This article discusses all of the issues with television and how things get blown out of proportion most of the time. It discusses how television has become the major source of news overall. Even over internet usage and newspapers to discover what the headlines might be. Postman and Powers go on to discuss the fact that each news cast is planned out and articulated to a t. Everything from what the anchors were going to say, to the actual stories even including the music to set the tone as it plays into the show. All of the anchors or actors have rehearsed what to say and in some cases we do not know what the truth is. After so much editing and re-editing as well as careful planning, the viewer may have mixed concepts of what is the truth, even though we are supposed to believe what people on television say without seeing any proof. The idea of television is a one of greatness, but it takes away people’s will to do things on their own, such as read a newspaper or even surf the internet. Television is beginning to make people become lazy.
Postman and Powers actually discuss the basics of being a broadcasting anchor of any particular television show. They both go on to discuss that the anchor basically has to establish control over their audience. And with out such their ratings will definitely suffer. But they actually help gain control by all of the special effects and lack of gaps. When is the last time you have heard an awkward gap of time on a news cast? Probably not all that often. The reporters are trained to keep the pace of the news cast going.
The language of pictures is something Postman and Powers go into greatly because the language of pictures is always shorter than that of writing or speaking. They use the example that a picture says a thousand words, and they use the inverse of that by saying a thousand words is worth a picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment