While others, will see little to no effect until much later on. his is the point that there is a transformation in who is able to gain from any kind of advancements that are occurring. ("Neil Postman," 2000)
he ecological transformations are when major changes are impacting the environment and everything surrounding it. his leads to massive adjustments in daily life and the way everyone is interacting with each other. In some cases, this means that select parties who could control these mediums. While at other times, these actions are limited by increasing amounts of competition and regulations. According to Postman, this is preventing a single party from controlling these areas. When this happens, it will ensure that these changes benefit stakeholders fairly. ("Neil Postman," 2000)
echnology becoming mythic is when these transformations are so large. hey are resulting in false assumptions about: particular products, services, organizations and industries. As they…...
mlaTechnology becoming mythic is when these transformations are so large. They are resulting in false assumptions about: particular products, services, organizations and industries. As they are so dominant, that it is only a matter of time until there is a shift that occurs. The problem is that these changes will take place when most people are not paying attention. Once this happens, is the point that these advances will lead to major transformations (negatively impacting something that was seen as an icon). ("Neil Postman," 2000)
These different ideas are showing how Postman is taking more of a neutral perspective when discussing the changes in technology. As he is showing the positive benefits that it is providing for everyone. While at the same time, it is focusing on how these transformations are impacting daily life and what this means over the long-term. ("Neil Postman," 2000)
Therefore, Postman believes that humankind has ignored the true benefits which technology can provide
Societal pressures not to attend four-year institutions may increase from family members, or at very least, it may become more expected that workers take a 'virtual' route to education, unless they are very wealthy.
One of the dangers of technology is that the opportunity to use technology creates different social norms. Today, everyone has a cell phone because it is expected, and to function in society people assume they can contact you 24/7. Society is structured around people with access to a fast-paced car, access to information through television, and a computer. Once technology becomes ubiquitous, it is hard to ignore it, unless you strive to become part of a parallel society like the Amish, governed on different values. If technology and distance education becomes the accepted way education is disseminated, a close faculty and student relationship, sitting at the student union and chatting with friends about important issues will…...
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to death:
Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
The age of television began in the 1950's when the majority of Americans were finally able to have power brought directly to their houses and have a television set installed. Television, as is discussed in the book by Neil Postman, is not something that, by virtue of the technology, has a specific use or destination in the American life (83), but it does have a central place because of its use as a medium. Postman makes several arguments about how the medium is used, and how it has changed how people think and act. He also makes the case that this may not be the best course for Americans because it takes away their ability to have a true public discourse. In this paper, Chapter Six, in which Postman talks about television as a medium in America,…...
mlaWork Cited
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. Print.
Technology
eflecting Upon Postman's Ideas Concerning Technological Change
Overall, I agree with the presentation and argumentation of Postman's ideas. Each one of his ideas is correct and manifests in the 21st century. There is evidence of each one of his ideas as part of mainstream global culture and certainly mainstream American culture.
His first idea leads smoothly into his second idea, which is a further clarification or example for the first idea. His second idea is that technology hurts some and helps others. This is part of the cost of technology. The Internet is immensely useful to most global users. It is also useful to crackers (criminal versions of hackers) who make people victims of identity theft and various other kinds of crimes and scams. Consider the people whose lives have been ruined by Twitter, FaceBook, and Youtube. The technology often makes the crime possible and facilitates the execution of the crime.
Postman third…...
mlaReferences:
Postman, Neil. "Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change." Available from -- five-things.html, 1998.http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/neil-postman
Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman [...] how social literacy created what we call childhood, and why is childhood threatened today? Author Postman believes childhood is threatened today because children do not have a chance to be children. Modern developments like television and other media are rapidly what the author calls "disappearing" childhood because they alter the way children and families experience early life, and pressure children into becoming "little adults" at a very early age.
Neil Postman begins his book with the poignant statement, "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see" (Postman xi). Unfortunately, as the book consistently notes, childhood is rapidly disappearing around the world. Postman often notes children are no longer allowed to be "children," they are products of a society based more and more on the media, and the media presents an adult world of aggression, violence, sex, and…...
mlaReferences
Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Delacorte Press, 1982.
Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
Neil Postman was a special type of a man and considered that he was not an expert on anything, and yet he was ready to express his opinion on every subject under the sun. The person's mind was continuously working at jokes, headlines and different ideas. This infected an individual when he met Mr. Postman and that could be responded to only with humor, and even that was likely to bring out more ideas. There were a lot of people who knew him -- in excess of a hundred thousand or so -- had first met his humor. This was also reflected in the books that he wrote. Each of these is also a source of propaganda for his views and written like an essay. The first was "The Disappearance of Childhood" in 1982, and this was on the infantile nature of American culture. The next…...
mlaReferences
Aphek, Edna. Children of the Information Age: A Reversal of Roles. Retrieved from Accessed on 14 May, 2005http://www.myped.net/wwwsite/sections/international/2002-09-03-19-46-26_article.jhtml
Chan, Daniel. Final Project Paper: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Retrieved from hl=en Accessed on 14 May, 2005http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:u6RJABaEeaIJ:alive.cs.ucdavis.edu/teaching/ecs188/projects/Daniel-Final-Postman.doc+Postman+Television+&
Eugene, Rubin. Stirring Up Trouble about Technology, Language, and Education. Retrieved from Accessed on 14 May, 2005http://aurora.icaap.org/archive/postman.html
Kaplan, Nancy. What Neil Postman has to say? Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine. Vol: 2; No: 3; March 1, 1995; p: 34. Retrieved from Accessed on 14 May, 2005http://www.ibiblio.org/cmc/mag/1995/mar/hyper/npcontexts_119.html
It is no longer necessary to attend a class in person, but instead attendance is online at the student's convenience, and that means it is much more possible for students to get an education and support an institution at the same time. Thus, technology has revolutionized education, and has made it much more possible for everyone to attend a university or other school, and that is certainly something to celebrate, rather than grumble about.
It is certainly true that every culture must deal with technology in their own way. Americans have embraced technology, and it makes sense that it would spread to education. Today's young people are a familiar with technological devices as they are with their own families, and this makes them ideal candidates for more distance education in the future. They are already whizzes at texting, camera photography, and video games, so developing additional methods of delivery and…...
Philip Curtain notes that the democratic revolution that began with the American and French revolutions continued through the Spanish-American wars for independence (Curtain). The emancipation of the plantation complex stretched from 1770 to 1890 and through the period of orld ar I, while wage-labor plantations continued the racial domination of European masters over non-European workers lasted even longer, because the plantation complex was far too elaborate to be dismantled suddenly because in most places it depended on a continuous flow of fresh slaves to replace births and deaths (Curtain). Points out that the slave trade to the U.S. was relatively unimportant because it had a slave population that could increase by natural growth, thus abolition hit the European countries harder (Curtain).
orks Cited
Anderson, Benedict. Printing and the Origins of National Consciousness.
Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood.
Curtain, Philip D. The Tropical Atlantic in the Age of the Slave…...
mlaWorks Cited
Anderson, Benedict. Printing and the Origins of National Consciousness.
Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood.
Curtain, Philip D. The Tropical Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade.
People use their computers, pads, pods, smart phones, etc., to check directions, schedules, sales and events, as well as perform work related activities. Technology seems to be completely integrated into modern life, and people use the information within the "web" for a variety of purposes. But the question must be asked as to the nature of this medium of transmitting information, and the effectiveness of it. Is the information being transmitted through this new medium enhancing the individuals' intellectual capacity, or is it being used as a substitute for learning and growing.
In chapter 10 of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman presents his readers with three commandments that television seems to always follow when it comes to the transmitting of information: have no prerequisites, induce no perplexity, and avoid exposition. (Postman, 1985, pp. 147-148) He asserts that these commandments force television to undermine the idea that sequence and continuity impact…...
mlaReferences
Postman, Neil. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin. Print.
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Media has a very powerful impact on people, which is the reason its advantages and disadvantages are discussed so very often. With every new technology entering our world, we start wondering just how this would later impact our society, culture, consumer market etc. This is because every medium brings along a message and while we believe that message is more important, some social critics maintain it is the medium, which was more powerful than the message itself. Neil Postman admittedly based his book, Amusing ourselves to Death" on the aphorism. 'Medium is the message' which was coined by media expert Marshall McLuhan in 1959. In his book Medium is the Message (1967), he wrote, "The medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. The content and uses of such media are as diverse…...
mlaReferences
Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves To Death," Penguin Books 1986
James Davison Hunter: Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. Publisher: Basic Books. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1991.
Brian Donohue The electronic imagination: requiem for a narrative: ETC -- A Review of General Semantics. Volume: 59. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2002.
Lance Strate: Post (modern)man, or Neil Postman as a postmodernist. ETC.: A Review of General Semantics. Volume: 51. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 1994.
computers and culture, using the book "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology," by Neil Postman, and other resources. Specifically, it will answer the questions: How have computers and computer networks changed human thinking, behavior, and lifestyle? What has been gained? What has been lost? What are the advantages of computers in communication? In education? In entertainment? In the economy? What are the disadvantages in these areas? Is computer technology creating winners and losers, or furthering social stratification? Have we become too dependent on computers? Do computers limit social skills and physical activity to a damaging degree? Why or why not? Computers have changed our national culture and our global culture, and not always for the better. When they were first developed for the mass market, computers were meant to increase productivity and cut down on paper work. Today, computers have permeated every section of our lives, and our…...
mlaBibliography
Berg, R. Dreyer. "Our Computational Culture: From Descartes to the Computer." ETC.: A Review of General Semantics 51.2 (1994): 123+.
