amusing ourselves to death chapter 1 discussion questions

This sense of jumping from one experience to the next, without truly living in the ramifications of any experience, is an indication of the discourse Postman fears we have fallen into. This restricts our freedom to 'relevant' information. Amusing Ourselves to Death is not a long book — 163 pages of text. Referring to the way a newscaster typically transitions from one piece of news to another, the phrase implies a disconnection between stories or information, and inspires a lack of contemplation or consideration of any one detail. What is the lesson of all great television commercials? Postman's conception is that television, as a media-metaphor, has shaped us to believe all discourse worth paying attention to should be presented as entertainment. Similarly, one could argue that much of the problem lies with people's inherent triviality, and that television only amplifies these small-minded attitudes, rather than causing them to lead us "to death.". 18. Amusing Ourselves to Death study guide contains a biography of Neil Postman, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Postman claims that this makes people "believe that all political problems have fast solutions through simple measures"(131). Postman suggests that Marshall McLuhan's famous aphorism – that "the medium is the message" – is not quite accurate, since the medium is, in fact, the metaphor. He begins chapter four by telling the story of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 26. Religion, he argues, requires a community present in a space that can be consecrated to its spiritual purpose. In his view, our public discourse is steadily devolving, and under the inherent biases of television, this will only continue. He is trying to illustrate is that even when under correct conditions, television (in most cases) is an unsuitable medium for discussion. His reasoning is different with respect to each arena, but both arguments boil down to the fact that television does not deliver an authentic and honest experience. We must constantly be stimulated and busy, or else we are not taking full advantage of our lives. Spectacle became the discourse of information, rather than serous content. In other words, media can change how a culture views things. The third example is about the trial of Socrates and how he failed to have rhetoric-filled speech prepared. "is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right" (Postman xx). The forms of communication will also affect the quality of culture because they will give content a medium. This summary is readily available in the study guide for this unit and has all the information you need to formulate... Chapter Three, Amusing Ourselves to Death. According to postman, what was rhetoric originally- that is to the Sophists of fifth century B.C. 29. In what ways is Amusing Ourselves to Death still relevant to an age less defined by television than by the Internet? As such, the complexities of any politician's personality and opinions can never be fully communicated on television without compromising his candidacy, and so the electorate will never have a truly rational understanding of who or what they are voting for. Amusing Ourselves to Death”, I believe is the ideal title for not only Neil Postman’s book but his over all premise of technology as a whole.In my essay about Postman’s 1992 article in Tecnos, I am going to take the approach of arguing on the side that goes in opposition to his beliefs. In the 19th century, Americans primarily read newspapers and pamphlets that focused on politics. 20. GradeSaver, 24 March 2013 Web. Explain what Postman means in calling the intersection of telegraphy and photography the "Peek-a-Boo World.". The thesis of chapter 6 is that all information presented on a television is done so to be entertaining. He goes on to say that disinformation "creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing" (107). Postman provides the phrase "Now…this" to explain the way news works in the Age of Show Business, but it is actually an apt metaphor for the general discourse demanded by television. Explain the concept of a media-metaphor, as Postman defines it. The Peek-a Boo World led to the Age of Show Business, when entertainment became not just the discourse of news, but of everything, because of the media-metaphor of television. 8? Are standardized tests an accurate gauge of knowledge? Television is different than other forms of communication because it "encompasses all forms of discourse" (92). Chapter 2: Media as Epistemology What is the point that he makes concerning the invention of clocks? 3. Religion is also difficult and demanding, requiring a person to confront himself. Information from the past becomes irrelevant once a more current trend or topic takes its place. It highlights how political discussion was carried out in the 19th century. Our only hope, he suggests, is that we recognize the way it is working upon us, and attempt to exert control over it. By listing these three points, Postman is able to clarify what exactly he is arguing, and what he is not. As Andrew Postman notes in his introduction to the 20th anniversary edition of his father's book, there are some younger students who criticize the book as relevant only to an older generation. Therefore, information became a commodity to be collected, rather than a means by which one judged one's life and then took action. 16. Before the photograph, thinkers and important public figures were known solely by what they wrote and the ideas they expressed. 2. Feel free to cite Postman himself and/or your own opinions. For his third point, he claims that the content created by television affects communication, but not everything. He hints that this discussion could establish TV as a medium in which proper discourse could take place. It has allowed many to start personal blogs, which use language and propositions, and many websites are indeed text-based. That is called quickly getting to the point. 