Postman Opportunity

Chapter 1-"The decline of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television". This is exactly what is happening in today's world. Politics are even being broadcast and using technology and entertainment to win over the hearts and minds of voters today.
Chapter 2-"I am arguing that a television-based epistemology pollutes public cocmmunication and its surrounding landscape, not that it pollutes everything." Once again, this is 100% true. Television is definately changing the way people look at life and the world around them. Almost everyone uses television today and it has created a large impact on our lives but it hasn't gone so far as to "pollute everything".
Chapter 3-"America was as dominated by the printed word and an oratory based on the printed word as any society we know of." Now in the twenty-first century, technology is beginning to dominate American culture. Postman reveals this throughout the whole book that society needs to be careful with all of this technology becasue we may start to lose our communication skills. It is already happening in schools that are using so much technology and going away from the concrete material such as textbooks and writing over to computers and typography.
Chapter 4-"Is there any audience today that could endure seven hours of talk?" This is where I disagree with Postman. If there was a speaker that appealed to the intrests of a group of people, then they would definately be able to listen to someone for that amount of time. If it didn't intrest someone then, obviously, they wouldn't want to listen to someone for 7 hours straight. For example any big college basketball fan, especially intrested in coaching, could most likely listen to Coach K speak for a whole day.
Chaper 5-"The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing." Everyone has an opinion about everything and the news stimulates these conversations and controversies. You can talk all you want about it, but really it doesn't matter what you say cause your opinion really doesnt matter! Everyone wanted Rich Rod to be fired and it was talked about on the radio all the time but the Michigan AD didn't care what they thought. He was simply thinking who is the best coach for the University of Michigan? The public talked and talked just like many other news topics, but really, it doesn't matter in the long run.
Chapter 6-"The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining, which is another issue altogether." In today's world, people find literally everything to be entertaining in one way or another. I agree that with this because teachers are always looking for new ways to present their information in more entertaining ways in order to keep their students attentive.
Chapter 7-"I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featurning a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction." Postman is wrong here. The news doesn't give any in-depth information and goes from one topic to the next in the blink of an eye but it doesn't take knowledge away from people. They are still informed about things, just not as much as they should be. And it is not the newscaster's fault either! They have to do this in order to keep the audience entertained and attentive.
Chapter 8-"...religion, like everything else, is presented, quite simply and without apology, as an entertainment." Different speakers of different religions go on television and try to make their religion look good to attract more followers. This is absolutely wrong how they do this but, it is so true. Speakers represent their respective religions and present them as entertaining to try and attract people. Religion isn't a topic that you can just focus on the good. There is some bad that you have to be informed about and most everyone that speaks on TV about religion hardly focuses on the bad at all.
Chapter 9-"The television commercial is the most peculiar and pervasive form of communication to issue forth from the electric plug." Many people will just by a product advertised on television for two main reason. 1) the person/people who represent the product and 2) the way the product is presented. Television commercials make everything look so appealing to the eye and thats what hooks people. It's amazing how powerful that these commercials are because they really are the major factor in selling products. So many people watch TV and will see many commercials so they will exposed to all kinds of flawless-looking products.
Chapter 10-"I mean only to say that, like the alphabet or the printing press, television has by its power to control the time, attention and cognitive habits of our youth gained the power to control their education." Some may deny that television isn't that big of an influence on people's lives. They would definately be wrong. Television can get you hooked easily and keep you there for awhile if something that you really enjoy watching or listening to is on at that time. It's crazy how much time it consumes in our lives and we need to be careful that television as well as other technology doesn't take over our lives completely because it is becoming a bigger and bigger factor each day.
Chapter 11-"...all Americans are Marxists, for we believe nothing if not that history is moving us toward some preordained paradise and that technology is the force behind that movement." Technology is shaping our lives more and more each day and slowly taking over our lives. People are now looking for entertainment in everything and there is not a better way to make something entertaining than to use technology. We need to be careful and limit all of this entertainment and techology or we may end up "Amusing Ourselves to Death" :)