Marsha Kinder, ed. Kids' Media Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
Perrolle, Judith A. "Information, Technology, and Culture." The Relevance of Culture. Ed. Morris Freilich. New York: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1989. 98-114.
Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. New York, Vintage Books, 1992.
Educated Person
The definition of education is not universal; nor is the definition of an educated person. In some cultures, education may mean being well-versed in age-old magical rituals, herbal lore, and spiritual healing. In others, education may mean a complete command of the tools of agriculture and animal husbandry. In yet others, education might denote mainly the acquisition of specific skills, applicable to a specific trade. In modern estern European and North American cultures, an educated person need not be knowledgeable in religious or spiritual matters; in farming methods; or in a specific trade. Rather, education and being educated connote entirely different and in some cases less practical things. For example, an individual with a PhD in Philosophy will be thought of as an "educated person" by nearly every citizen of the United States. However, place that person in the woods with no food, shelter, or clothing, and he or…...
mlaWorks Cited
Carter, Stephen. Integrity. Perennial, 1997.
Park, Robert. Voodoo Science. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Plato. Apology.
Plato. Crito.
Multisource Comparison:
British vs. American newspapers and journalistic styles
The popular stereotype that 'the British' are more erudite, well-spoken and intelligent than Americans persists, as can be seen in the tendency to bestow a British accent upon any characters who are intended to be perceived as cold, aloof, and intellectual in American sitcoms. In the world of newspapers, however, such stereotypes evaporate. The British possess some of the most widely-read newspapers in the world. However, it is often American papers like New York Times that are considered the superior newspapers of record, even more so than the London Times in the eyes of most British journalists. Despite the homogenization of the news due to the permeation of online media culture, British and American newspapers continue to have distinctly different characters. In Great Britain, newspapers are expected to be far more partisan and far less scrupulously fact-checked than their American counterparts. This is…...
mlaWorks Cited
"American vs. British newspapers." Rhetorica. 19 Nov 2002. [8 Jul 2012]
http://rhetorica.net/archives/469.html
"British vs. American Journalism." Britain and America. 1 Jun 2007. [8 Jul 2012]
http://britainandamerica.typepad.com/britain_and_america/2007/06/british_versus_.html
Brave New orld
The two books 1984 and Brave New orld reflect futuristic views that are quite different and dichotomous. Indeed, 1984 reflects a world of dystopia and punitive government while the work Brave New orld reflects one of more utopian conditions but is no less controlled and crafted by a master plan. The noted social critic Neil Postman postulates that Huxley's version of the world in Brave New orld more closely matches that of our current actual world. However, while there is some grain of truth to that, there are some facets of Brave New orld that are not in place now and the chances of that changing in the foreseeable future is practically nil in the view of the author of this report.
Analysis
First up on this report will be a compare and contrast of the two works in general terms. First off, an obvious difference between the two…...
mlaWorks Cited
Huxley, Aldous. Brave new world. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.
Print.
Orwell, George, Thomas Pynchon, and Erich Fromm. Nineteen eighty-four: a novel.
Centennial ed. New York City: Signet, 2003. Print.
Media
The age of typography began with the Enlightenment and flourished in the New World, and coincided with significant social, political, and economic changes. As Postman (2005) points out in Amusing Ourselves to Death, Protestants with a predilection toward intellectualism made books and reading integral to American life. "The influence of the printed word in every arena of public discourse was insistent and powerful not merely because of the quantity of printed matter but because of its monopoly," (Postman, 2005, p. 41). In other words, print had a monopoly on information, communication, and the exchange of ideas. Print became endowed with a level of political and social significance that it does not have in the digital age, as there are now multiple modes of information exchange. When printed matter was all there was, the very ideals of democracy depended on it.
During the typographic age, content was meaningful as well as rational.…...
mlaReferences
Dewey, C. (2014). What makes some internet memes immortal. The Washington Post. 10 Nov, 2014. Retrieved online: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/11/10/what-makes-some-internet-memes-immortal/
Postman, N. (2005). Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin.
Sternberg, J. (2013). Technology today: What would Neil Postman think? Retrieved online: http://www.spinedu.com/technology-today-neil-postman-think/#.VGGC9_Q49oA
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