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	Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
		Postman next attempts to show “that a great media-metaphor shift (from typography to television) has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense.” The form in which ideas are expressed affects what those ideas will be.” (p.
		Postman refers to the period of time during which the American mind was “submitted to the sovereignty of the printing press” as the Age of Exposition.
		Postman dedicates the rest of his book to showing that “television’s way of knowing is uncompromisingly hostile to typography’s way of knowing; that television’s conversations promote incoherence and triviality; that the phrase ‘serious television’ is a contradiction in terms; and that television speaks in only one persistent voice-the voice of entertainment.
	www.intellectualconservative.com /article3933.html (1661 words)

	Cumberland Books: Neil Postman
		Postman's thesis is that childhood is a modern invention, developed in response to the printing press; but now that we are no longer a print-oriented culture, childhood has become irrelevant and is now nearly gone.
		Postman makes the case that between 1850 and 1950 there was a profound change in American public discourse, from rational to emotional, from thinking through issues to simply reacting to issues.
		Although Technopoly was not the end of Postman's writing career, it turned out to be his last important book, for a very good reason—he could no longer stand to write books which despaired of their topic and had no constructive advice to make.
	cumberlandbooks.com /neilpostman.php (654 words)

	Neil Postman Online
		A Tribute to Neil Postman, by Rob Mercer Schuchhardt.
		Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism, by Jay Rosen.
		Neil Postman's Criticisms of the Television Medium, by Jonathan Goldstein.
	www.bigbrother.net /~mugwump/Postman (355 words)

	January 12, 1998 - Neil Postman, Ph.D.
		Best-selling author and well-known cultural critic Neil Postman poses six questions for The January Series audience.
		The answers, he says, are individual and personal and not as important as the questions, which provide a defense against the intrusion of technology into our political, social and even spiritual lives.
		With characteristic wit and candor, Dr. Postman offers thought-provoking insight into our transformation from a society that uses technology to one that is shaped by it.
	www.calvin.edu /january/1998/postman.htm (138 words)

	Neil Postman: Study Guide
		Postman argues that the decline of education in the United States can be traced to a lack of vision, i.e., a narrative which gives meaning to the world.
		Ultimately, Postman argues, society needs a central narrative by which it organizes itself, one which "provides a sense of hope, ideals, personal identity, a basis for moral conduct, explanations of that which cannot be known." In the past, in the West, the Bible provided such a (central) narrative.
		Postman claims the idea that a "proper education" must have as one of its goals the cultivation of a skeptical outlook dates from the 18th century (p.
	www.ucalgary.ca /~rseiler/postmgde.htm (2273 words)

	PressThink: Neil Postman (1931-2003): Some Recollections
		Postman’s intellectual pose, as well as his poise in public settings, as well as his great gift, which was terribly good humor, came down essentially to this: the trials of a civilized man in a century of barbarism.
		Postman had a big audience and gave many speeches in Germany, where several of his books were best sellers during the 1980s, in part because there was so much in American life he simply rejected.
		Neil Postman was a thinker in the Socratic sense.
	journalism.nyu.edu /pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2003/10/07/postman_life.html (10704 words)

	Neil Postman: Technopoly - A Book Review by Scott London
		Postman has emerged in recent years as one of America's most eloquent and outspoken critics of technology and in this book he elaborates on themes that will no doubt be familiar to readers of his earlier books, most notably Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985).
		A "Technopoly" (a word Postman capitalizes throughout the book) is a society that believes that "the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency, that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment...
		Postman describes the rise of new "control systems" to manage information, such as statistics, opinion polls, SAT and IQ tests, etc. These are predicated on the fallacy that information can be scientifically measured and stored, he says.
	www.scottlondon.com /reviews/postman.html (526 words)

	On the Media
		In his many articles, books and lectures, Postman was passionate about the impact of television on individuals and society as a whole.
		PAUL INGLES: The principal legacy of the telegraph, wrote Neil Postman in his 1985 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," was that it generated an abundance of irrelevant information.
		Postman largely felt the same way about television which presented, he wrote, "a peek-a-boo world where now this event, now that pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again.
	www.onthemedia.org /transcripts/transcripts_101003_postman.html (548 words)

	PressThink: Neil Postman (1931-2003): Some Recollections
		Postman’s intellectual pose, as well as his poise in public settings, as well as his great gift, which was terribly good humor, came down essentially to this: the trials of a civilized man in a century of barbarism.
		Postman had a big audience and gave many speeches in Germany, where several of his books were best sellers during the 1980s, in part because there was so much in American life he simply rejected.
		Neil Postman was a thinker in the Socratic sense.
	www.journalism.nyu.edu /pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2003/10/07/postman_life.html (10704 words)

	Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism - Salon
		Postman's intellectual pose, as well as his poise in public settings, as well as his great gift, which was terribly good humor, came down essentially to this: the trials of a civilized man in a century of barbarism.
		Postman, world-famous media scholar, was famous among students and friends for refusing any technology thought to "improve" something in which he had never requested improvements.
		Postman had a big audience and gave many speeches in Germany, where several of his books were bestsellers during the 1980s, in part because there was so much in American life he simply rejected.
	dir.salon.com /story/tech/feature/2003/10/10/postman/index.html (909 words)

