Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the AGe of Show Business

I found the book to be a wealth of knowledge. The chapter titles were catchy and I was able to put visual images with some of things which were discussed in the book. In Chapter 2 Allies and Enemies, I automatically saw boys against girls; each group thinks they are better. However we are interchangeable.

In my opinion I thought that this book was a very good book. In this chapter I will describe the setting, theme, plot and conflict etc. This book had a few different settings like

     While reading this book I found myself making notes on how I disagree with certain topics but I didn’t realize until I was about half way through that there were many good points made. Some of the good points I did notice can be found in every chapter

There were a few points in this book that taught me about life and how crazy it can be sometimes. The photographer named Fulgencio was very afraid of hitch hiking to Mexico City with a stranger, especially with all of us expensive equipment. On the ride, Fulgencio is so paranoid that the guy is going to kill him, he grabs a machete out of the back of the truck. In doing so he gets kicked out of the car and loses all of his photography equipment anyways. This taught me that we need to trust each other more, Just because there are a few crazy people in the world, we shouldn't let them give us all a bad name. I mean, the guy picked Fulgencio up when he was in desperate need of a car, and gives him a ride. He should have been thankful, not picked up a machete and threaten the guy. Another thing this book taught me was that just because your sister doesn't want your kid anymore because she

This story has a lot of issues that are going to be talked about in this paper such as the realism, the conflicts, the characters, Hintons style, the themes, etc. This book is pretty interesting and brings up a lot of good issues. There are a lot of reasons for reading this book, and also a lot to not read this book. Its just your own opinion, and there are a lot of opinions in this paper.

Knowledge has come about through many different forms throughout history and has constantly changed along with the times. To equate media to epistemology is to say how media relates to how we understand knowledge. In this chapter, Neil Postman discusses how modern media has created an epistemological shift and whether it has affected us for better or for worse. Postman argues that this shift has altered the structure of discourse no differently than how every new medium before it has always done.

Neil postman was a jack of all trades, he was an American Author, an educator at New York University, media theorist, and cultural critic. (PressThink 1) In 1985 Neil Postman published a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourage in the Age of show Business. The book provides a look at what happens when politics, journalism, education and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death Postman says that the content of a culture is contained in its communication, and that the content of communication is affected by the medium of communication. In other words, Postman is saying that a culture is defined by its connection of people, and the connection of people is afflicted by technology. Sherry Turkle is another author that has written a book called Alone Together published in January 2011. Sherry Turkle is an award winning professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she focuses her research on human technology interaction. Alone Together is the results of Turkle’s nearly fifteen year exploration of our lives with technology, she describes new unsettling relationships between friends, family, parents and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community. There is a third author named Julia Angwin that has developed a book that connects with Postman’s argument. Julia Angwin is an award winning investigative journalist at a news organization called ProPublica. (About)

This book is a very good book. It is not one of my favorite books, but it is in, or somewhat close to, the top ten list. It has an intriguing story and has some humor in it to make sure that it isn’t all mellow.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to the average reader. It is a bit hard to read because the author goes into so much depth that the reader could very often forget the main idea. It is a good, informative book but a bit drawn out.

The book starts out strong and extremely informational, slows down extremely in the middle chapters and ends in theory, which is somewhat thought provoking.

Postman says that, as a result, "all public understanding of these subjects is shaped by the biases of television" (78) and that in the absence of rational discourse, cultural decay is sure to follow.

The book is an excellent

I really liked the book. It was very enjoyable to read. I would recommend it to my friends, because I think they

Postman (1987) claims that television is an evil that destroys the purpose and complexities of public discourse. He argues that important issues are oversimplified and drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Chaffee and Metzger (2001) confirm this assumption by remarking the evolution of print and radio into television and television into new media. Establishing the similarities between Postman’s chief complaints about the television medium and the new media then rearing its ugly head. Chaffee and Metzger indicate the shift in the denotations of mass, media, and communication. With technological advancements, it is impossible to ignore the new media and its impact on modern culture.

Media influence is the force by which ideas are injected into people’s lives shaping the very culture of society. This influence is masqueraded through hidden media message, resulting in a change in its audience which can be positive or negative, abrupt or gradual, short term or long term. Although mass media’s influential effect can reach a wide ranged audience as an agent of socialization the responsibility to contain what it releases has not been of importance. “The media’s socially significant obligations are formally ignored.” (A.S. Zapesotskii, 2011, p 9). Media messages can be exerted through many different outlets such as TV shows, music, movies, commercials, news, magazines, games which are all gravitated to entertain audiences ultimately offering personal gratification that can sometimes blur the lines between reality and