Fatal Amusements: Contemplating the Tempest of Contemporary Media and American Culture

Dr. Lance Strate, Harron Family Chair in Communication Public Lecture: 11/3

Dr. Lance Strate presents a lecture entitled: Fatal Amusements: Contemplating the Tempest of Contemporary Media and American Culture What will be the fate of American culture in the 21st century? What are the prospects for survival in the face on an ongoing onslaught of technological innovation that has mutated our forms of public communication and discourse? Are we, as Neil Postman warned, amusing ourselves to death, enacting the nightmare vision from Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World? Media ecology, the study of media as environments, offers an approach for making sense out of our current technological maelstrom, and engaging in critical evaluation of our contemporary situation. Drawing on media ecology scholarship, this talk will raise questions about the future of our culture, and the prospects for retaining our humanity in a technological age.

[Villanova University
Ignite Change Now]

[Fatal Amusements Nov 3, 2014
Garey Hall - Villanova University]

[Contemplating Contemporary Media]

[Dr. Lance Strate
Harron Family Chai in Communication]

[Villanova University does not endorse and assumes no liability for the materials apearing or opinions expressed in this video]

(Applause)
(Lance Strate) Well thank you

I don't think, I don't know, does it
matter? Do we need the microphone?

do we need them

Can you hear me, you hear me OK?

OK, so we will set aside this prop and
thank you very much I am indeed honored

to have been chosen as the
Haron Family Chair for this year

and I'd like to thank the NBC family, Provost Mcginty
Dean Landmeyer Maurice Hall, of course, (check)

the chair of the department Heidy Rose and
Cheryl Bowen and the rest of the

Department of Communication, including
the ones who really run the place,

Loretta and Maria.

It's been a great pleasure to be
part of this faculty this semester

and especially to spend time

with the wonderful graduate and
undergraduate students

that attend here at Villanova.

So I think it's, no doubt,
it's something of a cliche

for visitors to begin by making reference
to our close proximity

to the birthplace of the US.

And far be it from me
to break with tradition.

So let me begin by posing the question:
If Benjamin Franklin we're here today,

what do you think he would make of the
possibility of Donald Trump as president?

(laughter

Or to put it more generally, what would
the founders of the American Republic

have to say about the State of
the Union in the 21st century?

Now, I hasten to add that when I speak
of the Founders, I want to set aside

all that racism sexism
all the other awful isms

that were part and parcel of their times.

I just want to consider them
as embodiments of the ideals

that they set forth in their writings.

And you can say I'm being a romantic
but this is my thought experiment

so you'll have to bear with me, and so
I ask you to imagine what these champions

of reason and rationality, freedom
and equality, justice and democracy

would make of contemporary
American culture?

What would they make of a culture
that's been shaped

by instantaneous communication,
that's dominated by the video image,

transformed by the internet social media
and mobile devices?

What would they make of the ways
in which public discourse

has been altered and influenced
by our electronic communications?

Well, let me suggest to you that some of
the words that might come to mind

might be: disturbed, disappointed,
maybe even disgusted.

And don't get me wrong:

I do think they'd be duly impressed by all
the progress that we've made

in science and technology
over the past 230 years.

I also think they'd recognize the progress
we've made regarding human rights

over the past two centuries,

but I do believe that
our founders would express

grave and profound concern
about our future

When Benjamin Franklin uttered the ominous
reply regarding the kind of government

they had created "A republic, if you can
keep it,"

