Describe what Postman means by the term "information-action ratio." Now answer his question: How often does it occur that news causes you to alter plans, take some action, etc.? (He's not talking about weather or traffic news, but so-called "serious" news, the kind that shows up on the network evening news or the front page of a newspaper or as the lead item on a news Web site.) What does your answer tell you about the nature of what passes for news today?
Please respond by 4 p.m, Sunday, Sept. 15.
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By "information-action ratio," Postman means that every single person with access to media has the ability to know about anything they want without having to be responsible for that knowledge because it doesn't particularly impact their personal/individual life. The "information-action ratio" allows for information to be spread around without the need to investigate deeper or cause any change or action as a result of having that knowledge. Many people are hence, walking dictionaries.
I am more likely to take action as a result of news if it is connected to my community. If there is a cancer walk or church bake sale to benefit a local child with lukemia, I am more likely to go. But national news, that is not a national security issue often doesn't phase me. I have a hard time connecting with news that doesn't impact my world. Even when the news is "serious" news that effects the country as a whole, I sometimes respond with some half hearted remark like, "the world is getting crazier every day" or "what's wrong with people?" Very seldom am I moved to join a protest or start a movement for change.
I think that local news is beneficial because people feel more in control of what they consume. If the news is local, they can relate to the location and feel a part of the story. If the story takes place across the nation or in another country, many times the reaction is pity, but not enough for change or action. I think that world news and local news are important, but I feel that more people pay attention to local. Common news touches on everything, and perhaps is overwhelming to viewers. For someone who wanted to hear about the fire down the street, they ended up finding out about the local fire, the ceo of AXY company's affair, and a terrorist attack in a country they cannot pronounce. That is the current nature of the news. Hit as many different areas of interest as possible. As a result, as Postman argues, people are less likely to act and more likely to just consume the information and move on with their lives.
What Postman means by the information-action ratio, or maybe the news of the day, is that it is only a figment of our technological imagination. And one reason we pay attention to these events is so we can make small talk and conversation with other people. The information being fed to us as consumers from the reporters we feel a sense of trust that and that they have instilled the whole truth and there is no need to dig deeper. I feel that it is more likely the story doesn’t affect me or you personally. So why should we take action? The news does not alter my plans nor does any headline want me to take any sort of action. This is true unless the story is local. In addition to exception of those sometimes heart aching stories that give me a sobering sensation. In my opinion I think we should question why should we want to take action. With that said, for example, as I go about my day and notice on a headline, or front page, the chances of that coming up in discussion are pretty likely – if it is that significantly aware to everyone, compared to maybe some other story that is buried inside the depths the rest of the news with some actual substance worth talking about. This is what our news as become, in one ear and out the other. Just like those songs played on pop radio stations, one-hit-wonders. But even those songs have a stronger chance of resonating through time compared to headlines. They have been forgotten and outdated the moment the paper landed on your doorstep.
“Information-action ratio” refers to the constant influx of information, but our inability, unwillingness, even apathy, toward taking action about this information. As Postman says on page 69, the information-action ratio was first dramatically altered by the telegraph's “capacity to move information, not collect it, explain it, or analyze it.” The ratio has been altered further by television, which bombards us with images and news of overseas wars, or even crime in local communities, each news segment lasting, on average, no longer than two minutes. With this influx of information, five to ten news stories within a half hour segment at six o'clock in the evening, it creates a situation where we are left with essentially useless facts without the capacity to take action, or the background information to even begin taking action. For example, the recent and abundant news stories on Syria raises the question, how many people are aware of how long the Syrian Civil War has been taking place? How many people know this information enough to form an intelligent opinion of whether or not the United States should take military action?
To answer Postman's question, I am personally very rarely affected by “serious” news in a way that makes me alter plans. Watching the news at night, while I am made aware by local tragedies and the ever-consistent newly proposed law, I never take up arms and vow to do something different in my everyday routine. Perhaps this is a cop-out, but Postman has a point in saying that new media provides with simply too much different information for us to be sufficiently informed and affected, and too little relevant information that will help us figure out what to do with all of that information. News, thus, is merely an example of Postman's “Now... This” idea. News serves to shock and entertain, keeping us interested with teaser trailers about what news will air on the eleven o'clock segment. The news is as guilty as weekly television programs with playing into our curiosity to keep their views up, so much so that the news has become entertainment—full of two minute-long segments on overseas wars, oftentimes forgettable once the channel is turned.
When Postman described the "information-action ratio," he was talking about the relationship between a piece of information that a person gains and the action that they are expected to take after learning that information.
