Reflection on Chapter V

Merry-Go-Round

Reader: 敖维瑞

Reading time: 3h

Reading Task: V. The Peek-a-Boo World

Summary of the content:  TV reshapes public discourse into entertainment. News blends with ads; politics becomes performance (e.g., presidential debates resembling TV dramas). The medium "chops" content into disconnected, flashy snippets, prioritizing visuals over substance. By turning serious issues into shallow spectacles, TV trains us to value amusement over understanding.

Evaluation: Postman argues 19th-century telegraphy and photography reshaped truth into decontextualized spectacle. The telegraph flooded society with fragmented, irrelevant "news bites" (Middle East crises, crime stats) while photos framed reality as isolated, unarguable "facts." Together, they prioritized speed over substance, reducing public discourse to amusement—a blueprint for TV’s later dominance.

Reflection: Thinking more in this fragmental information world can help us collect useful fragments.