The lost art of typography

A detailed Summary of The lost art of typography

Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business was published in 1985. The theories and concepts described in the book could easily apply to today's world. Postman goes to great detail in his book about the development of public discourse (verbal and written communication) over the centuries. He explains how the development and evolution of communication over mankind's history has changed at critical points. These critical points include the development of the alphabet, the development of the printing press, the development of the telegraph and the development of the television. Postman argues that American society in particular is in danger since it relies so much on television.

Postman's book is divided into two parts. Part one documents the development of communication in Western civilization. The main course of his documentation is that the oral and printed methods of communication tend to be held in higher prestige because they take more "brain power" to learn and perfect. If a person wants to learn in an oral or printed communication based culture, he or she must learn the language, memorize customs, learn to read, learn to write, etc. Postman even goes so far to say that print co

Part two of Postman's book goes more into current examples of his theories. One chapter discusses how television mixes with religion, while another goes into more detail about politics and television and another goes into detail about education and television. These chapters provide more specific, concrete examples of the points Postman is trying to make and they do an excellent job of helping the reader better grasp his ideas. Younger readers may not understand some of the examples used in his book (there are many references to late 1970's through mid 1980's programs here) but it is extremely easy to apply Postman's theories to television today. His ideas are just as relevant. To make my point -- on the issue of attention span, I heard today that the National Hockey League is considering rules to help "speed up the game". After game six of this year's Stanley Cup playoffs lasted until 1:30am Eastern Time, the NHL has decided to allow only four players on a team during overtime periods next season. The logic is that the games will be faster and decided faster in order to keep the fans interested. Similar ideas have been presented for the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and Major League Baseball. It seems to me that if your favorite sports team were playing for its life in the championship playoffs you would not mind the fact that the game lasts six hours, especially if you are on hand to see it in person. However it seems the television ratings for this year's hockey playoffs and basketball playoffs were very low compared to years past and in part because of this, the leaders of these fine organizations are no

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Approximate Word count = 1112
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics