Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Fachbereich Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Wissenschaftliche Seminararbeit

Thema:

Neil Postman - Amusing and Informing Ourselves to Death

Fächerkombination:

Politikwissenschaft (9. Sem. HF), Anglistik/Amerikanistik (9. Sem. NF), Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften (8. Sem. NF) SS 2005 Eingereich am: 30. September 2005

1. Introduction

The central topics of the works of the writer, educator, communication theorist, social critic and cultural commentator Neil Postman have always been the media, their different forms of communication and their meanings to people, society and culture. Any of his books was built around the McLuhan-question: “Does the form of any medium of communication affect our social relations, our political ideas, or psychic habits, and of course, as he [Marshall McLuhan] always emphasized, our sensorium” (Postman: 07/30/05)? Postman was aware of the fact that a new technology and therefore a new medium may have destructive as well as creative effects. During the history of mankind there have been tremendous changes in the forms, volume, speed and context of information and it is necessary to find out what these changes meant and mean to our cultures (Postman: 1985, 160). For him, it is a basic principle that “the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation” (Postman: 1985, 8). In the book “Amusing Ourselves to Death - Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” Postman examines, from a 1980s viewpoint, the changes in the American culture caused by the shift from the Age of Reason with the printed word at its center to the Age of Show Business with television as the central medium - or in simplifying terms the shift from rationality to triviality. Twenty years later, the situation has changed again. This term paper will make an attempt to answer the question what the new media, especially the internet, did to the modern (American) culture and to its public discourse. Obviously, Postman’s provocative title “Amusing Ourselves to Death” was just the beginning of a fast moving development since nowadays the modern media world seems to shape our lives under the title “Informing Ourselves to Death” (Postman: 07/30/05) or to use one of the latest terms “Infotaining Ourselves to Death”. ..First of all, the following chapters will examine the line of Postman’s argumentation which led to the conclusion that television has significantly transformed the American society into an amusement and entertainment culture. What has happened and what was the role of the media? Was this the beginning of a “Brave New World”? As a matter of fact, Postman´s theories and statements are not to be taken as unreflected truth. Subsequently,some critical remarks are to be made from a 21 st -century viewpoint. The second part of the paper will focus on

the modern media world of the United States. How does the modern American media market look like? What is the situation of the old and new media? Especially, the internet has to be examined in this section of the paper. Which effects does the internet have on the people and their culture? Does the multimedia age destroy more than it creates? Is the internet as a new medium a threat to the public discourse and therefore for our minds and our cultures or not? Is “culture-death” still a clear possibility as Postman saw it in 1985?

2. “Amusing Ourselves to Death”

2.1 The Theory: Medium, Content, Culture 1

Postman clearly refers to Plato in developing the idea that how we communicate strongly influences the ideas we communicate and this eventually makes up the contents of our culture. If we want to know what our culture is and contains we have to find out about its forms of communication. The media which are available to a culture always have a dominant influence on the formation of its intellectual and social preoccupation. There are, for example, significant differences between the oral culture of a traditional African tribe and the multi-media culture of western democracies. In the first one, information has to be transported from mouth to ear and therefore, only a reduced amount (the things that can be kept in mind) can be communicated; the content is often reduced to a here and now. In a modern culture with loads of technical possibilities, much more information and all kinds of information (e.g. political, scientific, entertaining, and trivial) with any character (e.g. written, oral, visual) can be recorded, filed, transferred, and replayed. The forms of communication of a modern society clearly enlarge the world and its experiences. Because of this, the forms of public discourse may always regulate and dictate the kind of content. “The form in which ideas are expressed affects what those ideas will be” (Postman: 1985, 31). And what we communicate is who we are.

Central to this approach is the medium - the form of our communication. Marshall McLuhan once declared “The medium is the message”. In his understanding, the medium makes a concrete statement about the world. Each

medium makes possible a unique mode of discourse as it provides a new orientation for thought, expression and sensibility. Postman goes beyond this notion in arguing that the forms of our media do not simply make concrete statements. They are rather like metaphors which classify the world for us. They enforce special definitions of reality, they may shape the experience of our world and therefore they may change our way of thinking 2 and through this, they create the content of our culture.

These assumptions lead to the conclusion that a new medium of communication always comprises a new expression, a new sensibility and a new thought which will recreate the culture it is set in. A new medium may cause a perceptual revolution and the transformation of our forms of thinking and the concepts of truth. “In every tool we create, an idea is embedded that goes beyond the function of the thing itself” (Postman: 1985, 14). Although it is generally realized that there have been shifts in the media landscape, people often do not think any further about consequences and meanings of these developments, so Postman’s criticism. There are essential questions which have to be stated and answered and this process will lead to a better understanding of the media: What is the certain medium? What kinds of conversations does it permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it produce? - “For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are” (Postman: 1985, 161).

