1) The whole thing about the clocks confuses me. What does he mean by "the clock introduces a new form of conversation between God and man, which God appears to be the lose

I am using God here to symbolize a person-centered and naturalistic world view. When we introduce technology into the natural world, often times with the goal of controlling nature, it may take us away from what is natural and what is fundamentally human. Some might argue that technology is fundamentally de-humanizing, would you agree or disagree?

2) Why is "news of the day" a figment of our technological imagination? Does he downplay certain things because we can hear about them the same day they occur? Maybe I'm missing his point on this!!

The  "news of the day" is a symbolic construction, there not any "news" of the day until we cerate or construct it.  For example, the "news of the day" will be very different if you working in the medium or print when compared to working in the medium of television. The "news of the day" will be very different if you using the medium of hypertext than if your medium is the nightly news on television. So to echo McLuhan, in can be suggested that  "the medium is the message."  Prior to the invention of the telegraph, there simply was no "news of the day" in part because we had no technology capable of creating the "new of the day."   Now as a result of satellite technology we have the "new of the minute."  It is important to remember, that we can "take this for granted" or we can "stop the world" and reflect on what types of changes this has brought to the culture."

3. What does Postman mean by saying that Typography is dying, when I am taught in my Typography classes that it is on the rise?

From a historical perspective print is no longer the primary way in which Americans come to know and understand their world. The percentage of people who read a newspaper or a newsmagazine o4 a daily or weekly basis has declined over time. How many non-fiction books does the
average American read per week, per month of per year? My book is primarilyabout the movement from the Age of Print to the Age of Television. Most social critics and educators would agree the printed word has come under assault and been devalued in the Age of Television.  Some claim that the internet will lead to the rebirth or print, or course that is technological naiveté, the internet as a medium of communication is dramatically different than print. Coming to know and understand the world through the internet is very different than coming to know and understand the world through print.

4. Does Postman believe that writing can be incorporated into new technologies in order to revive the age of writing?

I am  primarily concerned with the perils of new technologies and their potentially adverse influence on the written word. The problem of information overload, the lack of professional journalists to function as gatekeepers, and a growing inability to distinguish information from knowledge and wisdom. You must be aware that the written wordrd in a book newspaper or magazine is very different than the written word that is produced in the form of hypertext or interactive multi-media. want to alert youto the fact that reading a book can be different experience than reading a web page.  I believe Professor Kasch has tasked you with writing paper and doing group projects which explore the current media environment and link past and present.   Some may assume that print is print, whether it is in a book for communicate via hypertext.  It might be worth exploring in your papers an projects the potential differences in the medium or text and hypertext.

5. What is meant when he said "the media creates a second-hand reality?"

In a culture whose dominant medium was oral communication ones view of reality is limited to one's own personal experience and the experiences of those with whom one can in contact with. The development of mass mediums of communication enables one to transcend the limitations of time and space. Television offers us an alternative view of reality which transcends the limitations of our own experience. It furnishes a window on the world. My task  in writing Amusing Ourselves to Death was to help us understand the nature of this “second-hand" reality which is created by the television mediums

6. What is form? How is the term used here?

See http://www.kaschassociates.com/417web/417form.htm

7. Why can't television news (i.e. nightly news) be what it is? That is, it is meant to give the public a mere glimpse at what happened, not fully explain
what has happened.

It can be, and in fact that is why on some stations that is exactly what it is called e.g. "Headline News." But the "news" often purports to do more, it is often claimed "we bring you the world." We furnish the "window to the world." A primary concern, of course, is that for many
Americans, television is their primary, and for some their only source
of information about the world.  And the window that television provides is a very different window than a book would provide.  An increasing number of people now get their news form the internet. Do what degree to you think the internet is being reinvented in the image of television?

8. Why is technology looked upon as sort of an evil for obtaining information
if it is easier to use and more efficient at times?

Listen to Neil Postman I do not think that social critics like myself,would suggest that technology is evil. For example, consider the student doing a research paper using the Internet. The student harnessing the power of the search engines, finds 20 or 30 source of potential information, and prints  them out. Do you see any potential downsides of using the Internet as one's sole source of information?  What I often see is that the 30 articles are only tangentially related to one another.  The student or researcher can read all the articles, but because they are not closely related to one another, they are left kind of like the "rat in the maze" still groping toward the cheese.  The collection of articles from the "net" furnish no context.  There is often no way of getting an overview and understanding how the parts  fit to the whole.  It is almost more efficient in the long run to get the library and find a book or a book chapter on one's particular topic which furnish an overview, which furnishes context.  Certainly, it is easier and efficient to get information from the net, but one should be alert that there are also potential consequence that may accompany this ease the convenience
Could you live without email?  Listen to why Neil Postman did.

9) Since this book was written in the late 1980's, how would the element of the rise of 24-hour news channels today either refute or strengthen Postman's thesis? (For example on page 5 he says, "There is no shortage of critics who have observed and recorded the dissolution of public discourse in America...") Though now with non-stop cable channels, it seems discourse on issues (pundits disputing certain ideas) may increasingly replace straight-out news sometimes. In other words, opinion may become more valuable than subjective news on some programs. So could too much discourse (even if it's still structured at the fast pace he deplores) almost be the new problem in certain situations?

