Amusing Ourselves to Death: "Reach Out and Elect Someone"
Summary/Outline:
Branches of show business
Sports
-Standard of excellence or ‘skill’ well known to players and spectators. -Best athletes proven by ability, not by public -During sporting events plays and scores cannot be blurred
Virtues attached to sporting event- clarity, honesty, excellence
Politics
-idea not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty, but to appear as if you are -fundamental metaphor for political discourse in America is the television commercial
Television commercial devastated political discourse
The Television Commercial
Effects on commerce
-Assaults capitalist ideology
Creates a seller that is not marketing for mutual interest of buyer, or well informing the buyer of the product
Commercial erases the theory of a rational marketplace. The buyer does not always know if product is good for them and seller can often produce products low in value but through advertising techniques still make sale.
It is the rationality of consumers that spurs competition in marketplace
Rationality and decision making
To be rationally considered any claim must be made in the form of language, the form of a proposition more precise, which is the universe of discourse that creates things like “true” and “False”.
If such universe of discourse is discarded logical analysis and instruments of reason become impotent
By substituting images for claims the pictorial commercial makes only emotional appeals, not tests of truth.
Rationality and advertising have huge difference between them; no connection.
Propositions are scarce, the truth or falsity of an advertisers claim is not an issue
Television commercial creates modern methods for presenting political ideas
-Commercials form required to be used in political campaigns (political advertisements) -Campaigns built on commercials that use visual imagery
Projects concepts and claims rather than proving them.
-Shapes political discourse by influencing Americans accommodation to accept commercials as a plausible form of discourse
Commercial insists on instancy, rarely more than thirty seconds
Commercial disdains exposition, which takes time and invites argument
Commercials use vivid visual symbols which can more easily teach its agenda
Commercial creates belief that all problems are solvable, and solvable fast.
Politicians in show business and as sources of amusement
-Television frees politicians from limited field of expertise
Assimilates politicians into television culture as celebrities
*Examples: John F. Kennedy in “Person to Person”. Richard Nixon appearance on a comedy show called “laugh in”. VP candidate William Miller does a commercial for American Express. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill did a stint on “Cheers”.
Politicians being celebrities makes it almost impossible to determine the “better man” in races.
Television creates politicians focused on “image” over issues and debate. (image politics)
Shift from party politics to Television Politics
- Importance lies not in who is best at being president or politician, but whose image is best in such a position.
Inclined to vote for those whose family life, and style, and personality shown on TV screen are obsolete
- Television/Image Politics empties any form of politics of authentic political substance
Image politics also empties political discourse of ideological content as well as historical content, information is presented in moving pictures as everything happens in the “now”.
Historical content erased by politics of image and instantaneous news. Makes history inconvenient facts.
Television does not ban books or factual information, it displaces them(it)
- T.V. is a medium that presents information in a form that is simplistic, nonsubstantive, and noncontextual.
Information is packaged as entertainment
In America, never denied opportunity for amusement
Television undermines information to a point it is so irrelevant censorship is no longer a tool needed by government.
Crucial Vocabulary Defined:
Spectator: This word is commonly used during sporting events and, more recently, show business. Neil Postman describes politics as having become the greatest spectator sport in America. He explains how the three virtues of politics coincide with spectator events; clarity, honesty, and excellence. Since television commercials are the biggest attractors for spectators, it has become the fundamental metaphor for public discourse.
Image Politics: A term used to describe what most people assume is real politics. Everything people see is through an edited image which grants no particular intelligence to them. Commercials have put pictures in the nations head, rather than words.
In the now: Commonly heard phrase usually associated with being in the moment and living for the present. What Neil Postman attempted to get people to grasp, was that our society knows too much about right now, and not enough about what made the now. Terrence Moron stated, "We Americans seem to know everything about the last twenty-four-hours, but very little of the last sixty centuries or last sixty years. How can we understand our present without our past? Presidents need previous knowledge of the past political trials and triumphs in order to progress forward."
Limits: politics have too many and television commercials don't have enough. Postman argues that TV is acting as a mental barrier to our full potential of knowledge. Political campaigns on commercials are nothing but limited to what the candidates really want to say. However, because of the actual, physical boundary between the TV set and ourselves, people are only left to assume what they are seeing and hearing as truth.
Conformity: This concept is vaguely touched on by Postman, but the idea is there. Whether or not we are aware of it, we all conform to our technological age of ease. This is a good but also potentially harmful act. Going along with the flow of our surroundings makes us more susceptible to error and misunderstanding. So when something on TV is presented to us that seems wrong, most people will usually remain silent about the matter because that is the more politically correct thing to do. Conforming is inevitable, but realizing how it effects the world around us can be noticed and according to Postman, needs to be in order to regain our intellectual stature.
1. If politics is like show business what function of communication becomes elevated to central importance?
2. Why can it be argued that the fundamental metaphor for political discourse is the television commercial?
3. Can one in engage in rational discourse using visual imagery?
4. Why is it difficult to evaluate the truth or falsity of a McDonald's commercial?
5. On what basis do most television commercials invite you to make product decisions?
6. "What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right with the product but what is wrong with the buyer." What does that mean?