	Online NewsHour: Forum with Neil Postman -- January 17, 1996
		Neil Postman, author of "Technopoly, Amusing Ourselves to Death," and "The End of Education," debates the value of new technology.
		I tend to agree with Neil Postman that there is a definite limit to the value of new technology.
		Postman is no more than a contrarian, and probably making a good living as such.
	www.pbs.org /newshour/forum/january96/postman_1-17.html (2171 words)

	Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism - Salon
		Postman's intellectual pose, as well as his poise in public settings, as well as his great gift, which was terribly good humor, came down essentially to this: the trials of a civilized man in a century of barbarism.
		Postman, world-famous media scholar, was famous among students and friends for refusing any technology thought to "improve" something in which he had never requested improvements.
		Postman had a big audience and gave many speeches in Germany, where several of his books were bestsellers during the 1980s, in part because there was so much in American life he simply rejected.
	www.salon.com /tech/feature/2003/10/10/postman/index.html (909 words)

	postman
		Technolopy, Neil Postman’s diatribe on the technologic ramifications of modern man, is rife with emotional examples of man being overrun and overburdened by technology.
		Postman goes on to give terms to his three stages of technological society taxonomy: a tool-using culture, a technocracy, and a technopoly.
		What Postman fails to recognize is that, historically, the institutions that he sets as information barriers are themselves factories for creating and molding generic non-thinking people.
	pangea.tec.selu.edu /~phuang/695/postman.html (1714 words)

	Booknotes
		POSTMAN: One of the reasons, Brian, that I felt I did this book is that the last time we talked, as you suggest, it was about a book that was almost wholly devoted to television.
		POSTMAN: I went to City College, but then went on to the State University of New York in the western part of the state in Fredonia, which is a notorious place because in one of the Marx Brothers' movies, there's a place called Fredonia.
		POSTMAN: I think what most people would call Third World countries would be roughly what we might mean by a tool-using culture; that is, people whose symbolic world -- their politics, their religion, their education -- are not commanded and dominated by technology.
	www.booknotes.org /Transcript/?ProgramID=1115 (5359 words)

	Hum 1 Neil Postman
		As Postman observes, technopoly has succeeded in redefining "knowledge" and "reason" into something more like "information" and "familiarity." It is only when we reflect on this (something that technopoly never wants us to do!) that we realize the extent to which knowledge and information are different.
		In conclusion, Postman suggests that technopoly has succeeded in this campaign of redefining culture through the elevation of information by elaborating three aspects of its "infrastructure." These are bureaucracy, the emergence of expertise, and the evolution of information machinery.
		While Postman advances good points in the remainder of this book, his chapter on language as an "invisible technology" is probably the most important because, the least anticipated.
	www4.hmc.edu:8001 /humanities/beckman/hum1/Postman.htm (2027 words)

	Postman
		Postman: Well, the notion of childhood, while it might conceivably have a biological basis, is largely a social artifact.
		Postman: Well, for parents who are aware of what’s happening and who have the time and affluence to exert influence on the socializing of their own children, there still is the possibility of providing a child with a childhood.
		Postman: Well, I started to give an answer to that twenty years ago in a book called Teaching as a Subversive Activity and again thirteen years later in Teaching as a Conserving Activity.
	www.kenweb.co.za /postman.htm (2892 words)

	NYU Today
		Postman was appointed a University Professor in 1993, the only professor at Steinhardt to hold this honor and one of only 17 at NYU.
		Postman was known for his work, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Viking, 1985), which criticized the television industry for treating the world’s most serious issues and problems as entertainment.
		Postman was born in New York City on March 8, 1931 and grew up in Brooklyn an avid Brooklyn Dodgers’ fan, as noted by his son Andrew during the eulogy.
	www.nyu.edu /nyutoday/archives/17/03/PageOneStories/Postman.html (1075 words)

	Postman (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Neil Postman is the chair of the Department of Culture and Communications and professor of media ecology at New York University.
		Postman graduated with a B.S. from SUNY Freedonia, a M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia.
		Postman argues that “traditional education can create a rapport between student and teacher that is conducive to learning: radio,, movies, television, computers are all useful to teach us, but they are not a substitute for what has to happen between a teacher and a student for us to claim education has occurred.”
	www.coe.ufl.edu /webtech/GreatIdeas/pages/peoplepage/postman.htm (218 words)

	Dissertation Abstracts International - Free Dissertation Abstracts
		Neil Postman is an intellectual reviewer, lecturer of Media Ecology, and writer of several books on the subject matter of learning and technology.
		Technology, Postman divulges, is an ally however more often than not it is a "dangerous enemy" so as to "intrude" into a culture "changing everything", at the same time as demolishing "the vital sources of our humanity".
		Notwithstanding these limitations, Postman's explanation of the world like he perceives it does compel us to inquire about a lot of vital questions such as the position of technology and science and our relation to them, how they alter us and how we alter them.
	www.dissertation-abstracts.com /dissertation/sample_APA.html (1389 words)

