Thursday, September 26, 2013

Solutions?

In the last few pages of AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, Postman makes several suggestions for fixing the problems represented and created by modern media, particularly TV and computers. Do any of his suggestions strike you as feasible? Which one seems most feasible? Why? Do you have a suggestion of your own? You should. Please respond by 4 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 29.

15 comments:

Unknown said...

Of all the suggestions Postman gives, there are only two which are feasible, and they go hand-in-hand. The first is that people become aware of the effect media has become on culture, and more than being simply aware, they must question it, or “break the spell,” as Postman says. Questioning television media, how ridiculous the way in which “facts” are delivered to the public will, potentially, come to light. The second suggestion is to educate children on the effect media has on cultural practices. Although Postman says this may be hopeless, as he cites that many students would not know the history of the alphabet, I believe that its hopelessness does not lay in the history of television media. Media can be traced back to a specific year, a specific date, and the effect on American culture can be easily and tangibly traced. The twenty-four hour news cycle, for example, the dominance of entertainment over information in television, and the rise of “infotainment.” Postman's suggestion of parody, as discussed in class and as Postman predicted, has proven to be a failure. Satirical journalists are more relied on and trusted than real journalists. As infotainment rises, as news programs deliver supposedly hard news in increasingly entertaining ways to get audience attention, audiences will only see that what is considered “real” news is satirical to real news; they will come to see that there is no difference between Comedy Central journalists and CNN journalists.

The most feasible suggestion, then, is the suggestion that people become aware of the nature of today's media. While teaching cultural awareness in relation to media is feasible, I do not believe it will achieve what Postman desired when this book was published in 1985, and the reason is due to the expansion of the medium. Children in classrooms today, even more-so in the next five years, will be taught how media affects culture on computers, through research on laptops, Kindles, smartphones; thus, they will be learning these effects of media information on the very medium that is detrimental to cultural discourse. Teaching children how to be aware, however, is the most realistic suggestion Postman makes. Having an “unfailing awareness of the structure and effects of information,” Postman says, will “demystify” the technological medium. Awareness, questioning the mindless watching of television and internet surfing, teaching children to create their own opinions outside of media may possibly change how media is used. Although unlikely, using education to promote awareness may feasibly create a cultural revolution where the lines between information and entertainment are solidified when the public realizes that they have made such mind-numbing foolish news a reality. But this is only possible if children are also taught how to act on that awareness, not stand idly by as Klosterman writes of in his essay.

As for my own suggestion, the only way to solve problems of modern media is, once again, to solidify the lines between entertainment and news. To do so would mean needing to get rid of unnecessary segments, the purely nonsensical “news,” which was, arguably, created by the twenty-four hour news cycle. In television especially, programs are attempting to fill in news where there is not news, but rather entertainment. I believe a more limited news cycle would be beneficial, ensuring that the news told would be true hard news. This would not solve, though, the problem of the information-action ratio. While a limited news cycle would weed out more unnecessary infotainment, it may still not provide necessary context or the motivation for viewers to act on the news they hear.

Kaitlyn Vella said...

At the end of Postman’s book, he offers a few solutions to try to at least help mend the problems that our society is facing when it comes to television and news. One of the first things he notes before giving his suggestions, though, is that we cannot think that things are going to change rapidly. And we also can’t think that Americans will “shut down any part of their technologic apparatus.” He believes that if anyone was to even suggest that we do so, there would actually be no suggestion at all. I think this was a very good think to point out. It also relates to what Klosterman was saying in “Fail.” Regardless of how much we know that technology is hurting is, we’re not going to give it up. We can’t give it up.

One of Postman’s suggestions is to ban political commercials on television. He, though, states himself that this would never actually work. He just believes that these particular commercials are damaging to us and that we’d be better off without them. He also believes that television would get better if the things they showed on TV actually got worse. For instance, he believes it’s the shows that claim they inform and teach are the ones that are really hurting us. Shows that are purely for entertainment are doing just that – They’re entertaining. They don’t make claims that we’ll learn something from watching them and therefore the problems they impose aren’t the same. His two main suggestions, though, that I picked up on were to a) create television programs that seek to demonstrate how television ought to be viewed and b) go through the education system. If anything, I feel as though both of these suggestions would be feasible for different reasons.

Postman notes that the television programs that teach how television ought to be viewed should be done in the form of a parody like SNL. I feel as though this would help the older audiences realize the problems, while the education aspect would help the younger audiences. That being said – It would all boil down to how each suggestion of Postman’s played out. I don’t think that anything can really change people’s perspectives entirely, especially when they’ve been getting their news and entertainment these ways for many years, but it would all be worth a shot. My suggestion would relate more to Postman’s education suggestion. I think classes like the one we’re in now would be very beneficial for people to take. I feel as though media literacy classes should actually be required in college. If we’re required to take two sciences, art classes, math courses, multiple history courses, etc., then we should also be required to take a class on media literacy. Students complain constantly about how they’re not interested in the GEs they’re forced to take and that they’re useless in the long run, but a class like this could benefit virtually everyone who takes it because we all deal with media on a regular basis.

Unknown said...

I think that the most feasible suggestion would be to educate the youth of America. If it is ingrained in them at a young age, they will remember it when they are older. Parents, educators, and communities should be teaching children that everything on TV is not real, they have to do their own research, and set standards of truth and morality. I don’t think that this suggestion is desperate or unattainable. Children are really eager to learn and so its important to impact them while they are still listening. Adults tend to only hear and react to things that affect their own lives, children have their eyes wide open.

The other suggestion that Postman makes is to take TV away. Although, I don’t think that will happen, I think there is a way to achieve some of his aspiration. As TV is slowly starting to have other purposes in the home, the FCC and others can create new guidelines and require a higher standard of television. TVs are not just TVs anymore. They are often computers with internet access, recorders to watch shows, and probably much more that I am unaware of. In my opinion, they aren’t really TVs anymore and therefore need new rules.

I ultimately agree that the problem lies within people and not what people have access to. I think that has a lot to do with a lack of accountability, responsibility, and beliefs. People’s hearts are corrupt. They love money and tangible“things” that represent status.

My suggestion is a very unpopular one. (Being that we are a public state university and a liberal campus.) I think that more people should live for God. Not money, power, sex, entertainment, or anything else. I think that people should go back to simpler lives and cherish what’s really important in life. For example, quality family time or helping someone in need.

Unknown said...

The first suggestion Postman proposes to fix the many problems from the modern media is to have TV “dismissed all at once”, and the other is described as the only chance society has, and that is to televise how TV should be viewed. He even says, “We would all be better off if television got worse, not better.” Maybe suggesting that we would all pick up on how increasingly junky everything is on TV and find that there are better means of obtaining our information. For example, it has transformed us to believe that whoever is running for a political position, they must portray a certain image; Abraham Lincoln didn’t smile, and today this could have been conveyed that the candidate was unfriendly if they were viewed on television. It even applies to Postman himself of these contradictions, “It is an irony that I have confronted many times in being told I must appear on television to promote a book that warms people against television.” And this is funny, because even if people were going to attempt his first suggestion to accommodate the problems of the modern media, it would be televised. That also applies to his second suggestion, because Postman knows that in order to educate our society the downfalls of commination through the means of TV and the computer, you have to deliver it through the TV, and today the computer as well. This suggestion is the most feasible because at this point it is the only way of conveying his message. The hardest part is going to be acting upon it. Postman compares, “Whereas in a classroom, one may ask a teacher questions, one can ask nothing of a television screen.” I agree with Postman, that in order to present the problems from the modern media one must educate the people of the problems. But it should be presented in all forms so it is communicated through every medium of media. This is in hope that people will start asking the television questions.

Unknown said...

Postman's book ends with two primary suggestions about how the nation can deal with the problems of our technologically dependent culture. The first is the idea of using entertainment against itself with the use of parody. Our culture has wholeheartedly adopted the parodies of news programs as we've already discussed, and while televised news programs have lost much of their assumed legitimacy as a result, the parodies themselves have gained whatever legitimacy was lost in the eyes of the public. In this course of action, as Postman put it, television got "The last laugh."

