Neil Postman in “Amusing Ourselves to Death” delivers delightful insight on how our society has become media saturated. The novel was written in 1985, and many of his views can still be referenced today. In the first section of the book, Postman states that “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. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.”
Postman bases his main theory for this book on entertainment. Entertainment is the sole culprit for our lack of media literacy. Postman believes we use television for various reasons but for the most part we use it for our personal entertainment. He puts a negative spin on T.V. by saying that our youth uses television as an education tool. Through various shows like Sesame Street, our youth is learning facts from a big yellow bird instead of from teachers and parents. I found this hard to swallow due to the fact that a child has to have some knowledge of learning prior to watching these shows or he/she would not be able to comprehend what the child is watching.
But to be fair, Postman brings up a good point that television has become another source of education for our youth. Shows like Blue’s Clues and Barney are leading educational shows that re-enforce what they learn in school. Things like counting, the alphabet, and proper hygiene are some topics children learn on these shows.
The habits we learn as a child carry throughout our lives. We might not want to admit it, but adults still use television as an educational tool. Discovery and History channels teach adults on various topics that we might not be interested in otherwise.
In conclusion, television was mainly invented to televise national information to its viewers. But it has evolved to be so much more over the years. Children and adults alike use its marvel to further ones education on certain topics. Postman had it correct when stating, “The classroom is, at the moment, still tied to the printed word, although that connection is rapidly weakening. Meanwhile, television forges ahead, making no concessions to its great technological predecessor, creating new conceptions of knowledge and how it is acquired.”
1 comment:
I agree with the idea that “Entertainment is the sole culprit for our lack of media literacy.” However, it is the media’s use of entertainment masquerading as something which claims to be primarily news or education which degrades pure entertainment. When the main point of news and education is to entertain instead of inform, it is difficult to reverse and tip the scale back towards the purpose of informing.
As for the comment regarding adults still using television as an educational tool such as Discovery and History channels. These mediums are not without media influence. Shows can weave entertainment and media messages throughout with the use of paid product placement, scripting, sponsors and other influences.
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