2.2 The Age of Exposition 3

The name I give to that period of time during which the American mind submitted itself to the sovereignty of the printing press is the Age of Exposition. Exposition is a mode of thought, a method of learning, and a means of expression. Almost all of the characteristics we associate with mature discourse were amplified by typography, which has the strongest possible bias toward exposition: a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance for delayed response. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, for reasons I am most anxious to explain, the Age of Exposition began to pass, and the early signs of replacement could be discerned. Its replacement was to be the Age of Show Business. (Postman: 1985, 63)

From the beginning on, print has played a major role in the American culture. In the 17 th and 18 th century, the American society was a classless reading culture. The Americans were committed to the printed word, there was a very high literacy rate and the first newspapers were established as early as at the end of the 17 th century. “From its beginning until well into the nineteenth century, America was as dominated by the printed word and an oratory based on the printed word as any society we know of” (Postman: 1985, 40-41).

Print was virtually all that was available. A monopoly of the printed word was in existence and because of this, print became the model, the metaphor and the measure of all discourse. Postman emphasizes that the importance of the printed words is to be seen in the characteristics of the discourse it produces. Print and the written word rely on a lineal and analytical structure. Public discourse “tends to be characterized by a coherent, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas” (Postman: 1985, 51). Further on, the priority was given to an objective and rational use of the mind which resulted in a public discourse that was language-centered, contentladen, rational and serious. The process of reading was also affected by this. Reading meant comprehending. And for most people reading was both their connection to and their model of the world. “The printed page revealed the world, line by line, page by page, to be a serious, coherent place, capable of management by reason, and of improvement by logical and relevant criticism” (Postman: 1985, 61-62). Even oratorical performances were in their language modelled on the style of the written word. Especially, the political debates of the 19 th century are to be mentioned here as an example. 4 For most of the people of that time, the “use of language as a means of complex argument was an important, pleasurable and common form of discourse in almost every public arena” (Postman: 1985, 47). Therefore, the 18 th and 19 th century was stamped to be the Age of Reason and in Postman’s words the Age of Exposition.

The evaluation of the Age of Exposition by the author clearly points out that language and with it the written word has an outstanding position in his reception and analysis of the American culture, its public discourse and its media changes, especially in comparison with the following Age of Show Business which

changed public discourse substantially. Language with its capacities and intellectual requirements seems to be the unchallenged winner in a virtual ranking order of the various forms of communication. Postman is to be identified as a passionate “defender of the word” (Strate: 01/30/04).

2.3 Entering the Age of Show Business 5

The Age of Show Business had its dawn at the beginning of the 19 th century. The railroad system had already increased the tempo of the movement of information but only electricity put in service of communication eliminated the problem of space. By the mid-19 th century, public discourse and its contents had changed because of the new technology of the telegraph. The former function of information as something to serve in social, political decision-making and action was substituted by a new value of information which can be summarized with the terms novelty, interest, and curiosity. People were now able to communicate much more information over long distances within shortest time intervals. This new form of communication logically had influences on its contents. Context, coherence and relevance lost their importance. Public discourse and therefore the news that were transmitted were characterized by

Irrelevance - news from nowhere, adressed to no one in particular, there is no context

Impotence - news effect personal opinions about which you can do nothing, they do not lead to action

Incoherence - information not collected, explained or analyzed like in books but just moved.

The establishment of the telegraph had a significant influence on content and culture. Public conversation and its content predominantly were sensational, fragmented, impersonal, discontinuous, and summarized in slogans. The quantity and quality of the information which was fastly moved from one place to another was that people knew a lot of things without really knowing about them. Photography as complement to the flood of telegraph news, in Postman´s opinion, made it even worse. “Seeing, not reading became the basis for believing” (Postman: 1985, 74). The irrelevant content of the telegraphic news was given a

face or context by photography and this resulted in the perception that the combination of both of them was presenting a real and true event. The decontextualized information environment of the telegraph was now embedded into a pseudo-context - “a structure invented to give fragmented and irrelevant information a seeming use. But the use the pseudo-context provides is not action, or problem-solving, or change” (Postman: 1985, 76). The only way to make the useless information usable and useful was through amusement and entertainment; there was not much to learn from these kinds of information because of a lacking of meaning. Photography and the telegraph had set the key for a new kind of public discourse in America. Together, this ensemble of electronic techniques called into being a new world - a peeka-boo world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. It is a world without much coherence or sense; a world that is, like the child´s game of peek-a-boo, entirely self-contained. But like peek-a-boo, it is also endlessly entertaining. Of course, there is nothing wrong with playing peek-a-boo. And there is nothing wrong with entertainment. As some psychiatrist once put it, we all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them. (Postman: 1985, 77)

Telegraphy and photography as the major communications media of the late 19 th and the early 20 th century “called the peek-a-boo world into existence, but we did not come to live there until television” (Postman: 1985, 78). The Age of Show Business ultimately came into existence when television unfolded its power and became the most relevant source for the definitions of truth, knowledge and reality of the American society. Because of this, it has been thoroughly integrated with American culture. Television combined the main features and characteristics of photography and telegraphy. It raised “the interplay of image and instancy to an exquisite and dangerous perfection” (Postman: 1985, 78) and therefore, it brought their entertaining factors forward which eventually became content and culture of the public discourse in America´s Television Age.