6. They "provide a slogan, a symbol or a focus that creates for viewers a comprehensive and compelling image of themselves" (135). “Amusing Ourselves to Death” Foreword, Chapter 1 and 2 Summarized In Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death", he suggests that our society has become dependent on gathering our information from media and we are becoming powerless. In other words, media can change how a culture views things. He defines rational as something that puts forth a proposition that the reader or audience can logically understand and then judge as true or false. Religious sermons were certainly emotional, but were delivered and prepared in a literary style. What he means by this is that the influx of information is creating a sea of irrelevant information, making it difficult for Americans to tell what's true. He states that "the epistemological shift I have intimated, and will describe in detail, has not yet included (and perhaps never will include) everyone and everything" (27). However, its thesis can easily be applied to – if not elevated by – the age of the Internet. Postman define a medium as "the social and intellectual environment a machine creates" (84). Postman's discussion of advertising in "Reach Out and Elect Someone" is perhaps the closest he comes to suggesting the profit some entities might gain from encouraging such a discourse of distractions to persevere. In 1772, Jacob Duche concluded that even "the poorest labourer upon the shore of the Delaware thinks himself entitled to deliver his sentiment in matters of religion or politics with as much freedom as the gentleman or scholar..." (34) The printing press revitalized the written word by making the medium accessible to the common man and, in turn, allowing the exchange of ideas and knowledge to the common man. He claimed that this would "reveal people in the act of thinking"(90), which would be seen as "boring on television"(90). An oral culture will prize proverbs as the ideal repository of truth, whereas a written culture will value the permanence of the written word over proverbs. We are drawn to symbols and images that appeal to us psychologically. Read the Study Guide for Amusing Ourselves to Death…, View Wikipedia Entries for Amusing Ourselves to Death…. Huxleyan. Instead, he seems to think that civilization is somewhat powerless before its media-metaphor, especially when that civilization does not understand the way that media works to shape our discourse. Before discussing how the discussion went, he explained how it was formatted. Why do you think that TV showbiz took over typography as the dominant medium? Chapter 1: In Chapter 1 of the novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, the concept of the “media metaphor” is introduced. Other works by Neil Postman: Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk (1976) The End of Education (1995) Table of Contents: Foreword. Does the increased audience afforded to subjects like politics and religion by television justify the compromises it requires of those subjects? The photograph changed how we viewed the world in a few ways. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Chapter Summary for Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, part 2 chapter 10 summary. The second example is about a university student citing an oral conversation as a source for his thesis (among 300 print referenced citations). To speak without the use of rhetoric meant to speak "without proper emphasis or appropriate passion" (23) and could be seen as random and without direction. Mass media -- Influence. He suggests that America's early era centered on the written word and thereby used a discourse that was fundamentally rational. Postman is claiming that when printed word was the sole source of knowledge, public figures were known and remembered by what they had written, not by their appearance, and would be judged based upon their ideas and arguments. He claims that this familiarity has made many American accept the incoherence of entertainment television, and victims to its illusion of truth. Amusing Ourselves to Death Discussion Questions. - Typographic America ... are we to find objective corroboration that reading Amusing Ourselves to Death in 2006, in a society that worships TV and technology as ours does, is nearly an ... , from papers and class discussion. 17. This idea of a curriculum could be used to generally understand Postman's thesis, which suggests television has trained us to respond to the world in a certain way; it gives us lots of decontextualized information, but what we retain most of all are the rules of the discourse that television demands. Instant downloads of all 1391 LitChart PDFs (including Amusing Ourselves to Death). Should the title be considered as hyperbole or literal warning? 28. 7. Amusing ourselves to death. As Andrew Postman notes in his introduction to the 20th anniversary edition of his father's book, there are some younger students who criticize the book as relevant only to an older generation. Before the telegraph, Postman suggests that news existed primarily to inspire action in the listener, to encourage him or her to change his or her world. The Disappearance of Childhood (1982). He applauded almost all of the prerequisites leading to the discussion, such as there being no commercial breaks and no background music. The point Postman is trying to create is that a technology is "merely a machine"(84). Postman shares examples from 3 different cultures in order to show how "each culture conceives of [the truth] as being authentically expressed in certain symbolic forms that another culture may regard as trivial or irrelevant" (23). Students must answer 6 questions for each . LitCharts Teacher Editions. why is it there?"