The danger he foresaw was a return to
some form of authoritarian government

but what George Orwell depicted
in his novel 1984,

that would have been more extreme than
anything that Franklin had known

but he would easily understood the basic
premise of coercion oppression and fear

under which totalitarian regimes operate.
////

what franklin never imagined in
his wildest dreams that the reports that

wrote the Republic might be lost

not by force of arms but by fulfillment
of our desire to have fun and he

therefore would have been baffled by the
kind of dystopia depicted in Aldous

Huxley Aldous Huxley in his novel brave
new world but I believe that he would

agree that Huxley was more prophetic the
Norwell a point that Neil Postman

observed in his best-known book amusing
ourselves to death so let me quote to

you now from the opening of that book
postman wrote

what orwell feared was though where
those who would ban books what Huxley

feared was that there would be no reason
to ban a book for there would be no one

wanted to read one or welfare those who
would deprive us of information

Huxley feared those who would give us so
much that we would be reduced to

passivity and egoism orwell feared that
the truth would be concealed from us

oxley fear the truth would be drowned in
a sea of irrelevance orwell feared we

would become a captive culture oxley
feared we would become a trivial culture

preoccupied with some equivalent of the
Feelies the orgy porgy and the

centripetal bubble puppy as Huxley
remarks in brave new world revisited the

civil libertarians and rationalists
failed to take into account man's almost

infinite appetite for distractions in
1984 Huxley added people are controlled

by inflicting pain and brave new world
they are controlled by inflicting

pleasure in short orwell feared that
what we hate will ruin us Huxley feared

that what we love will ruin us now as
you may have noticed the title of my

talk fatal amusements is a tribute to
the book that post published thirty

years ago and in my thought experiment
I'd like to think that Franklin

Jefferson and company would find a
glimmer of hope and postman's

explanation of how public discourse is
shaped by our media of communication and

since this is my thought experiment I'd
also like to imagine that they gain some

additional encouragement from the
footnote and follow-up to post mean that

I published last year a book entitled
amazing ourselves to death in the old

postman's brave new world revisited I
want to believe that

and in all fairness to benjamin Franklin
he certainly would have been familiar

with the old saying Nero fiddled while
Rome burned which is a popular metaphor

for irresponsible and foolish action in
the face of serious events fiddling

while Rome burns has been used in
particular to refer to inaction on the

part of political leaders in the face of
a crisis but as citizens in a democracy

responsible for governing ourselves
there are no solo acts when it comes to

fiddling around we're all playing in the
band fiddling while Rome burns might

well have been an alternative title for
amusing ourselves to death which postman

wrote not in puritanical condemnation of
all pastimes and leisure pursuits nor is

an elitist screed promoting the poor
taste of youth today or the loss of

manners or moral standards the problem
that post man identified is not that we

seek pleasure or like to have fun or
amusements are part of what make us

human

the problem instead is one of context in
the context of a city on fire

we ought to expect to serious response
from our leaders not a musical one in

the context of certain activities such
as a courtroom trial religious ceremony

or classroom we ought to expect a
certain measure of decorum and behavior

appropriate to such situations at the
very least to prevent their destruction

and in the context of the vital matters
that must be dealt with within a

democratic society we ought to expect
some serious discussion and debate as a

basis for making decisions

understanding context is at the core of
postman's message and understanding

eloquently expressed in ecclesiastes to
everything there is a season and a time

to every purpose under heaven postman's
argument and is that there's a time for

amusement and it's time to be serious
and as our media and technology of

expanded our ability to amuse ourselves
we've lost the ability

to distinguish between the two and this
blurs the boundaries in favor of

amusement as a consequence we find
ourselves suffering from too much of a

good thing we know quite well that too
much of the food that nourishes us leads

to obesity that too much of the exercise
that strengthens the body can cause it

damaged that too much of a dose of
medicine that cures disease can be

deadly

the primary value for any ecological
system is balanced and post man

identified late twentieth-century
American culture as dangerously out of

balance his reference to death in the
book's title amusing ourselves to death

was no mere hyperbole but an indication
that our loss of balance had called into

question the very survival of our
culture of liberal democracy and even of

humanity as a species so whether the
tune we imagine Nero playing was a

raucous fire on the mountain

rendition of hearts and flowers in the
face of such nihilistic soundtracks we

might invoke an altogether different
more hopeful musical that of Fiddler on

the Roof Inn at musical texture the main
character says of himself and his fellow

villagers that every one of us is a
fiddler on the roof trying to scratch

out a pleasant simple tune without
breaking his neck and while he goes on

to sing about tradition the theme of the
play is the need to cope with change

with modernization in the face of events
that would have otherwise been entirely

demoralizing disorienting and
destabilizing tradition served as a

much-needed counterweight again

context is essential under other
conditions and unchecked emphasis on

tradition might lead to a rigid
inflexible culture unable to adapt to

changing circumstances so context and
balance or two fundamental elements of

an ecological approach to understanding
media which is to say that they are

fundamental

to the field of media ecology a postman
introduced the phrase media ecology back

in 1968 defining it as the study of
media as environments and noting that he

was not inventing the field that it was
already in existence and that he was

just naming it and to this side at that
the best known most frequently cited

media ecology scholar would be Marshall
McLuhan and its famous maximum the

medium is the message can be considered
the first axiom or rather the first

aphorism of our field to put it
succinctly the medium is the message

asks us to pay attention to how we do
things because the way that we do things

as much to do with what we end up doing
and with the results of our actions and

with who we are and who we become idea
has been expressed in many different

ways winston churchill said we shape our
buildings there after they shape us and

the Koolance associate John culkin
expanded that as we shape our tools and

thereafter they shape us back in the
nineteenth century Henry David Thoreau

remarked we do not ride on the rail
wrote it rides upon us and Mark Twain

quipped that when you have a hammer in
your hand everything else looks like it

now you know my mother was fond of
saying how you make your bad so you

shall sleep which has its origins as a
15th century French proper course the

English version is you made your bed go
sleep on it which is more go sleep in it

which is more judgmental s media logical
but also in the 15th century the English