	Neil Postman
		Wer mit halbwegs klarem Verstand den Sturzflug an Qualität in den Medien der letzten Jahre verfolgt, begreift, wie berechtigt viele von Postmans Warnungen gewesen sind.
		Die Medien, und nicht mehr die Menschen selbst, so Postman seien es, die durch lückenloses Werbefeuer und Entertainment das bestimmen, was wir erleben, welche Erfahrungen wir machen, was wir wissen, denken, empfinden und wie wir über unsere Nachbarn denken.
		Neil Postman war ein leidenschaftlicher Kämpfer für die menschliche Vernunft und gegen die Bevormundung durch die Medien.
	www.allaryfilm.de /movie-college/filmschule/medienpaedagogik/neil_postman.htm (670 words)

	Neil Postman's Major Works
		Postman takes an enlightening look at the long-term effects of mass media--how it transforms our world, and the ways in which the media onslaught can be challenged.
		Neil Postman describes the threats to childhood in America today, and what this disappearance means.
		Postman and Powers warn that anyone who relies exclusively on TV for a knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake and suggest ways to intelligently evaluate TV news shows.
	www.faculty.rsu.edu /~felwell/Theorists/Postman/MajorWorks.html (235 words)

	Flak Magazine: In Memoriam: Neil Postman, 12.30.03
		Postman even criticizes the sacred cow, "Sesame Street," because it "answered questions that weren't asked." He argued that once children love and trust "Sesame Street" and its characters, they become trapped by an emotional connection that leaves them vulnerable to a lifetime of manipulation by advertisers.
		Postman explains in the book's forward that "Huxley feared those who would give us so much [information] that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.
		Postman had a second critical success with 1969's "Teaching as a Subversive Activity"; In it, Postman advocates an "inquiry-based" mode of education that teaches students how to think instead of asking them to memorize random information.
	www.flakmag.com /opinion/postman.html (752 words)

	if:book: podcast: discussing neil postman's "building a bridge to the 18th century"
		Postman portrays the contemporary West as a culture without a narrative, littered with the shards of broken ideologies - depressed, unmotivated, and therefore uncritical of the new technologies that are foisted upon it by a rapacious capitalist system.
		Postman does not suggest that we copy the 18th century, but rather give it careful study in order to draw inspiration for a new positive narrative, and for a reinvigoration of our critical outlook.
		Postman seems to be assuming that progress is a law, that there is a directed narrative to history - problems with how he treats evolution.
	www.futureofthebook.org /blog/archives/2005/09/discussing_neil.html (1857 words)

	Flak Magazine: In Memoriam: Neil Postman, 12.30.03
		Postman even criticizes the sacred cow, "Sesame Street," because it "answered questions that weren't asked." He argued that once children love and trust "Sesame Street" and its characters, they become trapped by an emotional connection that leaves them vulnerable to a lifetime of manipulation by advertisers.
		Postman explains in the book's forward that "Huxley feared those who would give us so much [information] that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.
		Postman had a second critical success with 1969's "Teaching as a Subversive Activity"; In it, Postman advocates an "inquiry-based" mode of education that teaches students how to think instead of asking them to memorize random information.
	flakmag.com /opinion/postman.html (752 words)

	the New Pantagruel: Hymns in the Whorehouse
		Postman was the author of over 20 books, including the perennial best-sellers as Teaching As A Subversive Activity, The Disappearance of Childhood, Amusing Ourselves To Death, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, and The End of Education.
		Neil ate with vice-president Gore, spoke to the assembly at Davos Switzerland, and was the direct influence on Roger Waters’; (the former Pink Floyd lead-singer) stunning solo album, Amused to Death, a fact which single-handedly increased the enrollment numbers at NYU’s Media Ecology program.
		According to the best of anyone’s recollection, Neil Postman first uttered the phrase media ecology in public to a lecture audience in November of 1968, a fact I’ve always appreciated, since it was the month and year of my birth.
	www.newpantagruel.com /issues/1.1/schuchardt.html (729 words)

	Amazon.ca: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Books: Neil Postman (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Postman's theme is the decline of the printed word and the ascendancy of the "tube" with its tendency to present everythingmurder, mayhem, politics, weatheras entertainment.
		Postman illustrates this in the negative using the second commandment: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing in heaven above, in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth.
		Wondering why God would make such a decree, Postman infers, "it is a strange injunction [second commandment] to include in part of one's ethical system unless its author assume a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture" (9, emphasis his).
	www.amazon.ca /Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Neil-Postman/dp/0413404404 (2550 words)

	Education Resources » Neil Postman
		Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003) was a prominent American educator, media theorist and cultural critic.
		Inspired by the values of Classical and Enlightenment culture, Postman was something of an old-fashioned humanist, who in the face of extraordinary technological change in contemporary society held firmly to his beliefs that there is a limit to the promise of new technology, and that it cannot be a substitute for human values.
		Postman also argues that television is not an effective way of providing education, as it provides only passive information transfer, rather than the interaction that he believes is necessary to maximize learning.
	www.thecatalyst.org /resource/2006/04/21/Neil-Postman (956 words)

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