2.3.1 Television = Age of Show Business

Postman´s analysis of the situation of the public discourse in the United States in the mid-80s comes to the result that television did not only fulfill communicative functions of a medium in a society but it has totally changed the American culture; it even became its culture. TV shapes the public understanding, arranges the communications environment and has become the command center of this

society. Its influence is present in any spheres of public interest. TV tells about the world, it shows the world and since the Americans have adjusted to the epistemology of TV it constructs the world. 6 It has become the teacher, companion and friend of the Americans - “America´s consuming love-affair with television” (Postman: 1985, 156). As a result, Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death. (Postman: 1985, 3-4) To understand how Postman came to this alarming conclusion, the essential questions which have been mentioned above need to be answered again 7 . TV is a beautiful spectacle and a visual delight. Thousands of images a day on screen offer a variety of subject matter. It only requires minimal skills to comprehend what is on TV. Another important characteristic of the medium is that it is largely aimed at emotional gratification and not at complex thought. It has always the commercial aim to reach as much audience as possible. It is entirely devoted to supplying this audience with entertainment since the formula goes: more entertainment is more viewers. Therefore, all subject matter is presented as entertainment, amusement and pleasure. “Entertainment is the supraideology of all discourse on television” (Postman: 1985, 87). The entertaining factor requires the integration of the values of show business in televised matters. Television presents performances rather than acts of thinking. Its language is fragmented and discontinuous as its shows are. Visuality is one of the main principles of the medium. It is important to achieve applause and not reflection. That is why pictures are much more important. They are more entertaining than contents or complex language. Not abstractions are brought into our hearts but personalities. The overwhelming position of entertainment in the production, broadcast and reception of TV “has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience” (Postman: 1985, 87). Coherence and context as basic factors of the Typographic Age have been substituted by a “now…this”-mode. Events are presented in short time intervals, they are seperated in content, context and emotional texture from what it precedes or

follows. Viewers do not have to do much intellecutal work since they are only rarely required to carry over any thought from one point to another. Postman´s central criticism on television and its outputs is not that they are entertaining but that the principle of entertainment has left the screen and it has intruded and taken command over any other spheres of public discourse.

2.3.2 Example News: Entertainment and Disinformation

The example of one of the main programs on TV - the news - will point out the typical character of the medium which has been summarized in the preceeding passage.

TV informs around-the-clock about the latest political, social, cultural, scientific, meteorological, catastrophic and any other thinkable developments and events. The news shows present this bulk of information in a specific way to attract as much audience as possible. Again, it is the entertaining factor that may activate most of the people´s interest.

The “now…this”-mode perfectly describes how news shows are structured. Loads of events are presented; and in their presentation they are fragmented, decontextualized, without value, without consequences, without essential seriousness, and short. Therefore, the news predominantly is a show and as a show it lacks the rationality and reason which were to be found in the printdominated world of earlier times. The news show is more or less a stylized dramatic performance with a content that has been staged to entertain. It is more likely that the audience has emotions than opinions. News shows on TV feature a different type of discourse compared to that of earlier times: this modern type abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction (characteristics typical for the print-based culture). An attractive newscaster reads the news, they are presented in fast-moving pictures, music is a current companion and before and afterwards you can learn about any kind of products by watching the commercials. News do not really produce any concern in the audience, although they are about serious events, changes, developments. Often only fast vanishing emotions will occur. They even do not encourage further thinking or personal action in the audience. That is not caused by the content but by the presentation of the news. Another problematic outcome of news shows on TV is to be found in

the new definitions of truth they produce. Reason and logic are not the main factors which command our concepts of truth and reality but the acceptability of the newscaster. If this person looks and appears credible we are likely to believe what he or she reports on. Coherence and context which were very important elements in the construction of reality and the perception of truth in the Typographic Age have lost much of their relevance due to fragmentation and discontinuity of the Television Age.

“The result of all this is that Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world” (Postman: 1985, 106). Postman uses the term “disinformation” when he argues that the Americans are actually informed about loads of things but often the information is misleading. Most of the information is misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented and superficial and presented in a simplistic, nonsubstantive, nonhistorical, and noncontextual form.

2.3.3 Example: Commercials

The TV commerical also influenced the American culture significantly. It has become an important paradigm for the structure of every type of public discourse. Until the 19 th century advertising was a serious and rational enterprise with the purpose to convey information and to make claims in a propositional form. Linguistic discourse had been the means and the basis for product decisions. TV made this obsolete. In the 1950s television commericals mainly used images and slogans to make emotional appeals and to stimulate the audience to buy several products. These commercials were no tests of truth, no exposition anymore, and they did not inform about the character of products but about the character of consumers. They were not about practical or functional applications of products but about the psychological needs of the viewers. The characteristics of TV commercials that are brevity of expression, vivid visual symbols, short and simple messages, a drama-like presentation, have been accepted as normal and plausible form of public discourse. Even political discourse has been influenced by the commercials on TV and their language. Commercials transfer less authentic product information; this information is very fragmented and sells solutions but no questions. It is almost the same with political discourse. Politics have become image politics which have emptied themselves of authentic political substance,