rider and pioneering printer William
Caxton published a retailing of Aesop's

fables that had the first English
version of the same ask a silly question

get a silly answer and it's a
fundamental idea and media ecology that

the kinds of questions we ask have quite
a lot to do with the kinds of answers

that we obtain

pain but you can find this idea in the
Bible as well in the New Testament

Gospel of Matthew Jesus declares all
that live by the sword shall die by the

sword and in the hundred fifteen psalm
of David there's a passage about the

worship of idols that concludes they
that make them she'll be like onto them

yay everyone that trusteth in while the
basic idea is an ancient 11 of the

direct sources of inspiration from the
Coons famous saying came from the

anthropologist Ashley Montegut who wrote
that and I quote in teaching it is the

method and not the content that is the
message and not Montacute went on to

declare that the quote that education
quote does not depend upon the

transmission of knowledge but upon the
manner in which the knowledge is

transmitted by the teacher so from the
media ecology perspective a teacher's a

type of medium and the student is the
message or to put it another way the

relationship between teacher and student
is the medium relationships are media

and the teacher-student relationship is
the most important medium of education

of all at this point let me acknowledge
them trying to provide a brief

explanation of the field of media
ecology but I've already exceeded the

time limit and given for what's come to
be known as an elevator speech is also

known as an elevator pitch the concept
is based on the way in which in elevator

ride shapes our relationships and
discourse given the fact that it's

characterized by a captive audience a
relatively intimate space in the

relatively brief duration we might
contrasted then to the ways in which our

relationships and forms of discourse are
influenced by the characteristics of a

classroom or a living room or a bar room
we might also note how all of these

instances differ from the relationships
we enter into and the forms of discourse

we encounter when we read a book or go
to the movies or you

use social media as you probably have
noticed I'm using a much broader

definition of the terms media and medium
and scholars in other fields use it

incorporates all of the ways in which we
communicate that means and methods we

use the many modes and codes of
communication available to us the

situations and spaces the contacts and
relationships all of the ways in which

we mediate between each other and with
our environment and this includes all

manner of technology and technique not
just those associated with communication

but communication is a particular focus
because it's central to the human

condition

language and simple uses what
distinguishes us from other species

giving us what Alfred Krzyzewski
referred to as the capacity for time

finding for preserving knowledge
transmitting it to future generations

and evaluating what we know in order to
make progress so media ecology

scholarship's are often concerned with
the differences that distinguish one

medium or form of communication from
another which in turn means that

different media affect us in different
ways as the influence and shape the way

that we think he'll act use our senses
organize ourselves collectively and

create and maintain cultural
continuities this means that the

introduction of a new medium can have
profound effects on individuals and

societies and that's because media
constitute environments that shape and

influence us in the same way that
biological and geological environments

shape and influence organisms and
species it follows that media ecology is

concerned with the process of change
when you introduce a change into an

interdependent system its effects can
give rise to secondary effects and those

two church sure you effects and so on
through many generations of interactive

facts that's why we understand that the
introduction of a new medium has an

ecological effect not simply added to
the old system plus the new medium but

transformative resulting in a change to
the entire system throughout the entire

system and because of the complexity of
ecological strange we should understand

that some of the effects will be
unanticipated on an unpredictable that

we'll never know for certain all of the
consequences of any given innovation

this means there'll always be negative
effects that accompanied the positive

effects that every benefit will come
with a cost and it may well be that the

benefit is worth the cost but does it
really make sense to buy into an

innovation without first looking at the
price tag the old sales slogan buy now

pay later pretty much sum saw our
contemporary approach to technology and

much like buying on credit we never
really know how much will pay for our

purchases in the end

given the concern with change media
ecology provides us with the way to

understand human history

simply put language and speech are basic
to the human condition

systems of notation and especially
writing systems are intimately connected

to the transition from tribal societies
to more complex forms of social

organization cities kingdoms and empires
alphabetic writing and particulars what

gives Western culture what gave Western
culture its distinctive characteristics

the invention of the printing press with
movable type is closely associated with

the shift from the medieval to the
modern era in Europe and the electronic

media brought the modern era to a close
moving us into a new era some refer to

as postmodern of course the spells the
end not only of modernity but of almost

4,000 years of alphabetic culture and
that's why mcluhan once pointed out

pointed to a TV set

and he said the following this is from
one of his biographies quoting do you

really want to know what I think that
thing if you want to save one shred of

her breakup greco-roman Medieval
Renaissance enlightenment modern Western

civilization you'd better get an ax and
smash all the sex is being a bit extreme

you might say hi and even postman who
was often labeled and died would agree

but the important point is that all the
benefits that we've gained from our

electronic media come with the cost we
need to know what the cost has been and

what it yet might be so we can start by
noting that the first form of alphabetic

writing the Semitic alpha put it as used
by the ancient Israelites went along

with the introduction of monotheism and
religion based on a sacred texts with

the first historical narrative in the
first system of codified law and what

went with it was a generalized
conception of justice and human rights

and this was followed by the Greek
alphabet which made possible rhetoric

and philosophy theater and theoretical
science the first monetary system in the

first form of democratic government the
shift from a reality to literacy vastly

increased our capacity for time binding
opening the door to significant progress

in all aspects of human life now the
printing press amplified the impact of

the written word well introd introducing
new effects of its own so given the fact

that Villanova is an Augustinian
University you no doubt are thoroughly

familiar with the confessions and what
augustine says about the reading habits

of British Bishop Ambrose but just in
case you slipped slipped your mind let

me remind you quote from it when he was
reading his I glided over the pages and

his heart searched out the sense but his
voice

tongue where I rest we see the fact was
that silent reading was greeted with

incredible astonishment and it's an
indication that reading out loud was all

that people knew about for the almost
entirely until the advent of the

printing is highly legible typefaces
which made the process of decoding taxed

easier and faster print media also
amplified the written words biased

towards individualism and Privacy Act of
reading and writing especially when it's

