Amusing ourselves to death 20th anniversary

Here is Andrew Postman--Neil Postman's son--introducing the 20th anniversary edition of Postman's book. It is followed by Jay Rosen answering comments about Postman, McLuhan and media theory in general.

I agree that Postman is relevant, but I think there are important critiques of Postman left off of this list. First, like Innis, he has this image of a time when there was a more democratic discourse--namely during the time of the greeks when the balance between the verbal and written was made to enhance both the interaction of the present and the recognition of tradition. Of course this model was also based upon a whole class of slaves being excluded from the polis and, though the rest of the democratic interaction was indeed deep, it couldn't travel well at all, as Perry Anderson and many others discuss, and therefore it ultimately results in the failure of the Greek attempt at Emprire.

Second, like the other critics of the media ecology after Innis, Postman posits a sort of transhistorical nature to the "bias of communication" which takes the least important aspect of Innis' critique and makes it the primary argument. Innis was concerned to show the way that economics and power had been intertwined with whatever model of media had become dominant--often suggesting that the model of communication adopted was a reflection of the needs of the ruling class. Thus whatever bias the communication had was more political-functional than a technical-teleological. This was true of both the ruling class and the people able to subvert the ruling class: their success was in some way predicated on the strategic manipulation of new communication methods (usually imported from somewhere else rather than invented) or novel refunctioning of previously available communication. This refashioning of communication--in form, media, content, and practice--then limited the kind of thought and power that could exist, it defined the media ecology according to predetermined ends that would remain dominant until a new social group subverted current practice.

Admittedly, I am now reading Innis more through the lens of various forms of historical sociology and the ideas of Bourdieu, but I think he is more in line with those thinkers and that, while Postman is undoubtedly an improvement on McLuhan, he still mostly avoids looking at the more historical, political aspect of media, preferring instead to say that it is a technological change itself that has made things different--the telegraph and the photograph, the TV and the radio are what cause the breakdown of US civil discourse, not because of the way that they are implemented but simply as part of their essence. Though he hedges at several points on this and makes the key distinction between the technology and the media--the latter being the social relations the technology creates--the upshot of the book is undoubtedly that the instruments of communication are basically just found like any other technology and implemented in the only possible way to create the vast wasteland of infotainment that is a stark contrast to earlier forms of communication.

Most importantly, this avoids considering the effect that commercialization of all forms of media in the US has on the quality of discourse or the way that this imperative is often the key to the shaping of the media in the direction he discusses. The work of scholars like McChesney on the history of radio and the Mattalart book mentioned in my previous post points to the way, at each junction the technology got shaped in a certain way--usually along market oriented lines. The unqualified questions of the possibility of the internet for democratic communication are, also as mentioned in the previous post, obviously borne of this kind of historical unawareness and technological determinism. When you compare the conjunctural manifestations of these technologies as media (in Postman's sense) it seems obvious: TV is beamed out from a central location and the internet is supposedly modeled on distributed production and consumption. Further, Postman's argument about the way that TV shapes the consciousness of all other media seems even more relevant to even the discussion of the commercialization of the internet: not only are the media companies hoping to use that model in their reshaping of the web, but most media consumers will probably find little to disagree with in that model. But here is the rub, it is not because TV has some inherent property that infects the consciousness of the average consumer, making them more liable to agree with a TV-ization of the internet; it is the capitalist society in general--as argued by Smythe--and the class interests the media is intended to serve that make the shaping of the communications technology in a certain direction seem both natural and inevitable. Postman and McLuhan are content to point to the surface manifestations of this, but neglect considering the deeper social, political, and economic struggles that help to create this--and which Innis, in his sweeping portrayal, was always interested in uncovering.

This brings us to the third major criticism of the book, which is common to most arguments--for instance that of Habermas on the public sphere and even DeBord's Society of the Spectacle--which is that they all rely on an idealized moment of the democratic performance of the media in the public sphere. As Schudson is keen to point out, as important as the ideal of the public sphere is, we have no historical precedent for it. Though Nancy Fraser and other critics are quick to point out that there were restrictions on who could actually participate, Schudson makes the even more interesting point that, even those who were allowed to participate weren't particularly active. This isn't disabling for Postman or any other critic of the media, but it does pose a deeper problem for anyone proposing to use media reform of any kind, using Postman's logic, because it will mean that we have many other things to do to reinvigorate civil society than just limiting commercial consolodation or the growth of more emphasis on the entertainment imperative (two related moves in Postman, Habermas and DeBord.)

Strategically, as a first shot across the bow, this book is an important intervention in the education of most undergraduates. But it is merely a good introduction to the critique of the current media ecology that would require a deeper understanding of both the history and the interests encrusted in the formation of that media environment and the individual consciousness it helps shape. To his credit, unlike McLuhan, he makes the former the more important instrument than the latter. But, again to refer to the earlier post, knowing what could happen to any media given a change in regulation, ownership or emphasis and how a current structure is neither inevitable nor transhistorical is a more nuanced and empowering way to understand media ecology. In so far as Postman leads us to the latter conclusion, he is an essential critic; in so far as we stop with that critique, we disarm ourselves from both a defensive and offensive ability at protecting or changing anything about the communications systems our democracy (and economy) demands.