Many people feel so disconnected to the news, even local news, that they fail to take action, or don't know where to start taking action. A few semesters ago in Media Ethics class, we learned about a garment factory that collapsed in Bangladesh, and statements from various popular companies that sell clothes, alleviating themselves from al responsibility even though their products were clearly manufactured in that factory.
We as consumers have a choice to stop supporting such companies in an effort to discourage them from having their products manufactured in a factory that puts its workers in danger. However, even after learning about which companies were associated with this garment factory, many of us continued shopping there, clearly knowing where their products originate from. Our priorities as consumers, and oftentimes, American middle-class consumers who are shopping for a full family, take precedence over our worldwide morals.
In the case of the collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh, many of us obtained a piece of information and unbalanced the "information-action ratio" by not acting accordingly and ceasing to support the companies associated with the factory.
I think much of what passes as news today, internationally or locally, is relevant, but we are so far-removed from our basic responsibilities as citizens that we don't feel it necessary to alter our behavior for the bigger picture. Many of us feel as if the actions of one person won't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, so we don't change our actions.
In chapter five of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman brings up the concept of “information-action ratio.” From reading the chapter, I can gather than Postman is referring to the amount of information society receives in relation to how much that information causes them to act or even change their original actions. On page 98 he says, “information derives importance from the possibilities of action.” Postman is calling it the information-action ratio to compare both the input (information) and the output (action). The claim he is making, though, is that the rise of technology “made the information and action both abstract and remote.”
When it comes to me, hearing news rarely forces me to alter any plans or take action. I basically just take in the news and move on with my life, which apparently seems to be the growing norm for news intake these days. I believe it has to do a lot with what we talked about a few weeks ago in class in regards to Miley Cyrus being the top stories as opposed to news about Syria. People can read about and watch news coverage regarding Syria, but at the end of the day there isn’t much we can do individually. That tends to become a common theme among most news stories these days. They’re so big and extraordinary at times that it becomes difficult for the average person to actually take action in regards to the news they’re receiving. I think this all changes, though, depending on what news outlet you’re looking at. I’m much more inclined to take action while watching my local news station because a majority of those stories aren’t on a global scale.
What passes as news these days, though, is a different story. It’s not that the news we’re receiving isn’t important (because a lot of it is), it’s just not sticking with us as much anymore, especially when it comes to the younger generations. We’ve grown up in a world ruled by technology, so we’ve grown up a majority of our lives getting our news from the Internet or through television. That being the case, a lot of young adults aren’t fully taking in all the news they hear. Most of the time the news comes into our brains almost as fast as it leaves our brains. If it’s not of direct relevance to the reader chances are they won’t be taking action or altering plans in regards to it. Because of this, it seems as though news outlets are publishing more and more stories that don’t require action, but will spark interest in any way possible (once again, just like the Miley Cyrus coverage). At the end of the day, news companies are just trying to get as many views and hits as they possibly can in order to make a profit.
The “information-action ratio” is the potential one has to take action regarding information they’ve consumed. The things people read prior to telegraphy and television were more localized and had a greater effect on their lives. With technological advances leading the sense of a global community, the amount of information presented in the news has become staggering—and much of it is irrelevant in that we cannot do anything about it. The rhetorical question Postman poses on page 68 (“What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East?”) gives you a sense of how off-balance the modern information-action ratio is. This has serious effects, such as news impotence and the public losing a sense of control of their lives.
Information acquired from the news almost never causes me to change my plans or take action. The only instances of this ever happening have been for local events. This tells me that news today is, as Postman writes, “abstract and remote.” Top headlines for my known existence have usually dealt with foreign affairs (usually on the opposite side of the world)—places, cultures, and people I’m unfamiliar with… things that I have no control over and that have no potential for action for me. Due to the advancement of globalization and technology, media saturation has become a serious problem. We now have all the information we’d ever need at our fingertips. Most of it is “want to know” information. This causes a combination of “information glut” (exactly what it sounds like) and a higher ratio of pointless news to “serious” news. More than anything, this tells me that the news has lost its power—it’s oomph—in society. I believe the media needs to readjust to new technologies and use them in ways that give the public a better-balanced information-action ratio that employs both a sense of a local and global community.
The ratio Postman speaks about when referring to the “information-action” ratio is the concept that news presented by the media may not be applicable, relevant, or useful to the lives of those who are consuming it. The information one gains from news is meant to inform, and then encourage the individual to take some sort of action – t hat is the point of news, for “newsworthy” topics and stories are so because the cover topics important to the viewer or reader, and when something is significant, it often impacts in a positive way, causing an “action” to be taken. But as Postman points out, though people should be using this knowledge they receive from the media to take these actions , they often do not. This is because the stories covered heavily, or the ones that seem “newsworthy” to many publications, do not have that sort of impact that calls people to take action. Or in other cases, so many stories are covered, but with less facts, and the consumer is left to fill in the blanks themselves (and seeing that news consumers today are not proactive consumers, the blanks never really get filled.)