silent requires a high degree of social
isolation as opposed to speaking and

listening which is a collective group
centered activity printing increased

access to information dramatically
leading to a knowledge explosion as well

as increased specialization and
standardization and easy access to the

accumulated knowledge of centuries past
facilitated scholar ship it spyridon

research and it led to the rise of
modern science and with it what became

known as the age of reason the
Enlightenment and printing created a

reading public which constitutes the
basis of democracy increased access to

political information made it hard to
argue that individuals don't know enough

to govern themselves so the breaking of
the state's monopoly of knowledge

resulted in the democratic revolutions
of the modern era as Thomas Carlyle Road

in the nineteenth century he who first
shorten the labor of copyist spy device

of movable types was disbanding hired
armies and cashiering most kings and

senate's and creating a whole new
democratic world I wish I could do in

English accent is that's really what
that requires but printing also fostered

it did foster centralized political
economic and social control and the

building of colonial empires

it also made possible the Enlightenment
ideals of political emancipation

self-determination equality before the
law along with a new emphasis on

individualism rationalism and scientific
method so out of the typographic media

environment come we came the
Enlightenment and out of the

Enlightenment result we have resulted in
the creation of the American republic

which is the first nation to be founded
on the basis of a reason

logical argument has put forth in the
Declaration of Independence now the 18th

century media environment was one in
which the spoken and written word

achieved a fruitful but a delicate
balance which is why they're given

special protection in the first
amendment freedom of speech freedom of

the press so what happened to public
discourse over the past century and a

half but we could boil it down to three
factors the first involves images from

the invention of photography to
subsequent developments and graphics

film television and video we do take it
into an image culture one in which

images have replaced and displaced words
as the philosopher Susanne Langer as

explained images do not make claims they
don't make arguments they don't put

forth statements or propositions if I
say that it's raining outside right now

you can look out there and determine
whether that's true or false you can

gather the evidence and image if I show
an image though what is it it's a

concrete representation if I show you a
picture of a ring of rain out there it's

neither true nor false it can be used as
evidence but it makes no claim about

anything

a picture can be tampered with it can be
airbrushed photoshopped but it's not a

fake until it's attached to a statement
the bias of the image as a symbolic form

favors gut feelings over rap

coherent organization of ideas it evokes
emotional reactions rather than rational