information is not collected and organized and there is no historical and ideological content. It is all about psychological effects and emotions evoked by charm, good looks, celebrity and personal disclosure and not about contents. The news and TV commercials are only two examples, besides the examples of religion as entertainment and education as entertainment which are also presented in the book, to undermine Postman´s argument that all areas of public discourse have become adjuncts of show business and that the content of communication has changed because of this. In the end, the American culture gets closer to the predictions and scenario described by Aldous Huxley in his famous book “The Brave New World”. “By ushering in the Age of Television, America has given the world the clearest available glimpse of the Huxleyan future” (Postman: 1985, 156). The formation of such a future will not be done by force as in Orwell´s “1984” but on a voluntary, unreflected and uncriticized way. Television is the best-serving instrument to pave the way into the coming age by packaging information as entertainment. In America, people are never denied to amuse themselves. What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. (…) When a population becomes disctracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possiblity. Postman: 1985, 155-156

2.4 Critical Remarks

The central theory of Neil Postman´s argumentation is that the dominant medium of a society determines the communicative exchange of this society and therefore its ways of perception, its forms of cognition and the contents this culture (Robier: 2000, 58). In the author´s opinion, man is the product of its media. This view clearly shows that Postman was a definite agent of a media-centered thinking. The mass media and what they mean to a culture are discussed without the involvement of social, economic or political aspects (Robier: 2000, 35). Although it is true that the media are a major factor in social change, the named aspects are not to be excluded from the analysis of a culture. Postman clearly states that it is not the content of a medium which makes up a culture but the form of communication and the public discourse it produces; still it has to be argued that

this content also has an important influence. Political thought, for example, has always been a major element of the setting and change of societies, even though the media and especially books were necessary to express, collect and transmit them. Liberal democracy might not have been possible without the book and the functions it fulfills (complexity of thought, rational and coherent thinking) but it is its ideas which made up our modern societies. We strictly stick to the principles of human rights not only because they were written down in our constitutions but also because they are what they are as a basic set of rules for our lives. Furthermore, Postman generally refers to the dominant medium of a society which makes up its culture. Obviously, this view is too limited. There have always been several forms of communication which had main importance for a certain culture and they never existed isolated from each other. The book and with it the printed word took over rulership from the 15 th century on and therefore had a great impact on the formation of our modern cultures but there also have been other media such as painting or music (which were also recorded in books and later on mechanic and electronic media). It cannot be denied that the different genres of both of them were an expression of the respective culture and also had an influence on its contents. The music of the 1950s and 1960s may be mentioned here as an example. The Beatles and Woodstock definitely had an impact on the western cultures, its looks and its contents. We are still discussing them today; quite often on television but not exclusively. Radio and the press also played a major role in the establishment of the pop, rock and hippie culture.

Obviously, it is not only one medium that can change our view of the world and it is not only the public discourse such a media produces which constructs and determines a culture. There are many more interdependent and interrelated processes between the different levels of public and privat spheres which are not taken into account by Postman.

To leave this theoretical path of discussion some more critical remarks are to be made here in referring to Postman´s statements on television. Seeing television as exclusively entertaining and trivial seems to be a bit too much of a generalization. There is no doubt that both of them are the major characteristics of TV but there are still others. First of all, television may not only change our view of the world in a negative way that lacks context and coherence. It extends our world since we learn about many things which are on the one hand far away, e.g. in foreign

countries and on the other hand hard to imagine, e.g. scientific inventions. It is necessary to differentiate the TV-shows in terms of the genres they are representing. A documentary has a different entertaining value than a game show. It is produced with regard to the principles of objectivity and authenticity and wants to give an extract of a real event or situation and still it needs to attract as much audience as possible. Postman critizes that the TV does only evoke emotions in people and no action. But only because people were so touched by news reports, documentaries and other broadcasts on catastrophes all over the world they could be activated to offer financial or personal support for those in need wherever they were (e.g. 9/11). The question of context is another point worth to be shortly discussed. It is understandable that the presentation of the news if only one single show is taken account does not provide much context. One picture follows the other on screen, so does the information as well. The brevity of the messages makes it hard for the spectator to think about it and often there is no real connection between news A and news B, C or D. However, if we think of the news reports that are shown over a certain period of time on a special topic there is a context to be found. Presidential elections in the United States are always accompanied by wide-ranging reports, news, live-broadcasts, historical programmes and more. All of these may provide a context for an average educated citizen.

The growing power of TV also resulted in reactions of politics, science and social groups (Ludes: 2003, 100). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a governmental agency created, directed and empowered by Congress and it “is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable” (FCC: 08/17/05). 8 In 1996, the American Congress ended most restrictions on full competition in media markets (Dizard: 2000, 99) which resulted in an increasing competitive environment for TV providers and that produced a wider diversity in programs. This diversity includes an enlarged quantity of entertaining and amusing as well as serious programs and does not have to mean that the ultimate outcome is the amusement to death.

Academic disciplines also started to discuss television and its effects, especially when the increasing professionalization of political events became obvious. In the 1980s and 1990s there were courses at school about functions and effects of TV programs (Ludes: 2003, 100).