I am not often moved by a news story enough to take action. While consuming news I do feel moved by many stories, and many instill either fear or concern in me for the state of either our nation or our world, but very, very rarely do I feel a sort of “call to action” that Postman was describing. I do not know if this is because of the nature of what passes as news today, because I think most serious news stories cover the important topics first, i.e. Wars, social issues coming to head with governmental regulations, etc., but perhaps it is the length at which they are covered. Maybe if the news was covered more thoroughly, making a point of connecting people to their news instead of just giving what they deemed to be the important tidbits, it would encourage more people to convey their feelings from the article or story into action.
When Postman proposes his term “information-action ratio”, he is talking about what impact the daily news has on our lives. News, serious news that is, really has no relevance to each person’s daily lives unless it causes them to change its course as a consequence of learning that information. Postman suggests that prior to the age of telegraphy, the daily news contained information that pertained to a context the audience already understood. Because they knew the history behind the news subject, it actually mattered to them on a daily level and could easily have enough significance on a personal level to change their course of action. However, with the advent of the age of telegraphy, the public lost its context. Now, when the public learns about a piece of information from half way across the country, they have no context or sense of history for this piece of information. Without this history, it is just another piece of information that gets stored in the “fun fact of the day” category of information, not the “relevant to daily life” category.
For myself, when watching the daily news, it hardly, if ever, causes me to change my plans. Just about 99% of the time, the “serious” news is coming from another part of the country, or even part of the world. More often than not it is about some war or fire that happened so far out of my reach that there is nothing I could do about it even if I wanted to. Only occasionally does a story about the stock market or national policy occur that will cause me to change an investment or alter a policy. Now looking back at my response, this tells me that the news media has mostly given up its concern for the audience’s actual relevance to the subject being reported. Instead, media is only concerned with how entertaining the news is to its public, and to that end, what content will keep a bigger audience. If that topic ends up being an event from a different part of the world over a local story, then so be it as long as it gains a larger audience.
Postman's "information/action ratio" refers to the interplay between the information we take in versus what we actually do with that information.
Thinking back, the last time I remember the news altering my behavior was in May of 2010. I had the day off from being a parent, as my son, his mother, and her mother were seeing the sights in Time Square. I got an alert on my phone regarding the bombing attempt, and I tried calling them to no response. I then hopped on the subway to see if I could find them. They were in the flagship Toys R Us, with no knowledge of what had gone on.
Other than that, I can't say I've changed my behavior once in my entire life due to the news. I often find myself asking why reporting on house fires in Scarsdale and robberies in Bed-Stuy has to do with my/our everyday life in general.
My answer tells me one of two things. One is that I'm hard-headed and obstinate. That is true, but after perusing my fellow student's comments, I think it may not just be me. There is a severe disconnect today between what is presented as news and what we should do about it. The "information/action ratio" is all out of whack. We have more information on more subjects than ever in this world, and yet there seems to be so little action when faced with issues and events that truly and deeply impact our world. And what of this glut of information? It seems to me that the definition of "need to know" news has been expanded concurrent with this nations waistline. All because we like our pap.
By the term "information-action ratio," Postman meant that the relationship between information the public consumes and what action, if any, they should be expected to take once learning it. He argues that before the media existed (telegraph, newspapers, radio, tv, etc.) people only received news relevant to their own lives. This meant people were more likely to act on the information they received because it impacted them directly. "The information-action ratio was sufficiently close so that most people had a sense of being able to control some of the contingencies in their lives” (69). However, with inventions such as the telegraph, people heard snippets of national news daily, what he coined as “news of the day”
In my life, news rarely causes me to alter plans or take some action. When I hear about local events, that is when I usually take action (i.e. protests, fairs, etc.) However with ‘serious’ news, the only action I usually take is to re-broadcast on WFNP’s news show as I am the News Director. I also repost things on Facebook. This tells me that even though the information passed for news can be important and serious, it is hard to expect everyone to take action on every issue, especially since a lot of the news probably does not impact the consumer’s lives directly.
The information-action ratio that Postman mentions refers to the balance of news that people of a time period receive and the social and political actions taken after receiving the news. Postman claims the invention of the telegraph marked the beginning of the progressive unbalancing of the ratio due to an overflow of information and a feeling of helplessness that ensued on the people. Before the telegraph, Postman notes that the ratio was close, which gave most people a sense of social and political control in their life. The news always seemed relevant; the local population generally received the same news and this lead to action.