thought that's the first factor the
second is information and the problem is

that our capacity to transmit and store
information has continued to expand over

the past two centuries so that we find
ourselves in a time of TMI too much

information otherwise known as
information overload media professionals

are well aware of the problem of cutting
through all the noise and clutter but

for audiences the problem is making
sense of so much stimuli evaluating the

messages determining what small amount
of them is really relevant to us and

what small amount of those are
actionable the third factor is immediacy

beginning with the Telegraph electricity
made instantaneous transmission of

messages possible this contributes to
information overload and incoherence

there's no time to sort things out
especially as the acceleration of

communication favors rapid turnover
against any type of contextualization

and speed gives us an abbreviated form
of discourse the sort we associate with

the telegram the newspaper headline the
advertising slogan more recently the

text message status update in tweet
contemporary critics such as Nicholas

Carr know that there's a significant
amount of reading the takes place online

but it's not that deep reading
associated with print culture instead

it's a kind of rapid scanning and
skimming accompanied by a good deal of

linking and clicking speed also places a
new emphasis on efficiency which is

essentially a numbers game based on
measurement and statistical analysis and

in this sense the balance between the
spoken and written word comes under

assault from another direction in the
form of counting and calculation were

caught then between two extremes of
image and number of the irrational

and the hyper rational so images
information and immediacy come together

as never before with the medium of
television with television language

takes a back seat to the image as the
medium allows us to see what is

happening for ourselves as it is
happening the verbal report is no longer

the main source of information as it was
previously it

newspaper reports and even with radio
but now the purple report is reduced to

commentary coming after the fact of the
live image the difference between a

televised experience in the report can
be seen especially in the sports program

as Walter on pointed out the voice on a
live television sports broadcast lags

behind the audience's perceptions on
also argues the sense of immediacy is

central to the television forum I quote
not all television presentations are

simultaneous with reality but in a way
to pull television presentation seem to

be the fact that the instrument is
capable of such presentations defines

its impact so whereas for example the
motion picture always communicates in

the past and it's always something that
has happened already

the television broadcast communicates in
the present tense instilling in a very

strong form of present mindedness now
over the three decades that followed the

publication of amusing ourselves to
death Tirmidhi environment has evolved

through the vast expansion of the cable
and satellite and through the

popularization of the internet the
introduction of the web social media

media mobile technology and some had
hoped that our new media would counter

the negative effects of television but I
want to suggest that in many ways they

have much in common and as further
elaborations of electronic media but

let's consider our longest running
reality

shun series you know the one that with
the slogan that goes outwit outplay

outlast you know that one if you think
I'm referring to survivor the mistakes

understandable when actually referring
to could be called who wants to be the

president it's easy to confuse the two

both conclude with all but one player
being voted off the island and when so

much of our political campaigning is
played out on television is it any

wonder that the host of another reality
series The Apprentice could be our next

president this is despite the fact that
donald Trump has no government

experience offers platitudes in the
place of campaign platform and is not by

any traditional standards eloquence or
even all that coherent but he has a

decade of experience hosting The
Apprentice and long before that can

spent considerable time and effort on
publicity and self-promotion simply put

he knows and much like ronald reagan our
movie star turn president from the

eighties donald Trump knows how to look
into look into the camera how to talk to

the viewers he knows what works and what
doesn't work on the television screen

and this more than anything is the
reason for his early success in the

polls along with a certain ability to
use new media it's not to say that being

telegenic will guarantee victory but it
is to say that anyone who's not very

telegenic will pretty much go down in
defeat

regardless of their qualifications and
this includes this now incorporates the

use of new media and you can think back
to 2008 and the Obama girl YouTube video

and the way that Obama and now Trump has
very effectively used interacted with

campaign supporters through Twitter now
it may be hard to believe nowadays but

that was a time when appearing on an
entertainer

program was considered beneath the
dignity of apollo of a serious

politician really now it's a part of
every candidate's campaign strategy

fred thompson deter fred thompson just
passed away and it's worth noting in

2008 fred thompson whose previous career
was a film and television actor went on

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to
declare his candidacy for the president

and he wasn't the first candidate to go
that route but he did this instead of

participating in the Republican primary
debate being held that same night as a

veteran of the big and small screen he
knew that a late night entertainment

program hosted by comedian would provide
him with a much better platform for

launching his campaign than discussing
issues with other politicians and who

can blame them it's simply a matter of
choosing which of two forms of

television programming he should go with
and selecting the one that has the

bigger audience in our current election
cycle being a guest on late night talk

shows

has become a routine for candidates as
routine as taking part in debates and

running political commercials and once
the election is over image politics

persists as part and parcel of governing
promoting policies and political

advocacy he's back in March of last year
President Obama appeared on the comedy

program hosted by Zach Galifianakis
right between two ferns and his

motivation was to urge young adults to
sign up for health care there's no

question that that program was highly
entertaining whole areas there's no

question that he was able to reach his
target audience the question now is

whether the message he was trying to
convey got through it all or whether it

was lost in the context of comedy in
stark has and the overarching question

is whether the learning of entertainment
and politics makes it all possible to

engage in the serious discourse that's
vital to our democracy you know thirty

years ago

broadcast journalists working on network
news complain that they had less than

half an hour to report on the day's
events they couldn't help but be much

more than the headline service so now we
have cable news channels with 24 hour

news cycles and we find that the
coverage is not that much different as

it turns out most people to an end to
cable stations news stations only for a

limited time so rather than lose viewers
they tend to provide repetition in place

of death

the news stories are also kept short out
of concern of losing the audience's

attention and essentially essentially
Fox News CNN and Ms MSNBC of all

discovered they can build larger
audiences by providing more entertaining

programming emphasizing dramatic
confrontations confrontations that

resemble not so much sort of pro and con
newspaper op-eds but more like

confrontations we see on televised
professional wrestling programs the old

adage in TV news was if it bleeds it
leads and that perfectly sums up the

fact that decisions on what stories to
report how much time to devote them and

where to place them in the broadcast are
heavily influenced by the presence or

absence of compelling footage and this
trend has been greatly amplified by the

availability of video recorded by
smartphones dashboard cameras

surveillance video and the like we find
that the caught on camera genre has

become a new kind of news program one
whose only rationale is 2% entertaining

video to attract audiences in this way
journalism is reduced to a spinoff of

America's Funniest Home Videos but why
not after all

television news programs are called
shows their show business they have

theme music is music

theme music for the newscasters wear
makeup they had their hair styled their

costumes appropriately they become
celebrities they appear on talk shows

the appear in fictional movies and TV
episodes

blurring the line between fiction and
nonfiction you know many viewers

lamented the loss of Brian Williams
whose main qualification as anchor the

NBC News was the fact that he looked and
sounded like a traditional network

anchor and acclaimed TV critic marvin
kitman refer to Williams is Brian the

mediocre and he called it described him
as someone a quote

who came across as a nice guy always
well-dressed but more of an actor /

model playing a newsman course it didn't
matter much by that time who took over

the anchor's chair cuz it was led by
that time was longer observed that most

young adults have been getting their
news from the monologues of late night

talk shows from Jay Leno and David
Letterman at the time you know Walter

Cronkite who anchored the CBS Evening
News from 6281 was commonly referred to

as the most trusted man in America but
if anyone could claim that title in

recent years I think it would be Jon
Stewart host of The Comedy Central cable

program The Daily Show and of course
Stewart like leno letterman in others as

a comedian not a journalist which you
know certain got to ask if so many

people get their news from comedians
that mean the journalism has become a

joke and I think it's particularly
telling that when Stewart announced that

he was leaving the Daily Show earlier
this year you know who want to the name

was mentioned about who might take over
forum Brian Williams I should add that

it's not at all clear that new media
provide an adequate substitute Twitter

simply gives us a new form of
telegraphic discourse while YouTube

Instagram our new manifestations of
image culture the internet contributes

in a major way to information overload
and does not provide a forum for shared

a shared forum for discussion and
deliberation really what it does is it

situates us in isolated silos that
intensify the divisions in american

society

offer contrast the recent visit of Pope
Francis to the united states right the

leader of the Roman Catholic Church is a
serious individual who communicates a

strong sense of dignity compassion and
moral authority he's not someone who was

chosen because of his ability to perform
for the television camera or to share or

