But it is not time constraints alone that produce such fragmented and discontinuous language. When a television show is in process, it is very nearly impermissible to say, "Let me think about that" or "I don't know" or "What do you mean when you say...?" or "From what sources does your information come?" This type of discourse not only slows down the tempo of the show but creates the impression of uncertainty or lack of finish. It tends to reveal people in the act of thinking, which is as disconcerting and boring on television as it is on a Las Vegas stage. Thinking does not play well on television, a fact that television directors discovered long ago. There is not much to see in it. It is, in a phrase, not a performing art. But television demands a performing art.
Neil PostmanTag: intelligence thinking communication television public-discourse
Of course, in television's presentation of the "news of the day," we may see the Now...this" mode of discourse in it's boldest and most embarrassing form. For there, we are presented not only with fragmented news but news without context, without consequences, without value, and therefore without essential seriousness; that is to say, news as pure entertainment.
Neil PostmanTag: technology entertainment news television discourse context presentation embarrassing fragment news-of-the-day
What we are confronted with now is the problem posed by the economic and symbolic structure of television. Those who run television do not limit our access to information but in fact widen it. Our Ministry of Culture is Huxleyan, not Orwellian. It does everything possible to encourage us to watch continuously. But what we watch is a medium which presents information in a form that renders it simplistic, nonsubstantive, nonhistorical and noncontextual; that is to say, information packaged as entertainment. In America, we are never denied the opportunity to entertain ourselves.
Neil PostmanTag: politics society america television huxley 1984 george-orwell orwell brave-new-world aldous-huxley
fuzzy black lines hiccuped across the screen.
James PattersonTag: television lines maximum-ride hiccupped
We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such people, in general, looked bad on television - gray, lined, thoughtful.
Alexander McCall SmithTag: youth television old-age politicians
Selling the presidency like cereal! How can you talk seriously about issues with half-minute spots?
Adlai E. Stevenson IITag: politics media television presidency
If we really exist merely to fulfill God’s plan: then life is a television drama; with God being the scriptwriter, the director, and, the audience.
Mokokoma MokhonoanaTag: humor life god religion humour television drama audience tv purpose-of-life director god-s-plan scriptwriter
A celebrity is an object that the media manufactures today, just so they have a subject tomorrow.
Mokokoma MokhonoanaTag: fame celebrity television magazines newspaper famous tv object subject the-media the-news
In saying no one knew about the ideas implicit in the telegraph, I am not quite accurate. Thoreau knew. Or so one may surmise. It is alleged that upon being told that through the telegraph a man in Maine could instantly send a message to a man in Texas, Thoreau asked, "But what do they have to say to each other?" In asking this question, to which no serious interest was paid, Thoreau was directing attention to the psychological and social meaning of the telegraph, and in particular to its capacity to change the character of information -- from the personal and regional to the impersonal and global.
Neil PostmanTag: society communication media television social-science telegraph
For good health, watch what you eat. For a good head, watch what you watch.
Mokokoma MokhonoanaTag: food diet health television intellect tv
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