Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book - masterfully written.
Review: I read this book in 2003 and it is more relevant today than ever. A masterfully written book that tells the story of the TV Generation's addiction and its consequences. The quality of the writing challenged me also.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent, Acessible Book
Review: Postman makes a convincing argument about the effects of commercial television as America changes from a print-based culture to a visual one. The book is divided into two parts. The first gives an analysis of the media today, and the second provides examples of how television has drastically changed curricula in schools, altered the way our elections are conducted, and even affected how we practice religion. The author's thesis is that all of these activities must be done theatrically and within certain visual constraints in America today. Although Aldous Huxley, who is cited several times, makes the initial, dire prediction about where our society is headed, it is Postman who gives specific examples of how Huxley's predictions have been fulfilled.Because this book is intended to be accessible to as many people as possible, Postman keeps the communication jargon to a minimum, which makes this book both an enjoyable, easy read as well as a book that makes one ponder complex issues. I definitely recommend it to everyone, especially those in the teaching and communication professions.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes A Solid Case
Review: Postman begins by explaining that different cities have represented culture at different times. Currently, Las Vegas, Nevada is the city that most represents all the arenas of life in present-day America. Whether its politics, education, or sales, the metaphor that identifies what is valued is entertainment and Las Vegas is the entertainment center of the world. The second chapter addresses media as spistoemology, i.e., how do we know what we know about the world? It's by the images we see in the media. By the way, media indicates a mediator between us and reality. What we perceive is NOT reality, it's media's spin on reality. Everything in the media is packaged, i.e., with aesthetic considerations in mind, hence "entertainment." This book is representative of Postman's body of work. He is perceptive, insightful, and causes you to see things you wouldn't otherwise notice.
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Summary: An interesting commentary
Review: Neil Postman does an excellent job explaining why he feels that television has degraded communication in our society. If the message is affected by the medium, it may well not be the same message, or only a simplistic rendering of a deeper thought. He goes on to discuss, how society today communicates as well as how it now educates. Since TV has done so well, to grab children's attention, the educational system is modeling itself after it. Now instead of bringing ourselves to the messenger (as they did in the time of the written word). We expect the messenger and the message to come to us. Of course it has to be packaged in a fashion we will accept: Entertainment. Children and Adults are being trained to expect entertainment out of the most mundane or tragic events.
Consider the nightly news, its sound bites and sound track. The worst events of the day are being pre-packaged to make them more palatable or interesting, so viewers won't change the channel. Additionally, we are being deprived of information we do need to be concientious adults in our society, not by any "Big Brother" restricting this information, but by the shear glut of information that clouds what we truly need to function. If you think of advertizing, how much of it discusses the features of the product versus how much advertizing emphasizes psychological points of how great we will feel if we buy this product. Given the date of the book, he only touches on the medium of the internet. However, when I've reviewed usability texts on internet design, they are clearly designed for the television watching audience. There is great emphasis on sound bites and organized groupings of information, clearly designed for those of us with short-TV-based attention spans. The big question, is where does all this lead?
Rating: 
Summary: The Medium is Not the Message
Review: Marshall McLuhan argued that the medium is the message. And Postman argues that the message of television, our most pervasive medium, is entertainment. Nothing can exist on television, unless it is entertainment. Buried in the maelstrom of his arguments, however, is the correct observation that is some countries television is used primarily as a propaganda tool. He quickly dispenses with this inconvenient fact by arguing it away: in such countries television has not achieved its real potential. If it did, it would be purveying nothing but entertainment. The danger in all this is not entertainment per se, but that people take television programs, especially "60-minutes" and other information/educational programs too seriously. They fall into the trap of thinking that they are well-informed. But television trivializes knowledge by turning into entertainment, making meaningful public discourse impossible. I cannot agree with this, because it contradicts all existing evidence and common sense. First, television, like books, can be used to entertain and to educate. The fact that virtually nothing on television falls into the category of serious education and analysis is not the fault of television. For the most part, people do not want to delve into deep political analysis, and those who do can watch C-SPAN. Also, programs such as can be found on Discovery Science or the History Channel are very education. Postman wrote before the proliferation of cable, which allowed broadcasters to "narrowcast," i.e., to pitch themselves to more narrow, more educated, elite audience. As for the claim that in the past there was some deep sophisticated discourse that does not exist today, I simply do not believe it. Aside from the fact that Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" sold a lot of copies, Postman gives no evidence that 18th century Americans, reared as they were the "Typographical culture," shaped by the written word, were any more intelligent or politically discerning that Americans today. I also don't know what self-selected audiences at the Lincoln-Douglas debates demonstrate about the lack of understanding of major issues today. Jointly, Lincoln and Douglas could speak for the whole day, and there were people there to listen them--also for the whole day, with a major break for dinner, of course. This does not mean they understood politics. Most likely this means that they were entertained by Lincoln and Douglas. They were entertained, and television did not even exist. So according to Postman, there was real sophisticated "discourse" in which ordinary people could engage. But there was also slavery, bigotry, no electricity, and no running water in much of the country. But who can concern himself with such trivialities, in the face of "discourse?" Look, if such sophistication existed, Lincoln would not have felt obliged to talk about pushing for a constitutional amendment to make slavery permanent. Yes, he did that when campaigning in Border States. He would not have chosen Andrew Johnson, a former slave owner, to be his vice president, had he not felt the need to appeal to peace-oriented sentiments of the North. Most likely there was less sophistication and less serious discourse then than there is today. I have uncovered this love for "discourse" not only in Postman, but among humanistic intellectuals worldwide, especially among those who feel they should get a better job or greater status. While they write about social justice and the need for equality; the misery of the proletariat, and the greed of capitalists; all they really want is to have their "discourse," that is to think, to study, and to get worshipped for it. To acknowledge this openly is impossible. So the wretched of the earth become a vehicle of choice for gaining power for humanistic intellectuals. More fundamentally, Postman failed to realize one very important truth about politics--politics is a game of power, the crucial word in this assessment being "game." And as such, politics is necessarily part of entertainment. The divine comedy unfolding here on this planet, even with its terrible spasms of tragedy, is not to be lamented, but accepted. We do not want to be lamenting ourselves to death. Politics has always been, and is likely to forever remain, a game where surface, superficiality, pretending and dissembling, misleading and backstabbing dominate the appearance of the game. Politics is a game of power and not a discourse about where we should go as a country. I know where I would like the country to go, but not everybody agrees. Many groups and individuals have different agenda. And no amount of rational discourse will erase the fact that we simply cannot agree. Mr. Postman's thesis is most likely destined to go to the dustbin of political theory.
