Tag: Neil Postman

  • Wealth, leisure and the attention economy in the 18C

    A while back, Clay Shirky (Gin, Television and Social Surplus) invoked 18C England in arguing that gin was the enabling – and stupefying – technology of rapid urbanisation. Television, he argued, played the same role in – presumably, he doesn’t really elaborate – the suburbanisation of the US in the second half of the 20C.…

  • The Trust Obsession

    CNN bills itself as the most trusted name in news. Director-General Mark Thompson reckons public trust is the life-blood of the BBC. Politicians and TV presenters wail and tear their clothes in public at the public’s loss of trust in the media. “Woe is us,” wails the collective cry from the journalism profession, “they don’t…