his willingness to share personal
details via social media he's not a

celebrity not an entertainer and I want
to tell you that I personally was very

moved by the Interfaith service that he
led at the 911 memorial back in

September but I have to confess that I
watched it on CNN was sitting on the

couch in the living room wearing pyjamas
sipping coffee and eating a bagel and

when it was over I change the channel

how different then was that experience
from watching appointment moving on HBO

what happens to religious experience
when it becomes televised or tweeted or

Instagram as Walter on the explains
sound is intimately connected to our

sense of the sacred the human voice

the most distinct and unique element of
the human person is produced by breath

which is closely associated with life
itself in hebrew the words for breath

and winds are synonymous with spirit and
soul both human and divine it is worth

asking therefore if it makes a
difference if the voices heard in song

and prayer are breathless in a sense of
being electronically disembodied the

problem is always as one of context
participating in a religious ritual

Lisa sauce in a special context that's
different from all about context it

situates us in the distinct media
environment one that asks us to play

different roles and play by different
sets of rules whether the location is a

church a synagogue temple or mosque or
outdoors religious experiences Mirchi

Aliotti explains is characterized by a
sense of sacred space and sacred time

separate and distinct from profane space
and time into the deep meaning of

sanctification and consecration traced
back to the Hebrew word Kadosh is to set

up heart to differentiate so what
happens to our sense of sacred space and

time when congregants in the pews here a
cell phone ringing receive text messages

or even stop to answer them our
experience of the sacred is associated

with the still small voice of God as
described in the Bible with quiet and

silenced many religions incorporate some
form of silent prayer in their worship

services and silences in to grow to
contemplation and meditation during the

20th century especially in the aftermath
of the second world war there was quite

a bit of discussion about concerning
what was referred to as God's silence

and on suggested that it may not be so
much that God is stop start speaking to

us as it is that our electronic media
generates so much noise that we've

drowned out that still small voice now
whether religious spiritual experiences

conceived of as communion with something
greater than ourselves whether it's a

personal day D or transcendent
understanding of the universe whether

it's just a matter of an inner journey a
soul-searching sort simply an effort to

better understand our own minds and
consciousness the loss of silence in the

constant deluge

of distractions can be nothing short of
devastating to our collective spiritual

health as well as our prospects for
cultural survival now when it comes to

education schooling has always been
about learning to read and write

television in the electronic media offer
us a different and incompatible

curriculum and so it's worth asking if
it's in the best interests of young

children to spend time playing with
tablets and smartphones and watching

programs such as Teletubbies poop and Yo
Gabba Gabba you know cable television is

given a specialized educational
programming via the National Geographic

Channel The History Channel the
Discovery Channel this is private

provided a wonderful avenue for the
dissemination of documentaries but what

audiences are specially drawn to our
programs such as moonshiners ancient

aliens UFO files and then Estrada mass
effect on the Animal Planet channel two

specials entitled mermaids the body
found and mermaids the new evidence he

gave the cable outlet its highest
ratings in its seventeen year history

and these fake documentaries were
assumed to be real by many so many

viewers so many viewers that they
prompted the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration to issue an
official statement stating that mermaids

do not actually exist it's almost too
easy it's just too easy but I'll do to

mention the learning channel TLC which
achieved its highest ratings by turning

to reality programs such as toddlers in
tiaras and its notorious spinoff here

comes honey boo boo you know the most
recent fad in higher education has been

the massive open online course
abbreviated as much

a move can contain as many as 100,000
students that raises the question of in

what census muka course what sense is
the instructor really teaching it's

revealing I believe that the acronym
move is a variation on other new media

terms such as mmm RPG that stands for a
massive multiplayer online role-playing

game in other words the primary
connection is with gaming not schooling

and came in can be educational but the
question is can learning be reduced to a

game or are we talking about grand theft
education well as another in variation

on the inside that the medium is the
message Hannah Arendt insisted that I

quote there are no dangerous thoughts
thinking itself is dangerous so the

question we're left with is to all of
our amazing new media technologies allow

us the space in the time to pause and
reflect and think things over here is

our ability to think drowned out in a
flood of images and noise and pushed

aside in favor of calculation and
automation at this point you might

imagine that if we could travel back in
time and show benjamin Franklin how

things turned out he might have put his
kite back in his closet and not ventured

out into that thunderstorm to unleash
the power of electricity but I think

it's more likely that he would have sat
down to write up some ideas about how we

might still be able to keep our republic
what we would have to do to counter the

bias ease of the brave new world his
discovery would unleash it would begin

with something along the lines of McCune
statement mcluhan wrote there is no

inevitability as long as there is a
willingness to contemplate what is

happening with you see contemplating the
contemporary media environment is one of

the main purposes of media

ecology scholarship and as for postin he
was well aware of the flaws and failures