I am concerned about fundamental relationships e.g. medium-culture, medium-message, media cognition. However, the media environments in 2009 is quite different that the media environments in 1986. So today my book furnishes a historical perspective, which I think is important. However, as you suggest, we need to be alert to the way changes in the media environment in the last two decades create both new promises and new perils. I believe there are both promises and perils in the emergence of 24/7 news and the emergence of the "talk show" as a dominant form of political discourse. Certainly, may possibilities are created  in the expanding range of programming which cable and satellite television offers. One of the primary arguments I make in the book is that  entertainment values have influenced the political discussion on television and created the new form of discussion which is "infotainment." For example, Dennis Miller now has a political talk show. I  find it troubling that sports fans would not tolerate Miller's lack of sports knowledge and experience on Monday night football several years ago, but citizens may accept his lack of knowledge and experience in furnishing political discourse.  I find it troubling that many people say their only source of political information is The Daly Show.  John Daly, appears on Crossfire and found it peculiar that people would rely on a comedy show for their political information.

10) Can't television provide a better historical account than print media, since it shows us the event as it happens? (i.e. 9/11) Or would he mean TV may cloud our misconceptions about the event? On page 12 he said, "Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician..." Television can also freeze speech, though now not only do you get verbal but also non-verbal clues to what that specific person was thinking.

With the emergence of digital television and further technology developments which will permit high compression and low cost data storage, I imagine in the not to distant future we will have tools like the tri-corder in Star Trek which make is possible to record and preserve everything But of course we can not attend to all this information, and there is a difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom. So we depend on our "newstellers" and our "truthtellers" to furnish perspective I would argue that the nature of the medium which our "truth-tellers" use to furnish perspective will shape the nature and quality of their discourse. I  might suggest that television is not really in the business of freezing "speech." It might freeze images e.g. the trade towers, the Challenger, the rider less black stallion in the funeral process of JFK, but even these images are transient, as one of television's biases is the immediate passing present. Historically, print was a more permanent enduring medium, but the emergence of the Internet the creation of a new medium "interactive multi-media" may be changing these ratios.  I am sure most of you watched the horror of 9/10 and trade towers falling to the ground, again, and again, and again and again.  But does watching this event as it happens furnish a better historical account?  It certainly could, but television is not directly in the business or producing history, it is in the business or producing rating.  What is like go get better rating, watching the statue of Sadam Hussein fall, or discussing the history of foreign policy with Iraq?

11. What is Postman talking about when he says; "...forms of public discourse regulate and even dictate what kind of content can issue such forms." (p 6) Is he talking about the difference between public discourse through newspaper verses television

All messages have three elements form, substance, and style. See the discussion of form linked off your course calendar which Professor Kasch has provided.  What is the form of USA Today? Well, it has four major sections, nation, sports, lifestyle, and money. Where would you put a discussion of theology? Where would you put a discussion of the culture of Iraq? Well the form of USA today tends to regulate what type of content are likely to influence the type of message content or substance? Think about the form of a 30minute newscast? It generally organized into news, weather and sports. A 30 minute newscast might also be organized into stories and commercials, and each story is going to be between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. Generally speaking the form of a nightly newscast will not allow certain types of content, e.g. in-depth stories. At a more general level the form of television is commercial
vs. noncommercial. Hence, a commercial medium is biased toward content which holds the attention of an audience, visual, emotional, simple, dramatic, novel. Now the form of television, just like the form of a web page is not set in stone. Consider the form of the nightly newscast on PBS and the nightly newscast on CBS, ABC, and NBC. Or the form of television in other counties vs. the form of television in the United States.



12. I don't understand when Postman says, "Moment to moment, it turns out, is not God's conception, or nature's. It is man conversing with himself about and through a piece of machinery he created." (p. 11)

See Lewis Mumford's Technis and Civilization. It could be argued that there are two competing epistemologies or world views, a natural world, and a scientific-technological perspective. Technologies are often designed to control nature. From a naturalistic perspective, we would organized the day and our lives using our "biological clocks" and around the rising and setting of the sun-light and darkness. But creation of the clock creates a new conception of time. A clock produces minutes and seconds. Think of a how a culture that does not measure time in minutes and seconds world be very different from one like ours. Think of how your day is controlled by a technology called the clock.  An alarm clock wakes you up, often when you are still tired and your body may need more rest. The traffic light regulate how long it will take you to get to school. Each of your classes is allocated a certain number of minutes. We consume nourishment not necessarily in response to our natural clocks but rather when it is lunch-time. In many high schools or middle school lunch time can come as early as 10:45 a.m. Some world argue that technology is dehumanizing, it takes us away from what is fundamentally natural and human.

14. Does Postman's analysis mean that celebrities/entertainers have no talent whatsoever?

My argument is not really about the talent of celebrities and actors, We have that we have the most talented entertainment industry in the world. My primary argument is that the values of entertainment have adversely influenced the quality of our public discourse e.g. religion, politics, the news, education and so forth. Should celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger  get elected Governor of California with little or no experience. It concern me that Denis Miller has a new political talk show, and yet he has little or no experience. I  wondered why sports fans would not tolerate Denis Millers lack of knowledge and experience on Monday Night Football, but apparently the public will tolerate his lack of knowledge and political expertise. The fact that the criteria for hiring newstellers on television are often focused on their potential to be celebrities rather than their journalistic abilities should cause everyone some concern.  My book is not about the nature of entertainment on television, it is about public discourse.  Now it may be that many of you are only concerned about entertainment and have little interest in public discourse, it is not my job to question your individual choices.

15. Why is Postman so against technology? I'm sorry, but it is necessary for some of the things we do.

I am social critic. The task of the social critic is to induce cognitive dissonance. I wasnot a Luddite, but rather my taskwas to increase your awareness of the way in which technologies, particularly communication technologies not only give to the culture, but also take away from the culture.  It makes no more sense to be against technology than it does to be against food, but we can be against "junk food."  We can recognize, as McLuhan reminded us that "we shape our tools, and they shape us."  Before we purchase a new technology we might as, "what problem is this technology designed to solve?"