Postman also puts forth the idea of using the public educational system to help people at least understand media from a younger age. While I think this is something schools should attempt more of (this class alone is likely a great help to students), I don't believe it can ever work since television becomes vital at a younger age than ever in our culture today. Television is teaching children before they get into preschool and children trust schools less and less now that they can't keep them as entertained as they are conditioned.

My own suggestion is probably less likely than either of Postman's however I would love to see this happen. Public discourse has disappeared as far as I am aware after twenty years in this culture. I think people need leaders who are persistent in bringing them together. If every two weeks, a respected community member held a meeting open to the public to simply have people discuss and listen to each other, people might actually learn something. Gaining attendance would require persistent effort but if you could fill a church-sized hall every week for religious purposes, the same should go for non-religious purposes as long as you can get people to feel a sense of duty. With attendance comes the social discourse that would fill the town afterward. Having local politicians, religious leaders and business owners encourage participation would be key. The only mountain to climb would be people's laziness and apathy.

Suzy Berkowitz said...

Postmans solution to what modern media is doing to our television is to provide television shows that educate people in how to properly watch television and gain information from it. Likewise, his solution is to use schools and education to ask how we can use education to control television instead of the other way around. I think if these solutions were incorporated fully into education, they might work, however everyone's view of television is so deeply-rooted that it may be difficult to break the cycle.

DavidSymer said...

One of Postman’s suggestions is the creation of parody shows. This was a fairly accurate prediction— with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report leading the parody TV news charge. These shows have also fallen victim to television just as Postman predicted. In order for the parody shows to accumulate an audience they had to broadcast content that was primarily entertaining. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have also both become celebrities through their parody shows. This proves that parody shows are an unlikely solution to problems of modern media.

The most feasible solution is unlikely itself. I still think Postman is on the right track when he suggests integrating language history into school curriculums to give people more awareness of the virtual reality of modern media as opposed to physical reality, and the effects of communication changes throughout history. He says most teachers wonder how they’ll integrate technology into their education when they should be asking how to integrate education into the new technologies of modern media. I think the point Postman is trying to make is that our media controls us (whether we’re aware of it or not) when we should be the ones controlling our media. The target goal of demystifying media seems unrealistic to me. I think peoples’ current trust in media is too far ingrained from too early of an age to convince people otherwise.

One idea I’ve thought of to solve the problem is a mass viral video campaign along the lines of the short film Charlene deGuzman’s wrote entitled “I Forgot My Phone.” The major difficulty after raising awareness of the problems of modern media is calling people to action. In order to get the message out, the videos couldn’t be too long and they would have to be entertaining. Like Postman predicted, I think the viral campaign would fail because when it got time to be serious and do something about it, people would simply move along to another app on their iPhone, blissfully unaware of the world around them. Or maybe I’m just a pessimist.

Abbott Brant said...

I enjoyed Neil Postman’s ending to “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” because I think his proposed solutions, and acknowledgment of lack thereof, highlighted some of his main arguments throughout the piece, and passed the issue on to the reader as to say, “now go do something about it” – the very thing Postman argues the media no longer does.

My reaction to his proposed ideas is actually well summed up in his preface to his proposals: “In the first place, not everyone believes a cure is needed, and in the second, there probably isn’t any.” Regardless of what solution Postman proposes, it’s probably not going to occur. And that’s not knocking the validity of his ideas, it’s simply the lack of likelihood that others will except them and act upon them. Millions of people know that smoking is bad for your health, and it would be a good idea to stop, but they don’t. Although Postman argues this current day media, with its intermingling of fact and fiction, is cancerous to intellect, people wouldn’t care, even if they knew. Because of this, I don’t really have my own answer to this vast question. I’m pretty pessimistic about it. Although, I did find weight in one of Postman’s solutions.

The first idea Postman has would be to play on the fact that people don’t understand this dilemma, by not directly teaching them (that would scare them away, of course) but to feed them this ideology by mixing it in to television shows that would shed light on the issue by making fun of it. But shows like this already exist, and Postman argues that viewers can laugh at themselves without really understanding what they’re laughing at – they’re laughing their ignorance, because of a show that is promoting more of their ignorance. I agree with Postman that because of this, this method would never work and would only cause a more vicious cycle.

