Analysis Of The Book ' Future Of Reputation '

Saunders criticizes the megaphone, claiming it places priority on entertaining, profitable news as opposed to news that is educational or enlightening. Saunders furthers this claim by arguing that news media is habitually over-simplifying complicated issues, thus desensitizing the masses to stupidity and frivolity. Saunders’ essay is important because although it was published in 2007, it is still relevant (and will most likely be relevant as long as media exists). In fact, the points he makes in this essay are even more relatable now, as social media has increased greatly in popularity. Everywhere you look, there is a new “breaking story” about the Kardashians or the Jenners; and people accept this as real news! Saunders’ essay encourages readers to be critical of mass media and seek out undiluted, uncontaminated, earnest news

Chris Hedges’ “American Psychosis” is one author’s explanation behind the perceived degradation of America, attributing this decay mostly to a nationwide engrossment in the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Hedges further purports that the American government itself is behind making famous people front-and-center at all times, so that the populace has no chance to focus on the nation’s actual problems. He suggests that this reality TV state-of-mind turns life into a “world of unadulterated competition” where our attention-craving society discards the losers “like Styrofoam boxes that held junk food”. Those ‘excess’ human beings who cannot keep up with the endless quest for notoriety, he contends, end up unemployed, imprisoned, or homeless, because the only worth humans have in the modern world is their ability to make headlines. The final piece of his article is dedicated to fomenting some kind of vengeful revolution against celebrity culture, in which the public purges itself of inconsequential distractions so that they can once again separate illusion from reality.

As prominent leaders of the digital sphere, the value of the celebrity voice as a vehicle for political endorsement is rising. It is not the idea of celebrity endorsement that is new but the platforms and the reach that they afford has expanded. Wheeler (2012) has described this shift as the ‘interlinkage between political rhetoric and behaviour’ as ‘part of a historical continuum which offsets the modernist dismay directed to the

In the past ten years the way we as a people communicate has changed greatly. No longer is it uncommon for conversations to not be face to face and now more so than ever conversations take place through text. As with any change there will be and is push back to it. The conflict over the consequences of the social media dependent society have now intensified as a result of social media playing ever greater roles in how politics is seen and even conducted. This has been a major societal question since the presidential election of 2008 and the debate has been written about, discussed, and argued by thousands of different politicians,

All throughout history we have used metaphors to describe people, places, events and emotions; so it is perfectly fitting to describe the mediums with which we project our ideas as a metaphor as well. This is Neil Postman 's basis for his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Television and other media outlets have conditioned us to accept entertainment in every aspect of life; but most of all it masks the state of public affairs and politics. Through his book, Postman begs that we recognize the ways in which media shapes our lives and how we can use them to serve us instead of hurt us. Broken into two parts, Amusing Ourselves to Death focuses on a historical analysis of media, then discusses the television media-metaphor in more detail. Postman examines how media has infected every aspect of public discourse by prizing entertainment as the standard of truth.

Postman, the author of “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, discusses how the television has negatively affected discourse in America. He uses examples and historical research to make a claim of how it is effecting discourse. The chapter we are looking into does not relate to the television but rather the newspaper. His central claim of chapter four revolves around the newspaper. He talks about the effect on society and the

Opening the book, Postman explains how he will fulfill showing that a “great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense” (pg. 16). There are two major points First: under the printing press, discourse In America was different from what it is now—generally coherent, serious, rational. Second: under the governance of television, it has become withered. This made me think about how much media affects us on a daily basis.

In the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman states his thesis, "All public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment which has out us in a position where we are "slowly amusing ourselves to death”. By this, he means that the media has negatively affected the level of public discourse in contemporary America, and it considers media in a larger context to achieve that. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a foretelling look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.

1985 brought a collective sigh of relief to my high school graduating class. We read Orwell’s 1984 in 9th grade English; resulting in fear of the immediate future and suspicion toward anything smacking of governmental control. Reaching our graduation in May 1985, as independent American citizens free of Big Brother (or so we thought), gave some of us a sense that we had “beat the system”, as Gen-Xers are wont to claim. I wonder how many of my classmates would have agreed with what Neil Postman asserted that same year in Amusing Ourselves to Death: TV had ushered in a cultural shift in public discourse, leading to our willing oppression by entertainment.

In lieu of the recent election, wherein Republican candidate Donald Trump ran against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, it is wholly irrefutable to deny the significance of television and media in propelling the elections into a precedent of informal undertones, as the election itself marked uncharacterized, incomprehensibly belligerent rhetoric. In the eyes of public scrutiny, the election proved holistically to be that which Americans chose between the “lesser evil”--Trump: the demagogue, known to bolster a corrupt financial agenda along with bigoted convictions versus Clinton: the liar who wrongfully used a private email server to handle official emails while Secretary of State and allegedly perjured under oath, yet who so easily evaded punitive ramifications.

Neil Postman was an athlete, student, teacher, philosopher, writer, and many more things. All these experiences give him a very unique outlook and world view. He prides himself on being a critic on culture and theorist of media. He began his professional teaching career at NYU where he founded their graduate program on media ecology. He remained a professor there until he died of lung cancer in 2003. Of the several works he wrote he is best known for Amusing ourselves to Death in which he analyzes today’s media culture and our obsession with TV media. This book arose from a panel he did discussing George Orwell, Nineteen Eight-Four and comparing it to our contemporary society. In the first three chapters of this book he touches on a variety of topics such as metaphors and media how they shape our world view and epistemology.

This book excerpt, written my Marshal McLuhan, begins by acknowledging how far the Western world has come in terms of innovation and development. It takes notice of the fast pace in which media is now spread. Before, one could post a video, and some may not hear about it for days, even months. Today, once a video has been posted, it has the potential to instantly go viral. McLuhan then goes on to speak of the social and political awareness that is now attached with the use of electric media. Due to our effortless access of social media, several social groups now have a voice both nationally and locally (Negro, the teenager, and some other groups.) We are living in the ‘Age of Anxiety’, where everyone has an opinion and everyone feels that

Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, discusses the harmful effects television in a society that is saturated by it (Postman, 29). As I read Neil Postman’s book, I was given a new point of view on the role of television in my search for news and entertainment. Through Postman’s writing I found that the consequences of television are not in the information presented, but rather in how the information is presented. In addition, after watching “Conspiracy Theory Rock”, a video presented on the television show “Saturday Night Live”, this problem of unfair presentation from corrupt television corporations was made clear through the depiction of untold controversies, such as presidential assassinations (“Conspiracy Theory Rock”). I contest that the problem with the corrupt presentation of television cannot be solved by revising the corporate control, because it is unlikely to occur due to the financial power the corporations hold. Instead, the way that television is consumed must be changed. The solution for the biased and inaccurate presentation of television involves changing the way that the viewer consumes the entertainment by critically considering the source and the circumstance that the information is being presented in.

The Lippmann 1922 and Zaller 1992 pieces, each suggest that public opinion is easily swayed and subject to the limited information that the mass public receives about public affairs. A large part of these writings discuss how the information we receive is a trickle down of stereotyped and selective information of the extensive news in the world. Namely, given to us by the political elite. Social media provides an even more expansive platform for selective news to be distributed. It provides a much faster way for information to be disseminated out to the public, and spread into a forum, which does little to “check” or monitor the information’s factuality. Now, elites can communicate more information as its happening, and reach a mass amount of people. Zaller 1992, in his section “Elite discourse and racial attitudes,”

However, the general public of Europeans nevertheless get their statistics from the mainstream media: principal newspapers, radio and TV stations to be had in their groups. Further, countrywide identities are being weakened via a developing separation among the telecommunication gadget and the nation nation. The governments of Europe, once happy with their public broadcasting system, are bowing to the blended constraints of the new media technology, the financial and political burden of public broadcasting, and the seductions of establishment groups. Today in the United Kingdom it's far very commonplace to consult the connection among royalty and the media. The royal own family is the subject of endless storytelling, speculation, and gossip. The click is in no way a long way away, from the tabloids, with their royal watchers, gossip columnists, and paparazzi photographers. The media controlled the “method of verbal exchange” and it used that electricity to censor truly all dialogue of its own function in shaping occasions. However, the most apparent evidences of media manipulating the public opinion may be noticed from political perspective. Earlier media ‘revolutions’ affected political conduct and cultural perceptions in equally effective methods. Nowadays the mass media have become the battleground among competing groups within authorities and during society. In a democratic society it is through media and the verbal exchange manner that humans see and outline the sector,