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

Book by Neil Postman · 4 quotes · Television, Culture, News

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

“The way in which the photograph records experience is also different from the way of language. Language makes sense only when it is presented as a sequence of propositions. Meaning is distorted when a word or sentence is, as we say, taken out of context; when a reader or listener is deprived of what was said before, and after. But there is no such thing as a photograph taken out of context, for a photograph does not require one. In fact, the point of photography is to isolate images from context, so as to make them visible in a different way.”

WayDoeSaidDifferentFactsLanguageTakenRecordsReaderPhotographyPhotographSentencesMake SenseDifferent WaysVisibleListenersPropositionsSequenceDeprivedOf ContextBefore And After
Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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“A book is an attempt to make through permanent and to contribute to the great conversation conducted by authors of the past. […] The telegraph is suited only to the flashing of messages, each to be quickly replaced by a more up-to-date message. Facts push other facts into and then out of consciousness at speeds that neither permit nor require evaluation. (70)”

BookFactsPastConsciousnessConversationMessagesSpeedPermanentPermitReplacedEvaluationTelegraphUp To Date
Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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“Television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing.”

MeanDoeFactsMightKnowingInformationTelevisionCreatingIllusionSpeciesSuperficialIrrelevantMisleadFragmentedMisplacedKnowing Something
Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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“The line-by-line, sequential, continuous form of the printed page slowly began to lose its resonance as a metaphor of how knowledge was to be acquired and how the world was to be understood. "Knowing" the facts took on a new meaning, for it did not imply that one understood implications, background, or connections. Telegraphic discourse permitted no time for historical perspectives and gave no priority to the qualitative. To the telegraph, intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them.”

WorldFactsFormLosesLinesKnowingPerspectivePagesUnderstoodConnectionsHistoricalMetaphorPrioritiesBackgroundsNot KnowingDiscoursePrintedImplicationsResonanceTelegraphQualitativeHistorical Perspective
Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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