Analysis Of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death

Twenty-first century reporters fill the airwaves with “news” pertaining to facets of life entirely opposite of awareness and activism. When news regarding anything aside from the lives of celebrities or current pop culture does make the headlines, the story seems presented in a watered-down, somehow censored, fashion; leaving the reader asking more questions than they received answered. As the major methods of mass media become increasingly consumer driven, the great majority are presented with less mentally stimulating material called “news”. As a result, Americans are often less informed, and thus less willing to become involved in, political, social, and economic issues, nation and worldwide. Through the application of relevant and straightforward journalism, like that practiced by Ida B. Wells, the people of this country may be armed with the knowledge needed to have an effect on the events unfolding today that will affect tomorrow.

In his essay “But Enough about You” Brian Williams addresses a very interesting issue about the user- generated media and the Mainstream media in today's society. He believes that the ideal American culture has changed because people are only concerned about themselves. Nowadays people are more interested to watch news if the implied message involves them or if it's good enough to tell someone else. Williams explains how all the new devices, the web, video and the digital cable fill a perceived people need. Therefore, many people are not interesting in reading newspaper or watching news in which it leads the Media to lose viewers. He emphasizes that the audiences that follows the news report are dropped, but the media still work hard to gathering

Within Joyce Nelson’s essay, “TV News: A Structure of Reassurance”, Nelson criticizes the TV news structure that perpetually disconnects current events from their historical background through comforting anchorpeople partnered with advanced technology to create a TV program that minimizes the important implications of current events. Though lacking the amount of information that a print news publication can maintain, the TV news can convey immediate information through technological advances of modern TV equipment to allow the medium to remain competitive. The façade of in-the-moment international information broadcasted directly to viewers enables anchorpeople to maintain the feeling of immediateness, keeping the viewers believing the program

In chapter one, Wattenberg discusses the declining trends of Americans who regularly read newspapers between the 1960’s and present day. This can be attributed the aging patterns among generations who frequently read newspapers as well as with the use of technology rising. Reading the newspaper is a habit that either is or is not developed by the time one reaches voting age. With this, newspapers have become an older generation’s primary source of information, however, are still the best source for political matters. Younger generations tend to be more computer literate and have grown up with television and media more accessible to them than the previous generation. These trends not only reflect in American culture, but in other countries

Growing up as a child my mom made a habit of watching the morning news regardless of the events taking place in America. Whether my mom watched the news for entertainment purposes or just to see what was significant to her has been left unanswered. I start my paragraph to prove a point that Neil Postman makes in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. In Postman’s book, he argues that the news today is for entertainment and it is irrelevant to the people who obtain it. Postman’s character, Henry David Thoreau gives an example of Postman’s debate stating, “Perchance the first news that will leak into the flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.” Which reminds me of a news segment I observed on News 7, January 25, 2017. The segment affirmed that a birth

Engrossed in fear, many Americans are living under the false perceptions portrayed by the media. This tendency is due to the underestimated power the media has in over society. With all the different forms of access the media has, it is almost a second nature to accept what the media is portraying as true. Why is it that, according to the Polly Klaas Foundation, although the” majority of missing children in our country are runaways”, three out four parents fear that their children will be kidnapped? Or that according to Skeptical Inquirer, “not a single death or injury has been reported from a stranger poisoning Halloween candy since 1958”, yet parents still fear for their children? Or according to if you add up all the mentions in the press of the millions of Americans with heart disease, cancer, migraines, or other illnesses, you’d find that the total number of Americans supposedly afflicted with a serious disease is 543 million- a shocking number in a nation of around 322 million. “Scratch the surface of any pseudo-fear and you’ll find a wide array of groups that stand to benefit from promoting the scares, and that we waste tens of billions of dollars and person-hours every year on largely mythical dangers,” writes Barry Glassner in The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things (Glassner). We ought to start doubting our