The final point to be discussed in this context is the role and the character of the audience. Much has changed since 1985 when Postman saw a high danger for the reason and intellect of the modern television dominated and manipulated culture. Reading Postman one might come to the conclusion that people who watch TV regularly are lacking complex, individual and critical thought. (Which might be true for people who do not use other forms of communication and information such as radio, press, personal interaction but these people are only a minimal proportion of a society.) People have learnt from their experience with the media and especially television. Actually, there have been many incidents which have limited an unchallenged belief in the information it presents - Watergate, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars just to mention a few. The manipulative character of the medium and the lies it has told have often been discovered and resulted in a more critcal public attitude towards it. The dangers of televison have been widely discussed, even by television itself and many people have developed a media competence which enables them to a realistic judgement of the information provided. This competence also developed an ability to differentiate between information and entertainment and this resulted in a new media consciousness. These few critical remarks prove that Postman´s view of the 1980s cannot be entirely true. The author might have been far too negative when writing about the effects of the medium on the American culture, but there are still many stated arguments which remain valid. Twenty years after “Amusing Ourselves to Death” it is of importance to have a closer look at the modern media world extended by computers and the internet and what they mean to a culture.

3. Informing Ourselves to Death?

The American society and the societies of Western Europe in the 21 st century have become multi-media societies that have been described by the terms “Information Age” or “Infotainment”. These modern cultures comprise the old or older media such as books, press, radio and television and the new media which

are mainly computer media and forms of communication operated by computer technology. The following passages of this paper will give an overview of the consumption of these old and new forms. The new media are of importance, especially in connection with the essential questions repeatedly stated by Postman. Besides television´s role the main focus will be on the internet as the most influential new medium of the last decade. What is it? What kinds of public discourse does it permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it produce?

3.1 Mass Media in the United States in the 21 st Century

A study by a New York investment firm (Veronis, Suhler & Associates) of the year 2002 suggests that Americans spend more time dealing with the media than with any other activity, including work or sleep. The survey estimates that the Americans allot about 3,400 hours in a year to media which means that 9 hours a day are devoted to several kinds of media - television, radio, recorded music, daily newspapers, books, magazines, home video, movies in theaters, video games, online activities (Dizard: 2000, 17-19). The overall consumption of information goods and services plus that of the entertaining ones is typically higher in the U.S. than in other democratic countries. “Americans´ love affair with technology is one of the defining characteristics of their culture” (Pew Internet and American Life Project: 11/23/03, 2). Media industry in the States is large and diverse. There are more than 1,500 TV stations, over 12,000 radio stations, 11,000 cable systems and more than 15,000 newspapers and periodicals to choose from (Dizard: 2000, 2). These traditional and older media are expanded and complemented by the new media - computers, internet, mobile phones, DVDs, CDs and more new technology.

Amercans still spend most of their time to watch television. More than 98% of all households in the U.S. have at least one TV-set which receives about 100 TV channels. The average viewing time has increased up to 280 hours per week (IP Deutschland: 2003, 457, 460). In general, TV is declining but it is still the most powerful and pervasive mass medium in the U.S. It is also an enterprise which largely depends on the financing of the advertising industry and because of this, it needs to observe commercial rules. The logical chain is that TV has to produce

entertainment which reaches as much audience as possible. Then the advertising industry will pay money to the channel or network to place its commercials in these programs. As a result, the dramaturgy of a program is composed in such a way that there is a climax before each interruption by the commercials (Hans-Bredow-Institut: 2004/2005, 1086). These principles caused that the TV industry has often squandered its social and cultural potential but on the other hand it has also often recorded and shaped critical events in the American history, e.g. the civil rights movement, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam, Persian Gulf wars… (Dizard: 2000, 82). 9 In comparison to the 1980s, there have been some important changes in the TV landscape. The three big national networks ABC, CBS and NBC have been challenged by the establishment of new national networks and cable TV. The national networks which once integrated a solid national audience have lost much of their viewers and this led to a fragmentation on the market. Networks, cable TV and local stations find themselves in a more competitive environment with smaller audiences, higher costs and lower revenues. These circumstances supported a growing share of tabloid TV (Dizard: 2000, 84- 92) which mainly has to be entertaining and amusing. At this point, Postman´s criticism comes to mind again since the expansion of media channels and the competing for attention in a crowded market could be dominated by a narcisstic mélange of lightweight services which may advance our amusement to death (Dizard: 2000, 23). A short look at the most popular TV programs at the beginning of the 21 st century confirms this argumentation. An analysis of television in the post-9/11 era comes to the conclusion that the medium mainly has become “Feel Good TV” through which the viewers are increasingly seeking more escapist and feel-good programming (IP Deutschland: 2003, 37). Entertainment programs such as reality shows (more than 40% of the prime time schedule) like “Joe Millionaire” or “The Osbournes”, talent shows like “American Idol” or “Star Search” and factual entertainment which looks at the lives and dilemmas of “real” people like “Extreme Makeover” attract the highest proportion of the audience. Most of the shows are presented as events; they create a community of viewers who feel emotionally involved and they include wider media coverage than programs in previous years (IP Deutschland: 2003, 37-39). The top 40 programs on American TV belong to the genres sports, reality show,