of american society but as a proponent
of Enlightenment ideals he believed in

its promise and potential to do agree he
would agree with abraham Lincoln's

characterization of the American
experiment is the last best hope on

earth but it also echo lincoln's
concerned about a nation so on happily

distracted but now it's not the horror
of civil war that has sidetracked us

rather we find ourselves diverted from a
higher calling but a constant stream of

entertainment information and innovation
post comments argument speak to the

future of humanity in its entirety
especially in this era of convergence

and globalization and again it comes
down to the question can we think and

can we talk about what we're doing and
where we're going we live in the midst

of a temp this by which I refer to the
turbulent nature of the electronic media

environment as it's a digital
technologies wave after wave of changes

to our mode of communication and
interaction or tools for thought and

social action have altered and continue
to alter our societies and cultures as

well as our psyches and ourselves as
human beings we are certainly well

equipped to survive a passing storm but
it's far from clear whether we can build

a sustainable way of life in the midst
of permanent upheaval be a natural or

cultural how are we to survive while
keeping our humanity intact that's the

fundamental question raised by postman
and by the field of inquiry he called

media ecology now there's no turning
back the clock no point in arguing that

we abandon our media and technology and
try to retrieve an earlier age or less

advanced way of life nor does it make
sense to deny that there are legitimate

benefits that are inventions have
brought us what we need to do

then is to engage in concerted
evaluation of what we're doing how we go

about doing it to carefully weigh the
costs and benefits of our technologies

to consider what are the appropriate
uses of our media and what uses might be

inappropriate to proceed with caution
understanding that our innovations will

always result in unanticipated affects
many of them

undesirable and to provide just a few
practical suggestions we need to

strengthen our commitment to the spoken
word to conversation public speaking and

oral performance and reading out land as
well we need to place greater emphasis

on the written word on literacy and the
practice of deep and sustained reading

that requires significant periods of
quiet time at which takes effort so one

example is the pioneering efforts of the
movement to observe a weekly technology

sabbath write a day when you turn
everything off

ultimately though what's needed is
cultural change and that ought to

include strengthening the four
cornerstones of the American American

experiment all of which were products of
literate culture and the typographic

media environment that is democratic
politics a free press

religion and schooling as Shakespeare's
play The Tempest includes the line 0

brave new world that has such people in
it and that's where huxley took the

title of his prophetic novel
shakespeare's main character prospero is

a powerful sorcerer living in exile and
like prospero we possessed extraordinary

powers through the use of media and
technologies that are nothing short of

magical shakespeare concludes his play
with prospero finally willing to give up

his sorcery in order to embrace the
world of rationality and reconciliation

with family and community can we do the
same perhaps not entirely abandoning or

gifts but being mindful of their
contacts

and our need for balance to once again
invoke ecclesiastes there is a time to

weep and a time to laugh at time to
mourn and a time to dance time to

embrace and a time to refrain from
embracing a time to keep silent and a

time to speak but promised that the
electronic media environment we inhabit

in that environment the time is always a
uniform 24 7 365 and the season never

changes so can we make the time and can
we create what mcluhan referred to as

counter environments safe spaces where
the biases of the electronic media to

not hold sway such as can be found in
sanctuaries and sacred spaces in schools

classrooms and sites devoted to art and
creative expression against the fact

that we've been fiddling around as we
are amusing in forming an amazing

ourselves to death can we find the means
the method the way to start speaking and

thinking and teaching ourselves back to
life that's the question I leave you

with thank you very much

well I think that when you talk about
journalist says as people some are some

of them are are very much on the side of
cultural change some of them lament the

situation

postman's book amusing ourselves to
death was one of five books that tom

brokaw he was the guy who was the anchor
of NBC Nightly News before Brian

Williams the email listed five books
that every journalist should read and

amusing ourselves to death was the only
book that wasn't specifically about

journalism so I and that critique was
very popular among serious journalists

but you know the problem they face is
that is organizational where they're not

able to do what they want to do so I
wouldn't put the blame on on journalists

but I get there is this kind of
technique that goes with the whole

organization of media industries that
pushes them towards working with the

bias of the media not against it so I
mean the answer from a democratic point

of view is it's us we're the ones who
you know I was a Gundy said be the

change you want to see in the world and
I think you know also echoing post

minute and others education is very much
a part of it that it starts through

education it's what we try to do and
what we try to instill in our students

the you know anyone to hold out some
hope because in some folks take from

this you know conclude that it is
hopeless I think it's difficult it may

take something catastrophic to wake
people up but at the very least there's

the idea of let's preserve something of
you know in the sense of when you have

dark ages at least let's have some
places

those where people are still enlightened
and and certainly it starts with schools

