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Quote by Neil Postman

“What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer.”

Quote by Neil Postman

Author

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003) was an American cultural critic, educator, and author. Known for his profound insights into the relationship between media, technology, and culture, Postman's work has had a significant impact on modern society. more

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“Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.”

Giving Might Lasts Courses Next Can Do Opinion Pieces Offers News Versions Variety Voting Refuge Loops Impotence Niagara

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

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

“It is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions.”

Contradiction Technological Diversion Insensible

Author:Neil Postman

“For the message of television as metaphor is not only that all the world is a stage but that the stage is located in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

World Stage Television Messages Metaphor Vegas Las Vegas Nevada

Author:Neil Postman

“It is inescapable that every culture must negotiate with technology, whether it does so intelligently or not. A bargain is struck in which technology giveth and technology taketh away.”

Doe Culture Technology Bargains

Author:Neil Postman

“The fact that radio is so hopeless at delivering data makes it an uncluttered medium, offering the basic story without the detailed trappings. But it does mean that if data is important, radio is probably not your place.”

Ifs Mean Doe Important Facts Stories Radio Mediums Data Hopeless Offering Delivering

Author:Evan Davis

“It is a mistake to suppose that any technological innovation has a one-sided effect. Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that.”

Mistake Technology Effects Blessing Innovation Burden Technological One Sided Either Or

Book:Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Source: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

“As a culture moves from orality to writing to printing to televising, its ideas of truth move with it.”

Writing Ideas Moving Culture Printing

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

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

“A definition is the start of an argument, not the end of one.”

Ends Argument Definitions

Author:Neil Postman

“The effects of technology are always unpredictable. But they are not always inevitable.”

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Book:The Disappearance of Childhood

Source: The Disappearance of Childhood

“Printing links the present with forever. It carries personal identity into realms unknown.”

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Book:Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future

Source: Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future