sitcom and series. News shows only appear in the last quarter of such a ranking (IP Deutschland: 2003, 462). Nevertheless, it is still TV which is regarded as the most important news source by 88% of the Americans (Hans-Bredow-Institut: 2004/2005, 1089). The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has regularly interviewed the Americans about their opinion of the different media. The trend in favorability and believability of local and network television has been slowly declining without being dramatic. It is obvious from the numbers of the year 2004/2005 that most people (around 75%) feel favorable toward television organizations but a smaller number believes in what they see and hear from them (around 63%) (The Pew Research Center: 06/26/05, 3). Radio as an old medium in the American media system remains a powerful force. In 1998 more than 80% of the population listened to radio regularly, “a statistic no other mass medium can match. Radio listening per person averages three hours and forty-five minutes every weekday”. The main reasons in the continuing strength of the medium are due to the superior musical sound of the FM stations and the shift from mass-audience to specialized programming which attract many listeners (Dizard: 2000, 102-103). In 2004, about 40% of the Americans were regular radio consumers. Compared to the numbers of 10 years earlier when 47% regularly listened to radio to be informed about the news there has been a slight decrease which can be explained with the strengthened role of the new media in this sector (The Pew Research Center: 06/08/04, 7). One year later, a survey came to the result that one fifth of the American population uses radio as the main source of news (The Pew Research Center: 06/26/05,5).

Postman has repeatedly argued in “Amusing Ourselves to Death” that the literate culture has been attacked by TV and that typography has moved to the periphery which resulted in a declining seriousness, clarity and value of public discourse (Postman: 1985, 29). From a 2005-standpoint it can be clearly stated that Gutenberg is still amongst the American people and media despite declining tendencies. The printing and publication sectors remain comfortably profitable in the new millenium. There are 50,000 published books a year in America and the internet book seller Amazon.com, for example, could sell more than three million books in 1998 (Dizard: 2000, 10). In 2002, on average, an American was reading or using 357 hours per year consuming newspapers, books and magazines whereas the consuming time of television was about 1,575 hours and for the use

of online media about 49 hours (Dizard: 2000, 18-19). Generally, less time was spent for print-media activities and more time for audiovisual and internet activities in comparison to previous years. Especially the situation of newspapers is decreasing, although newspaper publishing plays a central role in the American media society since it has defined the standards and responsibilities of media long before the other mass-communications services came along. It is the newspaper files which contain the most complete written memory of American society. Nevertheless, “print journalism is now in a period of massive transition, challengd by present-day electronic media in the one hand and by newer, computer-driven information resources on the other” (Dizard: 2000, 157). In 2004 newspapers were the second most important news source for the American public (44%) after television (The Pew Research Center: 06/26/05, 5). Between the years 1994 and 2004 regular news consumption by reading newspapers has decreased from 58% to 42% (The Pew Research Center: 06/08/04, 7). It is mainly the younger generation which is decreasingly stimulated to read the newspapers. The industry, therefore, has reacted and tries to adapt to the world of mulitmedia information and entertainment with diverse offerings on the internet. All in all, print has become less important but the American society is far away from being a “paperless” one (Dizard: 2005, 152).

3.2 The Internet

Although the boom of the internet only started in the 1990s, its history goes back to the end of the 1960s when it made its first steps. Originally, it was developed because of military considerations which aimed at creating a central communication network that would also work in case of catastrophe or war. The American Ministry of Defense was the most important initiator of this project. Right from the beginning it involved not only military research insitutes but also universities. In the early 80s about 200 computers in selected military institutions, universities and enterprises were interconnected in order to exchange data. The use of email, which had not been intended in the original concept, also started at that early point. In 1983, the development of the internet underwent a decisive change - the military part of the net was seperated and an independent network was established. Since this network was mainly used by universities which were

free of charge this sector became the main motor of the development of the internet. In the 80s the internet was of an exclusively academic character. More and more enterprises got interested in this new medium and the first private providers offered access to the net. By the end of the decade the internationalization of the internet had begun. The decisive step towards the success was made in 1989 with the development of the concept of the “World Wide Web” (WWW). Three years later the WWW was published on the internet. Through “Hyper Text Markup Language” (HTML) the www-pages could be designed graphically - texts, sounds and pictures could be integrated. The hypermedia concept enable(d) the users to move between the pages by clicking marked texts or icons. Connections to further information filed on other computers anywhere in the world could be made. The real boom of the internet ultimately was initiated through the introduction of “Browsers” which facilitated the search for information significantly. The internet had an explosive growth of users which resulted in a changing structure of its use and users. The commercial sector discovered the advantages of the internet and soon became the strongest participant (Hans-Bredow-Institut: 2004/2005, 168-170). By the beginning of the 20 th century the internet has become a very important medium for the American population, especially for the younger generation. It is used for informative, entertaining and commercial purposes. Many of the nation´s teenagers “can scarcely imagine what the world was like way back when people weren´t always connected”. In many areas, the online world of the internet has become a mirror of the offline world. “People bring to the Internet the activities, interests and behaviors that proeccupied them before the Web existed”; it even stimulates new kinds of activities that no one ever dreamed of doing before. (Pew Internet and American Life Project: 01/25/05, 58). In 2002 about 80% of the American computer households which adds up to 40% of all households were online (Dizard: 2000, 6). The average person spent 55 minutes per day using the internet in 2004 and twice as much time watching television. Internet users, in comparison, spent more time using the internet (2 hours and 56 minutes) than they spent watching TV (1 hour and 42 minutes). These numbers have increased during the last years (Nie: 2004, 14). The Web has become the “new normal” in the American way of life - more than 60% of the