7. What are the limitations of the television commercial as a form for carrying political discourse?
8. What assumptions about the nature of communication are implicitly embedded in the form of the television commercial?
9. Why can it be said that many commercials adopt form of the parable or "pseudo-parable"
10. "On television the politician does not so much offer an image of himself, as an image of the audience, television commercials create for viewers a comprehensive and compelling images of themselves." What does that mean?
11. Why are television commercials and image politics a form of therapy?
12. When political discourse comes in the form of the commercial it tends to be ahistorical. What does that mean?
Amusing Ourselves to Death: "Reach Out and Elect Someone"
Summary/Outline:
- Branches of show business
- Sports
-Standard of excellence or ‘skill’ well known to players and spectators.-Best athletes proven by ability, not by public
-During sporting events plays and scores cannot be blurred
- Politics
-idea not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty, but to appear as if you are-fundamental metaphor for political discourse in America is the television commercial
- The Television Commercial
- Effects on commerce
-Assaults capitalist ideology- Television commercial creates modern methods for presenting political ideas
-Commercials form required to be used in political campaigns (political advertisements)-Campaigns built on commercials that use visual imagery
- Projects concepts and claims rather than proving them.
-Shapes political discourse by influencing Americans accommodation to accept commercials as a plausible form of discourse- Politicians in show business and as sources of amusement
-Television frees politicians from limited field of expertise- Assimilates politicians into television culture as celebrities
*Examples: John F. Kennedy in “Person to Person”. Richard Nixon appearance on a comedy show called “laugh in”. VP candidate William Miller does a commercial for American Express. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill did a stint on “Cheers”.- Shift from party politics to Television Politics
- Importance lies not in who is best at being president or politician, but whose image is best in such a position.- Inclined to vote for those whose family life, and style, and personality shown on TV screen are obsolete
- Television/Image Politics empties any form of politics of authentic political substance- Television does not ban books or factual information, it displaces them(it)
- T.V. is a medium that presents information in a form that is simplistic, nonsubstantive, and noncontextual.Crucial Vocabulary Defined:
Spectator: This word is commonly used during sporting events and, more recently, show business. Neil Postman describes politics as having become the greatest spectator sport in America. He explains how the three virtues of politics coincide with spectator events; clarity, honesty, and excellence. Since television commercials are the biggest attractors for spectators, it has become the fundamental metaphor for public discourse.
Image Politics: A term used to describe what most people assume is real politics. Everything people see is through an edited image which grants no particular intelligence to them. Commercials have put pictures in the nations head, rather than words.
In the now: Commonly heard phrase usually associated with being in the moment and living for the present. What Neil Postman attempted to get people to grasp, was that our society knows too much about right now, and not enough about what made the now. Terrence Moron stated, "We Americans seem to know everything about the last twenty-four-hours, but very little of the last sixty centuries or last sixty years. How can we understand our present without our past? Presidents need previous knowledge of the past political trials and triumphs in order to progress forward."
Limits: politics have too many and television commercials don't have enough. Postman argues that TV is acting as a mental barrier to our full potential of knowledge. Political campaigns on commercials are nothing but limited to what the candidates really want to say. However, because of the actual, physical boundary between the TV set and ourselves, people are only left to assume what they are seeing and hearing as truth.
Conformity: This concept is vaguely touched on by Postman, but the idea is there. Whether or not we are aware of it, we all conform to our technological age of ease. This is a good but also potentially harmful act. Going along with the flow of our surroundings makes us more susceptible to error and misunderstanding. So when something on TV is presented to us that seems wrong, most people will usually remain silent about the matter because that is the more politically correct thing to do. Conforming is inevitable, but realizing how it effects the world around us can be noticed and according to Postman, needs to be in order to regain our intellectual stature.
Visual Presenter:
Political Advertisement
Stephen Colbert
Discussion Questions:
1. If politics is like show business what function of communication becomes elevated to central importance?
2. Why can it be argued that the fundamental metaphor for political discourse is the television commercial?
3. Can one in engage in rational discourse using visual imagery?
4. Why is it difficult to evaluate the truth or falsity of a McDonald's commercial?
5. On what basis do most television commercials invite you to make product decisions?
6. "What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right with the product but what is wrong with the buyer." What does that mean?
7. What are the limitations of the television commercial as a form for carrying political discourse?
8. What assumptions about the nature of communication are implicitly embedded in the form of the television commercial?
9. Why can it be said that many commercials adopt form of the parable or "pseudo-parable"
10. "On television the politician does not so much offer an image of himself, as an image of the audience, television commercials create for viewers a comprehensive and compelling images of themselves." What does that mean?
11. Why are television commercials and image politics a form of therapy?
12. When political discourse comes in the form of the commercial it tends to be ahistorical. What does that mean?