AOTD Discussion Questions

• Postman suggests that all public discourse takes the form of entertainment. Agree/Disagree explain. What is "form"? How it the term used here?

• Why can it be argued that the "news of the day" is a symbolic construction? 

• How does the medium of communication which dominates a particular age influence how we think, how we communicate, and thus, influence our culture?

• What did Marshall McLuhan mean when he said "the medium is the message"?

• What is public discourse?

• In discussing the transition from a print to television based epistemology Postman uses the river as an analogy. How would you explain his use of this analogy?

• In the age of print why did public discourse tend to be characterized by a coherent and orderly arrangement of facts and ideas. What cognitive or intellectual capacities or skills are required of print which may not be required of a visual medium of communication such as film or television?

• What is "now this" world view?

• Why do we live in a "peak-a-boo" world?

• How is our understanding or the news, politics, education, sports shaped or influenced by the biases of television?

• Is television's bias toward the entertainment function of communication reflected in our major institutions i.e. education, politics, news, sports, family?

• What kind of conversations does television permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it produce?

• What are the upside and downsides of a television-based and/or print-based epistemology?

• What does it mean to say that television news is de-contextualized?

• You are the producer of a television news show how would you manage the form and content of the news in order to attract and keep viewers, in order to foster understanding, reflection and insight?

• What is meant by the credibility of a news presenter?

• It is suggested that "on television credibility replaces reality as the decisive test-of truth-telling". What does that mean?

• How does an audiences impression of the person presenting the news Influence their impression of the news?

Statements to Discuss

• Television now controls the flow of public discourse in our country.

• In the Age of Television our information environment is completely different from colonial America.

• Television presents information in a form which renders it simplistic, non-substantive, non-historical, and non-contextual.

• In our culture we are never denied the opportunity to amuse ourselves. The television screen always wants you to remember that the imagery is always available for your amusement and pleasure.

• Cultural life is slowly being redefined as a perpetual round of entertainment.

• Technology has both benefits and costs for a culture.

• New technology has the capacity to alter a culture's news, politics, social relations, commerce,, and religion

• Television serves us quite useful when providing pure entertainment.

• It is a threat to culture when it turns serious modes of discourse e.g. news, education, and religion into forms of entertainment.

• To combat the potential negative influences of television we need to educate people about the way in which a technology functions as a medium of communication and influence the nature, role, and function of information in a culture.

• Only through an awareness of the structure and effects of television, through a demystification of media, will we be able to gain some measure of control over mediums of communication e.g. television, the computer, electronic mail, interactive video and so forth.

• We need to become more media-conscious.

• How can we use education to control our technological mediums of communication?

• American television limits freedom of expression and choice because its only criterion for merit and significance is popularity.