when they are fast-moving and dynamic, discourse on television has little tolerance for argument, hypothesis, or explanation. Postman argues that public discourse—the advancing of arguments in logical order for the public good, once a hallmark of American culture—is being converted from exposition and explanation to entertainment.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 2, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481546782
      • File size: 138751 KB
      • Duration: 04:49:03

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Text Difficulty: 9-12

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This McCluhanesque diatribe begins by observing that our present and future resemble the predictions in Brave New World more than those of 1984. Technology, in particular television, has shaped our politics, news, religion, education, every aspect of our world. Rigginbach's reading is a little too fast-paced for this material; furthermore, the material is not suited to an audio format. Why did the author allow his thought to be corrupted by allowing their promulgation through non-print media. In addition, the examples he cites are ten years old; this week's television better supports his conclusions. The message is valid, but the medium through which it's presented is flawed. S.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 1, 1985
      From the author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity comes a sustained, withering and thought-provoking attack on television and what it is doing to us. Postman's theme is the decline of the printed word and the ascendancy of the "tube'' with its tendency to present everythingmurder, mayhem, politics, weatheras entertainment. The ultimate effect, as Postman sees it, is the shrivelling of public discourse as TV degrades our conception of what constitutes news, political debate, art, even religious thought. Early chapters trace America's one-time love affair with the printed word, from colonial pamphlets to the publication of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. There's a biting analysis of TV commercials as a form of ``instant therapy'' based on the assumption that human problems are easily solvable. Postman goes further than other critics in demonstrating that television represents a hostile attack on literate culture. October 30

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:9-12

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