adult Americans used the internet last year (Pew Internet and American Life Project: 01/25/05, 59). 10 The No. 1 activity and time comsumer for the vast majority of internet users is email - 58 million Americans age 18 or older use it on a typical day. The second most important activity is information searching - about one quarter of the Americans in the mentioned age category named the internet as their main source of news (The Pew Research Center: 06/26/05, 5). Almost 30% of the adult Americans regularly used the internet in 2004 to get their news, which is only about 10% less than the proportion of those who regularly read newspapers (The Pew Research Center: 06/08/04, 7). About 70 million adult Americans go online on a typical day, 35 millions of them get news, 25 million check the weather, 24 million look for political news or information and 24 million do research for their job, 14 million do research for school or training, 10 million get travel information, 7 million get health or medical information and 6 million look for religious and spiritual information (The Pew Internet and American Life Project: 01/25/05, 58). The internet is widely used as an information-tool because it contains unlimited amounts of information and because it is a multimedia resource that can be easily handled. At the moment, the Web is a platform which supplies more sheer information than all of America´s mass media outlets combined (Dizard: 2000, 5). The third decisive activity the internet is used for is entertainment. Many people just surf the web without any specific stimulus (15%), others play games (20%) or use it to listen to music and watch movies (Nie: 2004, 10) or for downloading them. Chat and Instant Messaging are also entertaining activities on the internet. Furthermore, the web may serve very practical activities - people increasingly buy products online and use it for travel booking and for their financial activites (banking). To put it in one sentence “the internet is most of all a mail pigeon, then a library, then an amusement park, then a shopping center” (The Pew Internet and American Life Project: 01/25/05, 63). No other medium than the internet is able to make such a broad variety of activities possible, an instance which requires a discussion of the profits and dangers, the communicative behavior and the culture it is likely to produce. Neil Postman´s works had a significant influence on an increasing awareness of such topics and their actual treatment in academic and public discussions.

3.3 A New Love Affair

Americans are now doing with computer technology what they did with television technology. That is, they are not paying any attention to its psychological and social effects on the culture. They are just going ahead blindly, asking only, what will this new technology do? They are neglecting the question, what will the technology entirely undo? (Rubin: 2001, Aurora Online). Neil Postman already made this statement in an interview in 1989 but there is still some truth in it today. The rapidly growing multimedia market and the excessive consumption and use of new technology confirm that the Americans are living in a special relationship with the new media technologies. The rapid changes make it almost impossible to think about and to discuss their consequences for the people and their culture. As the preceding chapter stated, the internet was the most important factor in communicational and cultural changes in the United States and also in other modern countries.

The internet offers unlimited possibilities to communicate, interact, get informed, be entertained and amused, and to do many other things. Theoretically, anyone can get access to the virtual world and easily use it. In fact, it did not take much time to establish the Web as one of the most important and widely used medium. In matters of public discourse and cultural change, the internet has been discussed for a long time. The question of its influence on communicative behavior and character have often been stated and answered. The Web includes many traditional kinds of discourse and language and developed new ones (chat, instant messaging, icons…). It includes forms of public and also of private discourse. All characteristics of the printed culture as well as those of the television culture are assembled in the internet. Multimedia means that people can use it to read, write, speak, watch, and listen and they can do this at the same time using one computer. Multimedia is a combination and extension of older media. The problem is that it contains loads of information which possibly is just too much information. The users do not necessarily have to know how to handle this information; they only have to know how to click and scroll. Using the Web does not mean that you have to think about the things you see, read and hear; but you can. One could argue that it encourages more mechanical and practical skills (how to reach the aim as fast as you can in an unlimited world of possibilities) than analytical thinking (rationally working with the information found). In the end, it is not only the question what

the medium does with us but what we do with the medium. Are we controlling the computer/internet or does it control us? Postman might have answered that we are controlled by our media and we even do not recognize it. That would be another step towards the “Brave New World”. As long as we are discussing these questions, however, we have not come that far.

In cultural terms, the internet also has controversial effects. On the one hand, the society has become more fragmented. The internet allows for various activities and interests which do not depend on the social environment of a person. On the other hand, by acting as bonding and bridging agent it may create and sustain more community in a “global village”. It is much easier to contact people with similar interests and world views and to come together virtually. Geographically, distances may be at a maximum. As a result of a growing use of the internet and an increasingly virtual lifestyle, the values of a certain culture defined by the borders of a country or by a language may be less relevant to the people of that culture. In contrast, if we are far away from home we often seek to return to the world we know best and therefore appreciate.

