Wir amüsieren uns zu Tode

taschenbuch, 206 Seiten

Sprache: German

Am Mai 1990 von Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag veröffentlicht.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) is a book by educator Neil Postman. The book's origins lay in a talk Postman gave to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1984. He was participating in a panel on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and the contemporary world. In the introduction to his book, Postman said that the contemporary world was better reflected by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, whose public was oppressed by their addiction to amusement, rather than by Orwell's work, where they were oppressed by state violence. Postman's book has been translated into eight languages and sold some 200,000 copies worldwide. In 2005, Postman's son Andrew reissued the book in a 20th anniversary edition.

11 Auflagen

valerie hat Amusing Ourselves to Death von Neil Postman besprochen

very good

4 Sterne

i think it's interesting how the foreword by A. Postman is essentially half justifying the book for the "modern" (2006) condition of film and entertainment. i fail to necessarily see the use in that, though maybe the average reader is less convinced of that point.

it's pretty good, and it (obviously) argues well the points it makes, though it's quite american-centric, not only in terms of references, but also in terms of how it relegates the ways that Orwell's predictions have actually come true, and it is certainly a product of a more optimistic viewing of the media culture where 1980s US news media wasn't under the thumb of the White House.

the introduction of this book is, for some reason or another, filled with testimonials from students. unclear if they were taking an advanced high school course or were in college, but, i must wonder, is that …

i think it's interesting how the foreword by A. Postman is essentially half justifying the book for the "modern" (2006) condition of film and entertainment. i fail to necessarily see the use in that, though maybe the average reader is less convinced of that point.

it's pretty good, and it (obviously) argues well the points it makes, though it's quite american-centric, not only in terms of references, but also in terms of how it relegates the ways that Orwell's predictions have actually come true, and it is certainly a product of a more optimistic viewing of the media culture where 1980s US news media wasn't under the thumb of the White House.

the introduction of this book is, for some reason or another, filled with testimonials from students. unclear if they were taking an advanced high school course or were in college, but, i must wonder, is that what Andrew thinks the target audience of this book in 2006 must have been?

there were a lot of theorists, and theories, for that matter, included name-dropped in the book (Ong, McLuhan, several early media theorists, Mumford), but they, aside from maybe McLuhan and Ong, don't get much more mention in the book. this is probably a good thing overall for the book's readability, but it frustrates me because Mumford, somebody who i'll definitely find interesting provided i actually read him, is barely mentioned.

another incoherent review. ah well.