Once news began to flow in rapidly from all over the nation (or even the world), severe events were brought to public knowledge too quickly for public discourse to take place or for any actions to be considered as solutions. This left the public largely helpless in facing the issues that were piling up constantly and eventually the senses of control and duty were replaced with disorder and apathy.
Another problem that prevented action from taking place was the lack of context in the news. Even if the public could sift through the fires, wars and political processes, the news would not always contain a clear message of why events were transpiring. This left the question of what could be done to prevent issues unanswerable for many.
Today, I can honestly say that news will not dictate my action with the only exceptions being causing local action or personal inaction. If news is local, I am more inclined to join in an event that is organized by others. Joining a march is much easier than starting one. I’ll also make plans and cancel them after hearing news that disturbs me, which is a random occurrence since I generally feel what I’d consider the standard apathy of my generation toward the news. With myself as an example, the ratio has become a completely inverse relationship. More news causes less action to the point of completely ignoring news and showing no concern which bears no action.
When Postman uses the term "information-action ratio" what he is referring to is the amount of information we, as consumers of the news, television, radio, etc take in verus the amount of action we take based on said news. In my own personal life I have to admit that ratio is probably 100 to 1 meaning that after reading one hundred news stories I would make one action based on one of the stories I read, and in that case the story I would act on would more then likely be something local or something that would personally affect me in some way. When reading the news or watching televison of any kind I feel a sort of distance from whatever is happening on the screen or within the words on the page. It is real, and we all know that , but somehow it feels a little bit removed like whatever we are reading will never impose any serious threat to our own personal lives. Although many of the stories we take in actually do have some sort of effect on our lives, they are sometimes not direct or immediate and so we do not view them as being a threat. However in the long run, these “stories” become more real and end up changing our lives and coming closer to us. I think what Postman is trying to get at is that the majority of people just watch and do nothing, and he feels that this must change.
When Postman speaks about the information context ratio he says that as the technology surrounding information evolved information lost its context. The telegraph started a trend of the quality of news being judged on its speed and distance. Postman states that for the first time information was sent that answered no question that had been asked, Before this Newspapers covered local stories which directly impacted the decision making process of the reader. This stripped away the function of information news previously had to have in order to gain attention. This was also the time in which the Associated Press emerged and a large influx of stories about things happening across the country. The author describes the change referring to Maine and Texas. These areas share very little in how life is conducted, but now news caused their to be a forced discourse. He even goes as far as saying that these two areas may not need a discourse at all. Without this context or purpose their action which was once attached to information began to be lost. The example is presented that a piece of information may be that Princess Adelaide had whooping cough. This made me think about the recent royal birth, and weddings. News outlets in
America covered this story for a long time in the journalism world. This information we were presented here in New York state serves very little purpose. This information will not affect any of our decisions or lifestyles. I’m sure in England this information is more useful since the context makes sense. Postman said that the reader of information now has the duty of attaching context, but the sender of this information holds no obligation at all.
What Postman means by the term information action ratio is when people hear about the news from whatever outlet they do so but do nothing about it. It may not be because they do not want to necessarily but sometimes there is nothing that one person can do on their own about some of the issues that we hear about. It is also what they take away from learning that new piece of information and if they change they way they live or act because of it.
There are times that I have seen things on the news and have chosen to take action because of them. A big reason I joined the military was because of the 9/11 attacks, I felt like I would be able to be a part of something bigger that would potentially stop all of this. There all smaller stories more localized that I know I can do something if I were to get involved. But I do find myself most of the time in the same situation as everyone else because the issues we face today are so large I’m not sure there is much I can do.
My answer tells me that we need to start getting back to reporting real news and informing people about important things so they will want to make a difference. If people are educated enough on serious issues rather than the fluff that we decide to report, maybe people will start acting more responsibly.
The "information-action ratio" represents the amount of information we receive via the news media, compared to how much of that information compels us into actual action. In the 24 hour, over saturated news environment not much goes beyond "peek-a-boo" revelations or analysis; we are introduced to an extremely complicated subject like foreign policy issues, and then "now this.." the news will likely move on to something trivial and or completely unrelated. Naturally people do not retain much of what they hear ,not that what they heard was enough in the first place. The example of the factory fire that Suzy used is a great example of this. People may have heard that large companies had their laborers working in deplorable dangerous conditions, but after a while we just seemed to forget about it, we continue on in candy land through the lollipop forest. How many of us are aware of the laws being worked on, passed or shut down, by our local state legislators? We may know a little about the hyped up foreign war or mall shooting of the minute, but not to many of us know about the less sexy issues that will be effecting our lives in a more direct way.
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