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What Is An Example Of Nonfiction Data Sheet By Neil Postman

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AP English: Language and Composition Nonfiction Data Sheet Title: Amusing ourselves to death Author: Neil Postman Date of Publication: 1985 Subject/Occasion Information During this time people were interested in George Orwell’s proposal that in the future, an authoritative government would be the cause of or downfall. However, Postman wanted to promote the idea that people would become so obsessed with pleasure that they eventually sacrifice their rights. Postman furthers on this idea by describing television as something that will be an exchange of rights for entertainment. He then extends this theory by saying ideas are affected by their medium and that media as a medium causes people to evaluate information’s quality by its entertainment …show more content…

"We are all, as Huxley says someplace, Great Abbreviators, meaning that none of us has the wit to know the whole truth, the time to tell it if we did, or the audience so gullible as to accept it." (pg. 6) Postman is describing how communication is intrinsic in remembrance and the information we receive is affected by the bias of the person conveying their message. This is significant as it is one of Postman’s main arguments. 3. "How forms of public discourse regulate and even dictate what kind of content can issue." (pg. 6) Logos is in place here because he attempting to use reason as a way to persuade his audience. Postman is trying to say that the way we communicate can control the type of information that we release. This is significant as it is central to his argument and demonstrates just how much power he thinks an information medium has over society. 4. “For on television, discourse is largely conducted through visual imagery, which is to say that television gives us a conversation in images, not words.” (pg. 8) The device in place is logos. Logically, if television uses visuals to display information then it is not an oratory medium. He is describing how because television uses a series of images, the way we gather information from it is through visual aspects. This is important as it contrasts how people would gather information in an oratory fashion in the past because they used spoken words to describe events. This quote show how sight dominates modern society’s

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