Summary of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 America’s symbol is now Las Vegas, a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment. Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice.

#2 The American culture of show business is not an exception. In America, the least amusing people are its professional entertainers. The artifice of their display is more important than the quality and usefulness of their goods.

#3 The forms of human conversation that we are most familiar with are the ones that regulate and even dictate what kind of content can issue from them. This is what determines what ideas are convenient to express.

#4 The information, content, or stuff that makes up the news of the day did not exist in a world that lacked the media to express it. Media such as the telegraph made it possible to move decontextualized information over vast spaces at incredible speed.

© 2022 IRB Media (Ebook): 9781669387084

Release date

Ebook: 19 April 2022