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Summary: Television¿s Huxleyan Influence on Culture
Review: Postman does not have a problem with television when it is used for its purpose: to entertain. The trouble arises when television is the medium culture uses for its news, religion, politics, and education, turning all these activities into forms of show business. The result is that culture is trivialized and people loose their capacity to think, eerily similar to Aldous Huxley's vision in 'Brave New World'. Being a visual medium, television limits ideas that are communicated to those that are simple and change constantly. Unlike the printed word, television is unable to perform an in-depth analysis of a news story or discuss complex political theory. In addition, television impacts the expectations children have in a learning environment and the teaching options available to educators. Although written nearly 20 years ago, the assessment of America's culture from an historical perspective as well as reasons why watching television is a wasteful habit is still very relevant. Like all of Postman's books, the writing style is clever, stimulating, easy to read, and contains quite a few fresh ideas in only 163 pages. Along with 'The End of Education', this is one of Postman's best books, and one most readers should find both insightful and enjoyable.
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Summary: Fascinating thesis; needs to be updated NOW!
Review: I've never really been a TV addict. Oh, I've watched plenty of television fare in my time, but I've always been more interested in comics and books, I think, because of their permanence. TV, until the advent of the videocassette recorder, had been extremely ephemeral. The ephemeral nature of TV, which continues even today because of its incredible volume and prevalence in society, is the basic tenet of Postman's argument here. By its very nature, Postman says, TV is incapable of presenting true public discourse, which relies on arguments that don't necessarily have the entertainment quotient necessary for the medium. The rest of the book expounds on this, looking at the past history of public discourse in America up to the time this book was written, which was ten years ago. In the last ten years, TV's influence on public policy has even increased, and it would be interesting to see what Postman has to say about it now.
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Summary: Brilliant ideas
Review: This book is comparable to Plato's "Gorgias," as show biz to rhetorics.
I wish the author can revise this book so that all the "it", "this" and other indefinite referents are replaced with explicit ideas.
This book will become a classic.
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Summary: Postman's best and most effective criticism
Review: Unlike his later works (Technopoly), this book is well argued presenting a solid argument for how "television values" have altered modern discourse. Read with his later book "How to Watch Television," readers are given a compelling description of how modern media present less than you see. This book builds nicely upon and extends the work of McLuhan giving clearer and more accessible examples. Though the book itself over 15 years old, it holds up well even if the examples are fading from memory. His arguments about what qualifies as "news" or "debate" are almost too obvious to ignore. Postman's writing shines is in pointing out the profoundly disconnectedness of TV news and commercials (Chap. 7: "Now... This") or the simplification of American electoral process (Chap. 9: "Reach Out and Elect Someone"). Much of this helps underscore the "Huxleyan Warning" and give the reader a strong sense that WHAT is called news is no longer as important or significant as it was a century ago. The faults in this work are more in overstatement of the desirability of late 19th century literacy and discourse. Chap. 4 (The Typographic Mind) starts by praising the ability of the crowds to pay attention to 3 hour long, scripted Lincoln-Douglas debates. After spending several pages describing the amazing knowledge and patience of the audience he hurriedly glosses over how these occurred in a "carnival-like atmosphere." He doesn't suggest that the audience may have been less than "intellectual" or possibly more interested in yelling "You tell 'em Abe" at a good insult. Nor does he further suppose that some of crowd may have simply been interested in seeing the debaters, hearing their voices, or discussing their appearance in later gossip any more than people do today. The idea that attending the "event" for "event's sake" was a cause is not raised either. Bottom line... This book is an excellent analysis of media effects and coherent presentation of how the "medium is the message." McLuhan fans will enjoy it as an example Marshall never wrote --but may have strongly enjoyed both in it's subject and opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Taking on Television
Review: Neil Postman, in a book written in 1985, before the Internet or satelitte television became so prevalent, explained why television was changing and damaging the public discourse in America. Picking up on Huxley's argument about making people passive by giving them exactly what they want, Postman feels that television keeps people happy and but changes the way people communicate and makes people less apt to challenge ideas and really search for meaning. Instead they are taught to accept things on face value and to choose politicians and ideas that look best within the unique confines of television entertainment. It is a fascinating book and has a very well written, comprehensible argument. Anyone interesting in communications, history, or modern sociology will appreciate this book and enjoy it thoroughly.
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