Postman’s second idea better acknowledges the fact that “no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are,” which I believe to be the key here. His idea is to basically instill a level of news consumerism into what I assume would be the English or sociology areas of the public school system. People will undeniably still consume the media that our media will undeniably continue to create, so the best we can do is teach people how to understand what they are watching and separate our the reality from the farces. Will the level of education necessary for this to be a success always be upheld? Definitely not. Will all students who partake in these classes understand and apply what they learn to the media they consume? I promise you they won’t. But it seems this I the only feasible option that can have some impact, and I would support and encourage it to take place, and I think we are already taking the first steps of this idea. My younger sister is currently a freshman at Stony Brook, and is taking a journalism class as an elective for “an easy A.” She calls me panicked one night because she doesn’t understand how everything is so connected and who could let this happen and how the media numbs our minds and how “scary” it all is. I told her no shit and hung up the phone, and realized that that sort of uneasiness and concern would be the only thing that’s going to change our relationship we have with our media.

Jen_Newman said...

Postman makes several suggestions for fixing the problems represented and created by modern media, particularly from television and computers. Even though he has many ideas about how to solve our technological lifestyle, he also admits they are unlikely to work because of our deep saturation with it. He notes that a culture does not tend to turn against technology.

However, some of Postman’s suggestions are feasible and important. He suggests that we become aware of what modern media is and of the biases in television in order to control it rather than letting it control us. This is better said than done, but one suggestion that Postman presented seems the most feasible: using public education.

I agree with Postman that teaching children at a young age at the least how the media works than they would not be as ‘brainwashed’ and influenced by it as they grow older. I think this is especially vital with the upcoming generation because they are increasingly more reliant on technology at a younger age. When I was growing up the closest thing I had to an ipad was a windup Pocahontas toy that played music. If the use of constant technology is engraved in them at a young age, it makes it that much harder to change them later.

Another suggestion he made that I think is feasible, is teaching how television ought to be via the use of parodies like Saturday Night Live. At the same time he wants television to be seen as purely entertainment, arguing that the programs that claim they are educating you are the ones that really do harm (i.e. political commercials). I think all of these suggestions tie back to education, which seems the most feasibly because everyone goes to school and it is the perfect medium to teach awareness rather than eliminating television all together.

Women only own a small fraction of the media, causing most of what is seen on television to take a male-biased point of view. I suggest forming some sort of quota as used in European countries in politics for the media. This does not necessarily have to be a quota to have more women in charge of television, but rather a quota for a certain amount of accurate and fact-checked programming with no commercials (PBS on a larger scale). I also suggest something mentioned earlier in the readings: before each media broadcast, a symbol or other form of warning be played putting the content in categories to ensure public knowledge of the program whether it be entertainment or news.

Unknown said...

I think Postman's best suggestion is that education is key when combating misinformation and the overtake of infotainment. It is important to teach the students how to critically view information which is presented to them. Students need to look at the sources of the information, who paid for the information to be brought to you. If these values are instilled early then we can minimize the negative effects media has on the progress of culture. Also I do appreciate that Postman feels satire is an appropriate way to point out the inconsistencies of the media. My personal suggestion to aiding in this problem is that we need to revisit our laws limiting monopolies. The concentration of media ownership is just far too high. It limits the market place of ideas. Without fresh opinions our ability to consciously and accurately process the news presented to us is diminished.

Unknown said...

Postman brings up two different ideas that I think could potentially work if used together, but educating our society is the one that is more feasible given our societies reliance on television. I think getting rid of TV altogether is something that we could take from and possibly go back to when TV turned off at night, maybe except for news. This would limit the content that is currently on television and people would be more likely to choose a program that is more educational or informative rather than watching “reality” shows. The more educated a society is the more willing they are to watch programming with a more informative stance which in turn would educate them even further. If we raised children on limited television and only exposure to educational programming (not sesame street as postman says) they would grow up with the same mindset and seek to be more informed.

Unknown said...

