Questions for readings due March 3rd

1.) In Neil Postman's Amusing ourselves to death, he starts out by saying that 'Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration[...]The result is that we are people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.' My problem with this statement is that media is here and it just means that we have it use it wisely. I don't think that we are all destine to become so media consumed that we need be always entertained. I think that we have the ability to control it in some way and know that we do not always need to be entertained by a so media driven source. So my question is to you, are we to become just media sucking objects always looking to be entertained even through our news like John Stewart? If so, how can we stop it, if not, how can it be prevented?
2.) He also discusses the idea of our media as our metaphors. He says ' Our media is our metaphors. Our metaphors create the content of our culture.' I think that this is true in many ways, but not true in others. I think that the media can define our culture pretty well, it is in a way a record of everything our culture is going through. But can we depend on everything that is put on our media to speak for our society? Take things such as the movie 'snakes on a plane' does that media outlet speak to our generation. Bu then I think of movies such as 'Milk' and think this has spoken directly about our generation and the things that we think about. Do we as a society, have our media be our metaphors to the world and can it portray us the way that we truly are?
3.) In his second section he says that people today are basically portrayed by television and not by print. That our ideas, information, and epistemology are portrayed through these medias. I’m not going to disagree with this statement, and my theme for these questions is, is this all that defines us as a whole? Are we only what is seen on television? It can’t be, for me I see the media so bias and always choosing a side to portray the story on. So are we all that is seen on media and on print? Or is there more to our culture that is not recorded in this way but still exists and defines our culture?