Given the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election, everyone needs read Neil Postman’s 1982 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Reading it won’t change the outcome of the election, of course, but it will provide understanding for how and why it happened the way it did. Postman’s main point is that print encourages logic and reflection. Visual media, and television in particular, encourage the feelings of the moment. To be taken seriously and believed, written documents need to be logical and coherent. To be successful, visual media need to influence feelings. We . . . → Read More: A Media Star Is Born
|
||||
 Comments are closed  Blog  Abraham Lincoln, against the wind, Aldous Huxley, Amusing Ourselves to Death, basket of deplorables, Brave New World, camera blocking, communication technologies, computers, Donald Trump, dystopian, Eighteenth century, Elvis, emotions, English literature, Europe, familiarity, feelings, George Orwell, Hillary Clinton, Lincoln, logic, media, media mogul, NCIS, Neil Postman, Nineteenth century, North America, novels, Pony Express, print, Republican Party, rock star, Ronald Reagan, soma, steel wheels, telegraph, thought, times of stress, travel, True Detective, TV, typewriters, Virginia Satir, Washington No, not the The Leftovers TV show…. The “left-behinds”—those who are failing to keep pace with the technological revolution. I am increasingly one of them. At one time, I was among the “techno” leaders. I was one of the first academics to embrace email and did so at a time when most of my colleagues were rejecting email as a method of communication. I have previously mentioned secretaries I knew in days gone by who resisted having their typewriters replaced by computers and word processing programs. They were among the first left-behinds. At the time, I didn’t fully understand why . . . → Read More: The Left-Behinds Comments are closed Blog advertising, Amish, buggies, buggy whips, computers, corporations, distance learning, documents, Donald Trump, Facebook, heavy metal, know thyself, left behinds, left overs, LinkedIn, mental limits, music, online class, organizations, physical limits, Pinterest, politicians, rap, Rock and Roll, science, secretaries, social media, technological revolution, technology, TV, tweets, Twitter, typewriters, video We’ve known for a long time that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but we tend to forget the wide variety of ways the saying applies. When we recognize that everything is “information,” we can begin to notice what is “high-quality” information and what information is of lower quality. The higher the quality, the greater the likelihood that the information will prove true over time. A pudding that looks really good, for example, may not taste as good as it looks. The food you see advertised on TV, is typically not edible. It’s made to look good . . . → Read More: Actions Speak Louder than Words Comments are closed Blog actions, automobiles, behavior, camera, computers, cynicism, Einstein, election, election cycle, feedback, high quality, House, information, insanity, issues, negative advertising, opposition advertising, political, politicians, politics, promises, proof, pudding, results, Senate, silly season, special interests, time, TV advertising, vested interest, voter, voters, voting, words |
||||