In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Portman explores the connections between human communication and culture in America. One idea that really struck me from Portman’s work was the notion that a great media-metaphor shift has occurred in the United States, making much of our public discourse “dangerous nonsense” (16). When I read this, my thoughts immediately drifted to interactions with social media and news outlets. Anymore, I feel the need to fact-check anything I read (more so than previously), as most media outlets are confusing jumbles of word vomit. In order to actually get a sense of what is going on around myself these days, I have to actively be engaged with the media I am intaking and consciously challenge what I am hearing and reading.
The scary notion that Portman’s work brings up is that this is not a common practice. Most individuals take the media at their word, and in a way, amuse and entertain themselves into a blind oblivion. This can be seen in the battering of social media that has now become our main source of news. People rely on their apps and platforms for what they deem reliable information, but as we have addressed in class, our news feeds are often catered to our interests, views, and opinions.
With the upcoming elections this fall, it genuinely feels as though now more than ever our relationship with media is increasingly high-stakes. What do you all think? Do you think the average citizen has a critical relationship with their media intake, or are we creating spaces for media to become a version of control and/or “amusing ourselves to death”?
Hi Abbie,
ReplyDeleteI agree that it’s definitely scary that less and less people are fact checking the news anymore. It was even scarier when Postman brought up the New York Times article, “Reagan Misstatements Getting Less Attention” (p. 108). It seems like our current post-truth political climate has been been on a steady uphill trajectory since at least the 1980’s, in part because of the displacement of the typographic age and the type of critical thinking skills that accompanied it.
I think if we can start to educate a new generation in schools (p. 162), as Postman suggests in a desperate attempt to combat the age of dangerous nonsense, we may be able to cultivate a new kind of critical thinking skillset that allows us to engage with television (and the digital) critically insofar as we have to actively discover what we can or cannot believe. In that way, maybe we can recreate an American culture where information sparks action, is taken in context and has meaning, relevance, potency and coherence. Though I won’t hold my breathe.
Hi Abbie,
ReplyDeleteI agree that social media has become a barrage of false information and contorted stories with the aim of swaying an audience one way or another instead of letting them form their own opinions. The media can barely be trusted, whether they lean left or right politically. I'm honestly exhausted with the incredible bias I witness on social media.
I think one of the main problems here is that we've become passive in our own media consumption. We spend hours in front of the TV and mindlessly scroll through our social media apps. We tend to skim instead of really reading and critically thinking about what we are consuming. I agree with Postman in his last two chapters: this change begins with education reform. Students are so overloaded with homework and assignments that they are skimming through what they read. They see that they can get by in this way, so it becomes a permanent habit and continues onto other things they consume. We've created a culture of skimming and the media has played on this by shortening and condensing important information, depriving us of the real picture. We've almost become unable to form our own thoughts and opinions, content to let the media do the thinking for us. Although I'm not sure how to fix this, I hope we can turn it around in time.
I do not think the average American has a critical relationship with ANY of the information they consume. For instance, I know an older dude who watches Fox News 24/7 (b-b-b-but they're fair and balanced! They say so!) and follows only conservative/far-right pages on Facebook. The amount of disinformation this dude shares online is absolutely staggering. Folks of a brighter mind will leave links to sources that discredit the OP's post and he'll disregard them as fake news.
ReplyDeletePostman was right but I don't think even he could've foretold the information war zone we find ourselves in now. It's hard for me to see a way out of this but I think we, the educators, are the ones to address this issue head on, as Postman states in chapter 11.
Hi Abbie,
ReplyDeleteI'm really bothered (but I agree with you! Not a criticism!) by your statement about people consuming news without checking it out because you're absolutely right. I go back to what I said in class that week about a former student making a HUGE post about something to do with COVID being fake or something along those lines, and then having to take that down because this young person just assumed it was good/true without checking it out. I think what needs to be addressed here though is the presentation of these things that make them seem credible. Technology and..acting?...has made it hard to distinguish between the two. This person I'm referring to is a very smart human being, but also one who had an agenda before she ever posted it, so what are facts to her if she can find something that she already agrees with?