Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Postman writes that the Age of Show Business supplanted the Age of Exposition, with roots in the latter 19th century but reaching fruition in the 20th century. This period was enabled by communication traveling faster than transportation (due to telegraphy) and the rise of images (due to photography). The two created a new metaphor of public discourse.

The Age of Television is the period within the Age of Show Business when television dominated the media landscape. Whereas the Age of Show Business started in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, the Age of Television occurred in the latter half of the 20th century. This period is the main focus of Part 2, as Postman examines television’s effects on American society.

Postman uses the term “Age of Typography” just once, though the word “typography” alone appears in the book numerous times. This period essentially overlaps with the Age of Exposition, as typography is the use of moveable type for printing—which ushered in the Age of Exposition.

Epistemology refers to the theory and nature of knowledge, as part of the field of philosophy. Some aspects of it include how we know what we know, and the ways in which knowledge is limited. This term gets much focus in Part 1, Chapter 2, in which Postman argues that “definitions of truth are derived, at least in part, from the character of the media of communication through which information is conveyed” (17). That is, the means of communication influence our definition of the nature of knowledge and truth.

Postman uses the term “media-metaphor” to improve upon professor and media critic Marshall McLuhan’s famous declaration that “the medium is the message.” Because the word “message” refers to a specific statement about something, Postman finds this misleading. He writes, media “do not make such statements. They are rather like metaphors, working by unobtrusive but powerful implication to enforce their special definitions of reality” (10). Each medium has its own way of presenting reality that implies something more than meets the eye. This is what Postman calls the “media-metaphor”.

Pseudo-context refers to a made-up context in which to use information. It’s a case of the “tail wagging the dog”: In the Age of Show Business, information becomes fragmented and irrelevant to people’s lives. Bits of trivia pile up through an overload of disconnected information, with a pseudo-context being a context contrived to make use of all of it. The crossword puzzle, game shows, and the board game Trivial Pursuit are Postman’s examples of pseudo-context.