Review essay on Amusing ourselves to death

Amusing Ourselves to Death Neil Postman, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death opens with the comparison between two writers and their artworks. The book significantly talks of how our cultures have lost tremendously from the oral stories that used to be told in the past. Erosion of this ability and riches is due to the changing and developing modes of communications. To put it plainly, the book is an unnerving and harsh commentary on our media, saturated culture, and the corrosive effect it has on our society. Postman observes that, Orwell feared authorities and those who would prohibit books. This persuasive or authoritative urge would compel people not to read thus leading to the truth being hidden from the populace. On the other hand, Huxley was afraid that the reality would be drained in to irrelevance. In this paper we will discuss Neil Postman's observations about the way television makes us perceive countries, subjects, products and people. It covers Postman's theory that, the means of passing information has increasingly become more important than the message itself. This fact is evident in the way American broadcasting television airs its programs. When presenting, such communication bodies actually promote ignorance of source since it has turned vital subjects into entertainment. Postman then delivers the thesis of the book, explaining that his book is meant to exert and determine between Huxley and Orwell. He goes on to support that Huxley was right in their different approaches. Besides, beyond the surface level, we see that Postman’s work is tremendously important because of the truths it tells us about our media. For example, he states that, in every major technological development there is an inbuilt bias. According to Neil Postman, the fundamental objective of television is amusement which is engraved ...