Hard, fact-based news is typically found in traditional printed press. Soft news, also called infotainment, is describes as “news with fewer hard facts of the kind newspapers generally report but with more emphasis on personal stories that engage (or shock) the public and often appeal to the emotions rather than the intellect” (id. 224). The way soft news can interfere with Americans’ access to news is that in soft news, the discussion is focused more on personal stories and less on policies, more sensationalized and less objective. Geer provides an example, saying “news about crime or natural disasters can fit the soft category when the focus is about the drama surrounding the event (such as loss of life or home) rather than a discussion about public policy that could reduce crime or perhaps provide quicker government response to disasters” (235). With this example, Geer also points out that soft news’ emphasis on emotion and not substance can impede on the actual amount of factual information that people receive. Soft news may provide less information and deprive people of the facts they

September 11, 2001 is a day that will forever live in every American’s mind. The terrorist attack that took nearly 3,000 lives was highly publicized, many channels played live footage of New York City as the Twin Towers were attacked. Watching the violence firsthand caused people across the nation to become incredibly invested in what had occurred. Americans felt violated; The notion of safety and freedom at home was wrenched away the moment that American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. Unsettled and confused people across America utilized the new resources offered to them through the rising digital age, and consumed every bit of information shared on the attacks in an attempt to make sense of such a seemingly senseless act of violence. Internet usage skyrocketed in the week following the attack, numbers rose from 6 million visitors to news sites a day to 11.7 million (Glass, 2008). Many television channels offered “‘wall to wall’ coverage” for 90 hours during and after the attacks (Denton, 2004). Media outlets served as the most direct form of information for most Americans following the attack, and as such they garnered much control over how the situation was interpreted by their audience. This lead to many networks attempting to be more careful about how they presented the news, worrying about everything from the implications of wearing “flag pins and ribbons” during broadcasts to the terminology used to refer to the attackers (Denton, 2004). While they

Many people can remember an average day of going to school, or meeting a friend for lunch, or shuffling around the office, or walking through a marketplace when startling news comes on TV. Quickly, strangers, friends, acquaintances, tall-short people, somebody people and nobody people are all huddled together listening to a normally stoic reporter read horrendous news:

The news and media in general seems to have a strong arm in influencing the way people view the modern world. Movies tend to glamorize death in an open manner, while news media are a little more subtle. Death plays a very large role in how the news portrays events and ideas, in fact, it is commonly used as a metric to survey the severity of current events. The notion of death has always been taboo in American culture, and news networks usually handle it in a sensitive manner like anyone would. However, when taking other forms of media into account, death can eventually make the event even more stimulating.

It would be easy to dismiss Neil Postman as just a grumpy old man complaining about what those young whippersnappers are up to while his generation is upholding the values of civilization, the last vanguard against the Huns. Except for the fact that he was right: Modern technologies have allowed individuals to withdraw into themselves, to avoid engaging in public discourse. This imperils democracy, according to Postman, along with a number of other social critics of the last several decades. But at least as problematic (even as perilous), according to Postman, is the fact that many modern technologies and the social habits that accompany them, discourage any inner dialogue as well so that both private and public lives are silenced to any meaningful content.

There are several events that occur each day that people go without knowing about because they’re more focused in their own world that paying attention to the one that we live in. Many humans live in a very self centered world. Then when comes a time of great tragedy and death it will sometimes appear in headlines for the pure intentions of entertainment for most people, especially in western civilization.

     During the attack of the “black, billowing cloud,” a man holding a television with a blank screen talks about the lack of media coverage on the event. “No film footage, no live report. Does this kind of thing happen so often that nobody cares anymore? Don’t those people know what we’ve been through…? Is it possible

This week was a watershed for Total Noise. When terrible things happen, people naturally reach out for information, which used to mean turning on the television. The rewards (and I use the word in its Pavlovian sense) can be visceral and immediate, if you want to see more bombs explode or towers fall, and plenty of us do. But others are learning not to do that.

What was astonishing was not the rapidity of the news- that is, after all, the beauty of modern broadcasting technology- but the effect that the news had on the public. In the following weeks and months, story after story demonstrated the