It is probably helpful if we accept that our modern world consists of two different spheres: one with and the other without the internet. We have to learn to live with both of them since they have become the two realities which make up a modern culture.

4. Conclusion

Neither entertainment has killed us nor will information or infotainment. Postman was absolutely right in continuing the discussion what the media mean and do to our cultures. We cannot only use any medium, take it as it is and praise its advantages. It is always necessary to develop a media consciousness and to state and answer repeatedly the essential questions mentioned at the beginning of the paper. We have to be aware of the fact that a new medium may create and destroy; that it will always produce winners and losers. “Only through a deep and unfailing awareness of the structure and effects of information, through a demystification of media, is there any hope of our gaining some measure of control over television, the computer, or any other medium” (Postman: 1985, 161). This is what Neil

Postman tried to reach throughout his life and what this paper tried to do in a limited scope.

5. Resources

Literature:

Dizard, Wilson Jr. (2000). Old Media New Media: Mass Communications in the Information Age. New York: Longman.

Hans-Bredow-Institut für Medienforschung an der Universität Hamburg (ed.) (2004/2005). Internationales Medienhandbuch. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

IP Deutschland GmbH (2003). Television 2003: International Key Facts. Köln: IP International Marketing Committee.

Ludes, Peter (2003). Einführung in die Medienwissenschaft: Entwicklungen und Theorien. Berlin: Erich Schmidt.

Postman, Neil (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin Books.

Robier, Ingomar (2000). Die Wortkultur und ihre Widersacher: Kritik der Medientheorie Neil Postmans. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.

Internet:

Federal Communications Commission. „About the FCC“. URL: http://www.fcc.gov/aboutus.html (8/17/05).

Federal Communications Commission. “Television and Cable”. URL: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/broadcast.html#programming (12/06/02).

Nie, Norman H. “Ten Years After The Birth of The Internet, How Do Americans Use The Internet in Their Daily Lives?”. URL: http://stanford.edu/groups/siqss/SIQSS_Time_Study_04.pdf (12/30/04).

Postman, Neil. “Informing Ourselves to Death”. URL: http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Criticisms/informing_ourselves_to_death.paper (7/30/05).

Rubin, Eugene (2001). „Neil Postman: Stirring Up Trouble About Technology, Language, and Education”. URL: http://aurora.icaap.org/archive/postman.html (08/12/05).

Strate, Lance. „Neil Postman, Defender of the Word“. URL: http://www.rememberingneilpostman.com/Strate-Postman_camera-5.pdf (01/30/04).

The Pew Internet and American Life Project. “Consumption of Information Goods and Services in the United States”. URL: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Info_Consumption.pdf (11/23/03).

The Pew Internet and American Life Project. “Internet Evolution: How The Internet Has Woven Itself Into American Life”. URL: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/Internet_Status.pdf (01/25/05).

The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press. “News Audiences Increasingly Politicized”. URL: http://peoplepress.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=215 (06/08/04).

The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press. „Public More Critical of Press, But Goodwill Persists“. URL: http://peoplepress.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=248 (06/26/05).

University of Newcastle, Australia. “On McLuhan”. URL: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/school/design-comm-info/intranet/ems/postman.htm (7/30/05).

1 This chapter mainly refers to the first 30 pages of the text and includes the titles “The Medium is the Metaphor” and “Media as Epistemology”.

2 The invention of the clock, for example, created the idea of “moment to moment“ which can be set by man and not by God or the nature. It is not the technical aspect of the clock which is important here but what it means for a culture.

3 This chapter mainly refers to the titles “Typographic America” and “The Typographic Mind” on pages 30 to 63 in the discussed book.

4 Postman mentions the famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the 1850s in which the politicians spoke for at least one hour each using a literary style with lengthy and complex sentences as well as rhetoric means. He argues that the audience was accustomed to these performances which demanded a remarkable ability to comprehend and concentrate as well as considerable knowledge of the issue.

5 The following passages refer to pages 64-114 from the book and include the chapters “The Peek- a-Boo World”, “The Age of Show Business”, “Now…This”, “Shuffle Off to Betlehem”.

6 How TV stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged (Postman: 1985, 92).

7 „What is television? What kinds of conversations does it permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it produce” (Postman: 1985, 84)?

8 The FCC´s main task lies in licensing several stations on a particular frequency. “FCC rules generally do not govern the selection of programming that is broadcast. The main exceptions are: restrictions on indecent programming, limits on the number of commercials aired during children's programming, and rules involving candidates for public office.The Commission enforces regulations that were designed to ensure competition among cable companies, satellite companies and other entities that offer video programming services to the general public” (FCC: 12/06/02).

9 „For fifty years, current history has been defined for Americans largely through television images” (Dizard: 2000, 82).

10 Within the age group from 18 to 49 years more than 70% of the Americans go online (Pew Internet and American Life Project: 01/25/05, 63).