Postman describes television as an ideology that has negatively altered the way Americans communicate by shifting our culture from a literate, thoughtful and well-read people to one that passively absorbs information from non-contextual imagery and sound bites. He likens television to the devastating "soma" in Huxley's Brave New World and much closer to reality than Orwell's dark predictions. Fascinating read. You will never look at television news the same way. ( )

Sometimes insightful, sometimes frustrating. Nobody gets it all right, but Postman does seem to have a rather idyllic view of early American life, into which slavery never seems to factor. Interesting.

But, as someone who is not a fan of televised news, I nodded a bit in the politics chapter. ( )

Sometimes insightful, sometimes frustrating. Nobody gets it all right, but Postman does seem to have a rather idyllic view of early American life, into which slavery never seems to factor. Interesting.

But, as someone who is not a fan of televised news, I nodded a bit in the politics chapter. ( )

Sometimes insightful, sometimes frustrating. Nobody gets it all right, but Postman does seem to have a rather idyllic view of early American life, into which slavery never seems to factor. Interesting.

But, as someone who is not a fan of televised news, I nodded a bit in the politics chapter. ( )

Starting by reading the introduction, I thought that will be again one of those prophetic books about media and television flying over the top and forgetting about the inner problem of visual media usage. Not at all, the book is incredible and really dig into the issue of our society moving "away" from typography for going into visual and short-term visual events. The book is well structured and covering very well the aspects of short-term visual communication. The text written in 1985 is still very valuable and even provides an insightful perspective to our Today's society of entertainment (as somehow defined by Aldous Huxley or by Guy Debord). An interesting reading opening the doors to interesting discussions about media and our society. ( )