discourse

  1. Each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.
    Neil Postman
  2. “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 theact of thinking, which is as disconcerting and boring on television as it is on a Las Vegas stage.
    Neil Postman
  3. But the Founding Fathers did not foresee that tyranny by government might be superseded by another sort of problem altogether, namely, the corporate state, which through television now controls the flow of public discourse in America.
    Neil Postman
  4. In 1986, soon after the book was published and had started to make ripples, Dad was on ABC’s Nightline, discussing with Ted Koppel the effect TV can have on society if we let it control us, rather than vice versa. As I recall, at one juncture, to illustrate his point that our brief attention span and our appetite for feel-good content can short-circuit any meaningful discourse, Dad said, “For example, Ted, we’re having an important discussion about the culture but in thirty seconds we’ll have to break for a commercial to sell cars or toothpaste.” Mr. Koppel, one of the rare serious figures on network television, smiled wryly—or was it fatigue? “Actually, Dr. Postman,” he said, “it’s more like ten seconds.”
    Andrew Postman
  5. An Orwellian world is much easier to recognize, and to oppose, than a Huxleyan. Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us. We are not likely, for example, to be indifferent to the voices of the Sakharovs and the Timmermans and the Walesas. We take arms against such a sea of troubles, buttressed by the spirit of Milton, Bacon, Voltaire, Goethe and Jefferson. But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture’s being drained by laughter?
    Neil Postman
  6. But ventriloquism, dancing and mime do not play well on radio, just as sustained, complex talk does not play well on television.
    Neil Postman
  7. I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anti-communication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville.
    Neil Postman
  8. Television solved several important problems, but in solving them changed the nature of political discourse, led to a serious decline in literacy, and quite possibly made the traditional process of socializing children impossible.
    Neil Postman
  9. Democracy depends on public discourse, and therefore the kind of quality of the discourse is of singular importance. Simply to say that more information is received more quickly in diverse forms, with opportunities for fast feedback, is not to say that democratic processes are enriched.
    Neil Postman
  10. In a culture dominated by print, public discourse tends to be characterized by a coherent, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas. The public for whom it is intended is generally competent to manage such discourse. In a print culture, writers make mistakes when they lie, contradict themselves, fail to support their generalizations, try to enforce illogical connections. In a print culture readers make mistakes when they don’t notice, or even worse, don’t care.
    Neil Postman
  11. But so long as argument is produced except a scream of “Trotsky-Fascist!” the discussion cannot even begin.
    George Orwell