Reach Out and Elect Someone

I felt as though this Postman reading was a little bit more difficult to understand. When he started talking about President Reagan I was like “What the heck is he talking about?!” However, as I got further into the reading I began to understand a little bit better the comparisons he was making. For instance, Postman says on page 22, “In America, the fundamental metaphor for political discourse is the television commercial”. I took that to mean he was saying that the television commercial is a reflection of our society and especially our government.

I couldn’t find the exact spot in the article but I remember discussing a quote from Ronald Reagan when he said that politics is like show business. I tend to agree. It was kind of ironic that in my next class after this one, we had a similar discussion. We actually got into a little bit of a heated debate about how politicians say things like “God bless” and “by the grace of God” and how some people thought that was unnecessary and that they should leave their religious views out of the spotlight. However, ignoring the fact that I am a pretty religious person, I feel that most politicians mention God because they are trying to appeal to the highest number of people. The majority of the United States is Christian and so politicians say thing to work in the favor with the most people they can. Whether they believe in God or not, they will still make reference to Him if they think it will help their campaign.

Back to television commercials, when I think of those, I think of the Super Bowl commercials. Supposedly, they are some of the best commercials on television. Advertisers pay thousands of dollars to have their slogan or jingle shot across the country. I feel like theses commercials really do reflect our society. They will be for beer or for a movie or a bank. However, they are all somewhat flashy and I think that in life, a lot of people feel the need to always but on a show (example politicians!). That’s what I got out of this Postman article and I have to agree with him this time.

Side note: We also talked about how commercials reflect on society in my Spanish class so I thought it was kind of funny that we talked about this in 3 of my classes. :)

Postman articles

I really enjoyed reading Neal Postman’s articles and agreed with most of what he said. However, on page 9 of “The Peek-a-Boo World”, Postman says (in reference to the telegraph and photograph turning news into decontextualized fact) “This coincidence suggests that the new technologies had turned age-old problem of information on its head” Where people once sought information to manage the real contexts of their lives, now they had to invent contexts in which otherwise useless information might be put to some apparent use”. I disagree with this statement. I don’t think people need to make up ways to use new technology. Technology is ever-changing, ever-growing. Society is built to handle those changes in such a way that we embrace new technologies instead of freaking out and not knowing what to do with them.

I recently read an article dealing with voice recognition software. Postman could argue that this technology is unnecessary and a waste of millions of dollars. However, I believe that is has made great strides in improving the safety of many things. For starters, banks, casinos, and other things that hold a lot of valuables have voice recognition software installed within there vaults. It is a way to ensure that only the people who are supposed to be in there get in there. More recently, voice recognition software has been installed in some vehicles. This software allows you to pick your favorite music, call your best friends, and get directions without having to lift a finger from the steering wheel. This is an incredible accomplishment considering how many deaths by car crash there are every single month. While it seems like this is just another fancy thing to add to your vehicle, I think that it will drastically decrease the number of accidents from talking on the cell phone or changing the car radio.

It is this reason why I disagree with Postman’s comment. It is true that there are a lot of things that seem to only serve the purpose to entertain or look “cool”. But I believe that many of the technologies present in our society today have the ability to do even more, even potentially helping to save a life.

Here is the link if anyone is interested: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4893/is_200411/ai_n17954555

:)

HI blog. It's Amy. Have a great day!