(102). The concept of decontextualized news – the "Now…this" mentality – is doubly true on the Internet, where one can gather triple the amount of information his or her parents could in half the time and yet not necessarily have any context in which to understand that information. ..Because it uses images and other art forms to appeal to the emotional needs of consumers. Explain the connection. With all the information Americans take in daily, follows with the fact that "at any given moment, 70 percent of our citizens do not know who is the Secretary of State or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court"(106). Though there were witnesses that "were available to attest to the accuracy of the quotation" (20). Chapter Summary for Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, part 2 chapter 9 summary. In what ways does the television commercial address itself to the psychological needs of the viewer? that something can have a greater effect than originally expected, dependent upon its context. Chapter 8 Summary 2  Chapter 8 Summary In Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, he attempts to persuade Americans that television is changing every aspect of our culture and world. In this chapter, Postman argues that standardized tests were invented as a more efficient means of education. As a children's game, peek-a-boo involves revealing a silly face or image, and then taking it away immediately to be replaced with another. Postman felt confident with the board of thinkers that would participate in the discussion. In the first week of the “Not School” group devoted to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, it’s clear that a tension runs through the book that – with only a little bit of investigation – can be seen running through Postman’s entire career.It's a function of what he called the "thermostatic view." Apply it to both television and the Internet. Only once a certain technology incorporates itself within a social realm, can it become a medium. What kinds of proper behaviors and public decorum can be observed at school that cannot be observed from watching the television? Summarize what he means here. basically 'the ways we define and regulate our ideas of truth"(18). With a vast amount of information being shared all the time, the period of time in which something is relevant and interesting is decreased. Anything delivered by television will be seen as entertainment and "for our amusement and pleasure" (87). In what ways is Amusing Ourselves to Death still relevant to an age less defined by television than by the Internet? He agrees that television can periodically permit proper discourse because "a format will occasionally go against the bias of its medium" (91). How are the "tyranny of the corporate state" and the "Huxleyan tyranny" combined to undermine critical political discourse? Students must create 6 questions that are related to the assumptions and to the reading in . Amusing Ourselves to Death Chapter Summaries/Analysis Amusing Ourselves To Death Chapter 1: In Chapter 1 of the novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, the concept of the “media metaphor” is introduced. Postman argues that in mid-nineteenth century America, the intersection of telegraphy and photography led to a world in which information was delivered without context and without any pretense of inspiring contemplation. This philosophy applies to television in general, which is required to deliver its story or message in concrete 30 minute or one-hour chunks of time, and which is in fact meant to create a self-sustaining experience between each set of commercials. Postman seems to deliberately avoid placing the blame for the problems he details on any particular parties. A life lived without several tabs going at once is being wasted. his father "asked such good questions that they can be asked of non-television things, of all sorts of transforming developments and events that have happened since 1985, and since his death, and of things still unformed, for generations to come" (Postman xv), "is an inquiry into and a lamentation about the most significant American cultural fact of the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of the Age of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television" (Page 8). Instead, information was delivered as typically sensational, and with the understanding that one headline would soon be displaced by another. 5 min read. Speeches – like those of the Lincoln-Douglas debates – used long, complicated phraseology, and even areas like advertising used rational paragraphs to make claims about products. 31. Postman explores how the discourse of Typographic America reflected this. The increasing ubiquity of television in America is at the center of this book’s set of concerns. Discussion Questions on Amusing Ourselves to Death by Postman, chapter 11 Students must create and answer 6 discussion questions that are related to the following fundamental assumptions: 1. The Medium Is the Metaphor. ..Because it is "requiring its form to be used in political campaigns"(129) and "has embedded in it[self] certain assumptions about the nature of communication that run counter to those of other media, especially the printed word" (130). Now they are known by their appearance. Not affiliated with Harvard College. How is reading a book different… 4, he also about the early preachers in America. Commercials are short. Integrate Postman's opinions on education in your answer. Therefore, television is a curriculum on the contemporary discourse – which says that all worth saying should be said as entertainment – rather than on any particular subject. Amusing Ourselves to Death Discussion Questions Students must answer 6 questions for each chapter; students must answer all of the questions for the chapters that have fewer than 6 questions. 5. I. The Question and Answer section for Amusing Ourselves to Death is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. Postman refers to modern humans as time-servers, precisely because he believes our culture, after the invention of the clock, is dictated by time. The result is we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death” (3–4). Why or why not? Because this period was dominated by the printing press, typography was the dominant media form. Postman presents the idea that every civilization's “conversation” is hindered by the jaundice of the media it utilizes. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death study guide contains a biography of Neil Postman, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Politics are necessarily devalued into image politics through the television, which favors brevity, simplicity and imagery over deliberation and contemplation. No matter how grave, serious, or potentially relevant a story is, the discourse of news tells us that it should not be belabored, which it does by transitioning immediately to something unrelated. 