Postman relies on two main solutions to the problem in his book. His first and in my opinion, the easiest solution to accomplish, he gives is to educate the youth of America. Making people aware of how media and technology is affecting us is the most feasible in my opinion because I think word of mouth is a great form of spreading ideas. One person makes another person aware of the problem and they tell a few more people that makes a chain and spreads the word. Postman argues that the public education system is a great solution to solving the problem and making people aware of the negative effects of technology. I agree as I think that information is easily spread throughout public school.
His second solution is to use technology against itself. Using news parodies and skits such as Saturday Night Live would help slow down the problem. Also, the news parodies we talked about in class are good examples of how technology can be used against itself.
Personally, even though this will never happen, I think that government intervention would be a good start to solving the problem. It would not be feasible but if technology growth was somehow limited so would the effects.

Unknown said...

Postman says that both having a greater awareness of the effect of media and educating people earlier as to the tricks used in media as well as using the media against themselves, similar to how The Daily Show operates.

I think that the further education of people as to how it works is the most useful suggestion Postman posits.

I also feel that, as more of the old guard retires or dies, new media will be taken more seriously. New media allows for the dialogue that Postman has issue with regarding the screen.

Unknown said...

In the last few pages of AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, postman suggests a number of solutions to the problems that he has outlined throughout the book. The main problem is essentially that we have become victims of telegraphy and unable to realize how susceptible we have become as a culture to any message that comes through our television. However, Postman suggests that by understanding the dangers posed by completely trusting television and by asking questions such as “how do different forms of information persuade” and “ what is the relation between information and reason”, society would be able to understand the structure of the media and how its information impacts us as a whole.

This proposal strikes me as very valid, because some of the problems that I see are a direct result in a lack of understanding where the information comes from. If more people understood the fact that a majority of news that is broadcast has some form of bias behind it, and if they understood the reason for this bias, they would better understand the context of the information and its true meaning. Also, it this suggestion would be relatively easy to implement, in part because it would not require people to all together change their media habits, just to better understand the motives behind the media.

A suggestion of my own to attempt to solve this problem of blindness to the media’s true influence over us as a society is to stop the bombardment of children with media. Children have no idea that they are being marketed to at such a young age. So, when they constantly see images of fun and colorful characters such as Elmo, they liken that image to good and pleasant feelings and will be more likely to listen to or buy products and information concerning any message from Elmo. While this example is more applicable to the marketing of consumer goods, the idea that children are susceptible to media is more universal. When a child has grown up being fed media from a young age, they are used to its messages and even crave it as a comfort, instead of being able to think and act for themselves.

Edward Ramin said...

Television, and screen technologies have insinuated into almost all aspects of modern life; they perversely drive the content of public discourse, the development (and dismantlement) of culture, and most importantly, consumer decisions. For the most part, this complete paradigm change has gone forth widely accepted as a natural and benevolent social progression. Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death , does an excellent job of demythologizing media as something to be taken as “a given.” This book is certainly an agent of his second and most legitimate solution to the problem- to incorporate media consciousness (media questioning) as a central part of institutional education. Of schools, Postman says: they ask “How can we use television (or the word processor or computer) to control education? They have not yet got to the question, How can we use education to control television (or computer, iPhone)?” You see this now when school districts make enormous purchases on I-pads, but students go through twelve years of public education without the briefest form of enlightenment on how they’ve been prepped since preschool to be entertainment gluttons and consumer zombies. If a less perceptive student is lucky, he or she might glean that rude awakening in 11th grade by reading Postman or Huxely’s Brave New World -- that is, if the quick and effective school I-pad hasn’t decimated the students attention span so much already that the student reverts to reading the spark notes on the I-Pad for a quick “understanding” of the plot and a complete misunderstanding of its message.
It seems we are already in too deep, but..
If it is going to work, Postman’s second solution would have to bring about widespread substantive curriculum changes, which would involve media literacy, media ethics and de-mythology of media as concepts to be ingrained in American education. This would involve multiple middle-school and high-school required classes that cover these topics.
When an individual is aware of how the media affect him or her, the media’s effect will be less potent (right?). It’s certainly not a fix all answer to anti-intellectualism, mass apathy, and endless amusement, but, it would be a start.