He loves the idea of Typographic America because that media-metaphor allowed and encouraged everyone to be engaged. Telegraphy and photography stripped information from its context. Chapter Summary for Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, part 2 chapter 6 summary. As Richard Hofstader reminds us, America was founded by intellectuals, a rare occurrence in the history of modern nations” (41). The passage from Chapter 3 of the novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, demonstrates Postman’s argument that nineteenth century America was primarily focused on political writings rather than books. None of this, Postman acknowledges, is a new idea. Struggling with distance learning? It has so thoroughly defined what we think of as truth that we no longer question the way in which it works. Amusing Ourselves to Death study guide contains a biography of Neil Postman, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary On Reading “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Chapter 8 - Jack Lule . He begins to explain this concept by first indicating that photography is not quite a "language," despite the common tendency to discuss it as such (72). Postman gives several examples of how the information of the "news of the day" does not have the power to inspire action in us. As newspapers become part of a dying industry, replaced by a prevalence of less-researched and accountable Internet sources, one would do well to heed the warning that information without context can only serve to make us less informed and less driven towards any type of real action. Sep 8, ... Marx did not pursue the thought but Postman, as the chapter concludes, sets the task as … The power of information to truly influence us had been diminished. His long emphasis on "Typographic America" is important not only for elucidating his meaning about how media-metaphors influence the mode of public discourse, but also for providing an image of how the world could be if we could break television's sway. Moreover, this public was accustomed to seeking oratory in other venues outside debates, meaning these were not unique events. Without restating his argument, it is useful to collect all of his thoughts about what a print and oratory based culture offers. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class.”. The crossword puzzle provided a context for all of this meaningless information, whereas in the Age of Exposition, people did not need to find contexts for news that was delivered, precisely because it fit within an already existing context. By the time a politician would have visited a community, his public would have known him as the speaker or writer of certain tracts or ideas. 1. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The increasing ubiquity of television in America is at the center of this book’s set of concerns. Noting that we can only vote for candidates every two to four years, he suggests that this world of incessant, de-contextualized news only allows us to form more opinions about the news, opinions which then become news themselves to feed the vicious circle. Information became a commodity valuable for being a novelty rather than for being important towards informing the public. Overall, Postman illustrates that "well into the nineteenth century, America was as dominated by the printed word and an oratory based on the printed word as any society we know of" (41). Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Summary Foreword. As early as 1985, it claimed that the rise of TV would be our fall. He contrasts this with typographic culture, in which news and arguments had a direct correlation to the context in which they were spoken, whether that was regional or topical. Because it could present itself as irrefutable truth without any context, the photo became the primary way through which news, advertising, and information were presented. The Medium is the Metaphor. As America battled to conquer the frontier, it used electricity to ultimately create the telegraph, which allowed information to travel faster than a human being could. Postman also notes how the press took advantage of this new commodity. Postman announces an exploration of this idea as the purpose for the remainder of his book. Postman talks about the consequences of such a literate culture and notes that a particularly telling example of Colonial America’s literacy is the distribution of Thomas Paine’s tract. Amusing Ourselves to Death Summary Amusing Ourselves to Death is a work that aims to both explore complicated ideas and market itself to the general public. Amusing Ourselves to Death is not a long book — 163 pages of text. Chapter Three, Amusing Ourselves to Death In the 19th century, Americans primarily read newspapers and pamphlets that focused on politics. He or she could now feel that this headline was connected to his or her life because the illusion revealed that the news did in fact occur in real life. Bibliography: p. Includes index. What is most intriguing to him is that the printed word had a monopoly on public entertainment and education; because print was the only outlet for thought, it became the media-metaphor for the culture, influencing the way people expressed themselves in "lineal, analytical structure" (41). Throughout history, different cities have been the representations of American culture. Postman notes that advertising remained an "essentially serious and rational enterprise" until as late as 1890, after which it began to shift into entertainment and spectacle rather than rational claim (59). Intellectual, popular, working-class, aristocratic—all spheres of culture revolved around print media in their own way. He was participating in a panel on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and the contemporary world. As another example, Postman explains how lawyers in typographic America tended to see law as a rational exercise, as opposed to a theatrical one meant to sway juries. Neil Postman (1985) claims that “the news of the day” did not exist-could not exist in a world that lack the media to get it expression” (p. 7). They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. The new idea was that distance no longer impeded the duration of communication. Amusing Ourselves to Death In the introduction to his book Postman said that reality was reflected more by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where the public was oppressed by pleasure than Orwell's 1984 where they were oppressed by pain. Postman also illustrates how even commerce reflected the rational shape of a print-based discourse. He quotes theorist Susan Sontag to suggest that a photograph presents only a decontextualized present, and allows us to break reality into component parts, no longer contingent on the greater context. Because they could read and write, they could both influence and be influenced by important social events. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Even the more controversial arguments over Protestant dogma took place through literary arguments in pamphlets, and the great Jonathan Edwards, who could purportedly move any audience to tears with his fiery delivery, spoke in a way that expected his audiences to follow his sculpted arguments. 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