thanks you know I I try I felt like I
was saying I was writing this I felt

like how many times should I say that
there are benefits and it's i mean but

and the problem is that the benefits are
clear to people for the most part and

the problem is recognizing the cost but
certainly access to information can be

very advantageous and can be with
parading the ability for people to

organize I think it is a very powerful
benefit of the new media so that people

who are there's a kind of empowering
people who are on the margins and able

to to organize themselves for political
action so I mean I think there are

definite benefits that what you're
asking and it but I think that you know

again I mean what we find is that people
really to do all those benefits i mean

you know how many times have you heard
how much access to know how wonderful it

is that you can say hey Google and get
whatever the answer to any question you

have everyone knows that that's that's
that's easy you know and I perhaps less

obvious but I think you know certainly
significant is the fact of people being

able to connect with one another and
especially for individuals who feel

isolated from one reason or another that
that's a powerful boon for the problem

really comes down to how to find that
balance and how to say no because we

just have this tendency to just keep
going in the same direction and keep

going and keep going

Joseph wise and pound he was the head of
a professor of computing at MIT back in

the sixties he created one of the first
artificial intelligence programs little

program called allies

mimicked a psycho rosier aryan
psychotherapist and just reflected back

what people were saying and he found any
thought that this was just like a goof

and then he found that a lot of people
in this office we're like leave me alone

I'm talking to allies and and you know
and even worse that the American

Psychological Association hearing about
this came out with this idea that

wouldn't it be wonderful if we had
computer kiosks so anyone in need to go

to one and get psychotherapy and wise
and pound said usually worry we don't

use too much thought you said just
because we can to something ought we to

do it right and that's the question we
don't so that's why I mean I think the

question is what's appropriate what's
the appropriate use and I think that's a

reasonable question what is appropriate

what's not appropriate

the other side of it is what's effective
and what's not effective in these two or

not don't go together because sometimes
what's effective is you know may be good

for the immediate purpose but not in the
long run so I can see that

what's appropriate right i mean we all
know the phenomenon of spending all your

time taking pictures and not experience
what's what's actually going on so I

mcluhan in particular so are as as
essential and as away as a kind of way

way to educate ourselves about media
because he believed that he argued that

media were extensions of our senses art
speaks to our senses and helps us to see

how are using our senses so this is not
so much about art but you know again we

wouldn't expect against talk about
democracy for example we wouldn't expect

that a treaty is negotiated on a week we
don't find the question of how to deal

with Iran way out of that threw me
through art I mean it's a different it's

not the appropriate medium or the
appropriate approach to do that sort of

thing so it's not about art so much as
it is about knowing when it's time for

art and when it's time for something
else

22

be employed

one hand it's just a progression and
it's not that newspapers where three of

criticism they had their faults as well
but then reading the news and print had

a different set of biases than seeing it
on television so it's a natural

progression from nightly news to comedy
programs because they really are about

eliciting responses gathering audiences
eliciting responses rather than trying

to arrange things in a coherent and
logical manner so it's all relative so I

mean compared to what used to be the
nightly news it's it's further sliding

further downhill but it's not that the
nightly news was that was particularly a

great way to get news either you know
there was a time when no serious person

would say that they got their news only
from television if you ever heard of the

the novel being there by Jerzy Kosinski
the movie they made out of it it was

like the big joke in the novel was that
this one fellow says I like to watch and

that people said it's so refreshing to
see someone who says they get their news

from television actually read it into
the character but I don't know if you if

you remember or noticed a man who is
this moment when Katie Couric was

interviewing Sarah Palin and she says
well where do you get your news from

what newspapers do you read and she
couldn't answer to all I read all of

them right

could tell she was just bullshitting
right i mean that she couldn't answer

and more recently I forget who was it
someone asked a trump you know what

who are as military involved Bazar what
does he get his military advice from an

800 i watch the shows I mean this is a
problem it's also a problem by the way

as PowerPoint which is also saw the
usual

medium no supe seriously they found this
a major problem for the military

that the pentagon there they look at the
power points they don't get the

explanation and they think they have
that's what people say it's also in

business they say oh I mister talking I
C you can you know Casey your PowerPoint

and its abbreviated its visual but they
don't get the context

condemnation

story is the latest version and of
course what can be harder than trying to

get a young child to sit still I mean it
goes completely against the grain

you know that's why we have to learning
to read and write is completely

artificial learning to speak and listen
isn't that's natural to us reading and

writing is artificial and its fragile
for that great reason to keep trying to

find ways to make it fun and you know
and get some game applications just the

latest version of that and the problem
is that with all these attempts to use

formats whether it's that or sesame
street and posting was an early critic

of Sesame Street as being all about
advertising formats you know that it

really was more about that than anything
else

it teaches that's what it teaches that
you know it's the manner not

content so it teaches game playing and I
love playing games I spent when I was

younger I spent many a late night on
computer games in and I still play like

plants vs zombies and in some of these
other games not angry birds they're

stupid but you know but they're not that
that's what they teach you they teach

you how to play games and that's very
different from learning to read and

write I tell you when I was two years
ago and posting was still alive I was

teaching and M a class and I had him in
as a guest lecturer he was my mentor or

and really friends and I wanted to play
devil's advocate so I and my son was

just a few years old they said you know
he's watching he's watching Sesame

Street and he's learning letters and
numbers from Sesame Street and postman

said well you know lance and they're
only 26 letters in the alphabet and

children have been able to learn this
for thousands of years without the

benefit of television and that's really
the case so you know i mean it's very

hard to do

education is very hard so you know where
we love to look for technologies to try

to make it easyer but in the end it's
the teacher and the student that's what

it comes down to