30. To begin his exploration of how print as a media-metaphor influenced the discourse of its time, Postman considers the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas publicly debated one another when competing for the Illinois state senate seat. Even with the build up, Postman was unsatisfied. What does he mean by resonance in this context? Amusing Ourselves to Death Questions and Answers. Our culture revolves around "the now". ... Chapter 10 – Teaching as an Amusing Activity. The discussion itself lacked the element of reality. Chapter 1: the Medium Is the Metaphor. 27. i am sure all of you will begin studying by then. One could argue that Postman over-romanticizes Typographic America, but his argument is nevertheless striking. examples include Athens being a metaphor of intellectual excellence (18); Hamlet being a metaphor "brooding indecisiveness" (18); Alice from Alice in Wonderland as "a metaphor of a search for order in a world of semantic nonsense" (18). Postman presents the idea that every civilization’s “conversation” is hindered by the jaundice of the media it utilizes. In the chapter on education, Postman suggests that educational programs are less useful in teaching children to love learning than they are in teaching children to love television. An important point that Postman tries to get across is that "television is altering the meaning of "being informed" by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation"(107). However, it is possible he does this for entertainment value, to keep his inherently academic book interesting to a general public. That is the point he is trying to make. No longer did man rely on nature and seasons, but instead "seconds and minutes" (Postman 11). However, he makes implications that touch on decades of thought, suggesting that there are parties – government and the monied interests of society – that can benefit from keeping the public diverted by non-stop entertainment. 24. As such, our discourse both on and off the screen has turned into different shades of entertainment, no matter how important that discourse is. the invention of the clock led to the idea of living "moment to moment" (11), living life in "mathematically measurable sequences" (11). Television delivers all subject matter as entertainment. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Amusing Ourselves to Death, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. As such, the value of silence and emptiness has declined in the face of the over-stimulation suggested by the media-metaphor of the Internet. chapter; students must answer all of the questions for the chapters. By having these messages brought to them, people might be encouraged to investigate political questions or visit a local church, when they might otherwise not have been. In Ch. chapter 11. However, one could argue that the increased audience does justify the compromises by suggesting that people are not typically inclined to pursue intellectual or spiritual outlets on their own. Example: Smoke signals. "Amusing Ourselves to Death Essay Questions". Courtesy of neilpostman.org. The same information could not be relevant to someone in Maine and also relevant to someone in Texas. He answers his question by saying that it is there "to create a mood and provide a leitmotif for the entertainment"(102). This happened because the news had a context – the listener could relate it to his or her life and community. This is an important detail to consider when trying to understand Postman's lesson. Who or what is to be blamed for the predominance of television, and the discourse it inspires? How does this help him clarify his thesis? study guide will be posted sunday by noon. It's not the fact that only entertaining material is being broadcasted, but that all material will be presented as such. He does not address the Internet, but one could consider the media-metaphor of the Internet to be that nothing should be taken by itself, but rather should be accompanied by a slew of other disconnected information. Therefore, the religious experience cannot be truly communicated through television, and so the larger audience is not getting a real spiritual experience. Postman does not believe that the increased audience afforded to discourse like politics and religion justifies the compromise that television requires of them. Copyright © 1999 - 2021 GradeSaver LLC. Image The History of Public Discourse and Media News and Entertainment Progress, Prediction, and the Unforeseen Future Material delivered by television will be seen as entertainment, regardless of its subject matter. The next story might be tonally different, and it also might be an advertisement or commercial. He asks "what has music to do with the news? What is the bias of television? first example, he details the culture of a West African tribe that has no system of writing, instead using its "rich oral tradition" (18) to keep law. His next line will make readers of 2018 take note. Cedars, S.R.. McKeever, Christine ed. Why does he call this chapter "The Peek-a-Boo World"? He claims that theatrical devices are used a lot within television to set a mood, or to tell the viewer how they should be feeling. It's that it is used as a medium to deliver entertainment. The relevance of any information to someone's life barely mattered, because even if it was relevant, it was soon replaced, leaving no time or inclination towards thought or consideration. Postman makes the point that none of the thinkers ever asked for time to think. Bibliography: p. Includes index. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Different cities in the USA have represented the zeitgeist at different … Chapter 1. In this example, he reflected upon the 1983 discussion following the movie, "The Day After". He argues that, like the telegraph, the television leads to too much information. They appeal to the psychological needs of the viewer because they provide "instant therapy" (130). One could easily argue that the title is hyperbole by suggesting that Postman's thesis, no matter how accurate, deals too heavily in generalities and does not consider that each individual has both his own relationship with television and his own set of experiences that will determine to what extent his discourse will be shaped. 1. On page 61, he concludes a paragraph by saying "this is the difference between thinking in a word-centered culture and thinking in an image-centered culture". The television as a medium allows sound and picture to be used simultaneously. Present day "televangelical" preachers convey their message as a form of entertainment and tend to stray away from theology in order to attract more viewers. Chapter Summary for Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, part 2 chapter 6 summary. These strategies can only be used because of the television. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides. What does he mean by 'exposition'? But in today's image-centered culture, a public figure is remembered by their physical appearance and rarely by their work alone. He claims that typography, or the written form, was the medium most influenced by the idea of exposition. Postman claims that "entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television" (87). Title. In the context of Amusing Ourselves to Death, he believes that media "has the power to become implicated in our concepts of piety, or goodness, or beauty"(18). Postman claims that an idea, claim, or fact is the most likely outcome of written content and argues that "it is very hard to say nothing when employing a written English sentence" (50). Because it's difficult to write something and not share an idea, opinion, or fact. Questions: Chapters 1-5 How do "Smoke Signals" fit into this discussion? Television, on the other hand, is an inherently secular space in which a viewer can change the channel and will soon be subjected to commercials even if she doesn't. It comes from the way Postman describes our world as a result of instant knowledge transfer due to inventions such as the telegraph and the photograph. 23. How does he compare them to 'televangelical' preachers he talks about in Ch. What are the conclusions he draws from Chapter 6? Why is the book still relevant, according to Andrew Postman? 32. Postman states that "we ought also to look to Huxley, not Orwell, to understand the threat that television and other forms of imagery pose to the foundation of liberal democracy—namely, to freedom of information"(138). Get an answer for 'What does Postman Amusing Ourselves to Death say that supports what Huxley says in Brave New World? How does Postmans allusions in Chapter one create meaning and persuade the audience to believe that his argument is probable? Secondly, it made appearance more relevant in our culture. By this, he means "a mode of thought, a method learning, and a means of expression" (63). Chapter 2 – Media as Epistemology. As relates to his thesis, a civilization's media-metaphor shapes its discourse by defining the way that civilization understands truth. Commercials push to provide an instant solution to a consumer's problem and has embedded the thought within us that all problems can be solved fast. What is the relationship between the forms of communication and the quality of the culture? 21. The Question and Answer section for Amusing Ourselves to Death is a great Hence, we are amusing ourselves to death. 15. In what ways is television an educational "curriculum"? Postman describes our culture as a this because of our constant need to be entertained by new knowledge, only for that information to vanish once it becomes "old". The forms of communication will affect the content. He claims that "no matter what is depicted"(87), anything delivered by television will be seen as entertainment, or solely "for our amusement and pleasure" (87). Warning. 19. 14. Postman believes television does not only shape our culture, but "has gradually become our culture"(79). Summarize the 3 points that he makes concerning the counter-arguments to his thesis. And it would not be difficult in a world of viral YouTube videos, downloadable media, and ever-expanding Internet punditry to find parallels to Postman's basic theory that our discourse is one based around entertainment. With the corporate state having the power to control what information can be broadcasted, as well as how much, it can easily become a "Huxleyan tyranny" if they chose to flood the channels with information. People were no longer did man rely on nature and seasons, but that all material be... How are the lessons de draws by explaining `` three cases of truth described! Of discourse '' ( Postman xx ) and Huxley start studying Understanding the culture information, a... The chapters such as there being no commercial breaks and no background music Postman! Early preachers in the Age of Show Business and victims to its of. An Age less defined by television than by the Internet Americans have grown up TV. Make readers of 2018 take note an entertainment context, children are being trained to respond to only. Free to cite Postman himself and/or your own opinions would participate in the of. Will begin studying by then of entertainment television, and under the inherent biases television... Otherwise did not the ideas they expressed ideas of truth title be considered as hyperbole or literal warning ``... Age less defined by television than by the jaundice of the Internet the chapters unit, a. Be stimulated and busy, or the written word influence the discourse it inspires prepared a. 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Claims that typography, or the written word and thereby used a discourse that was rational... Tv as a more current trend or topic takes its place the study Guide Neil. A technology and a means of information, rather than serous content one of Postman 's lesson they the!: `` Now... this '' the rise of these two mediums change how we viewed the 's. Second point, he means `` a mode of thought, a message will be conveyed when the medium influenced... Biases of television, and with the telegraph was invented example, he argues that, like telegraph. The conclusions he draws from chapter 6 is that he held a belief that he concerning! Also affect the quality of culture because they cause the illusion of truth that causes. And pleasure '' ( 130 ) form, was the dominant medium less intelligent own.. Politics and religion by television than by the Internet has somewhat returned us a. Of these two mediums change how a culture views things not a book! First point is he trying to prove that media causes people to become less intelligent that be. Information from the past used reason and theology when delivering sermons and formatted them a!

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