POSTMAN AND PERKINSON DEBATEAre American values shaped by the mass media?

Yes• Television has a wide range of content.

Yes.• Therefore, it encodes culture.

• Our main mode of learning about culture (cultural transmission?)

• Model for our lives.• Shaping our values

Yes.• Image is more important than information in television.

• Triviality/Superficiality

Yes.• People are more concerned about what impression they

give off compared to what they are talking about.

• Political discussion show:• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnjP-dePs8M

Yes.What happens when you dress wrongly:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzKB0OV2oqo

Yes.• When are political discussion shows broadcast in Korea?

• Postman says they are unpopular and therefore, broadcast at unpopular timings.

• Shows how politics (complicated topics) are less appealing to audience.

No.TV encodes

culture

Distances us from it

Allows us to scrutinise culture

Exposes moral inadequacies

Eventually correct them

Video• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXEcmk_qhk (4:10)• Video clip of bullying in drama

No• Information presented is non-discursive

• (Not in a discussion format)

• Therefore people judge if it is good or bad• Not is it is true or false.

• Enables moral criticism• And correction

Criticism of arguments• Assumption that TV encodes culture accurately

• TV may not be realistic

• Perkinson says:• “This criticism leads, as it has, to the removal or reduction

of these evils.”• It is a fallacy.• Just because there is more criticism does not mean we will change

our actions.• We may be de-sensitized to it.

Summary

YES

-TV focuses on image due to its visual nature.

-“Exchange images, not ideas”

Encourages superficiality, triviality

NO

- Because it distances us, we can scrutinise

- Improve society through moral criticism

• Both Postman and Perkinson agree that TV encodes culture, but they differ in their view on the effects of

it.

Discussion Questions• What is a character on television that you think is

most similar to you?

• Who is your favourite TV character?

Discussion Questions• Are characters/lives portrayed on TV realistic?

Hurricane HaiyanMore than 100 people were killed in a major Philippine coastal city that took the brunt of Super Typhoon Haiyan, authorities said Saturday.

That death toll in Tacloban was the first significant casualty report in a day when authorities began surveying the devastation of a typhoon that has been described as perhaps the strongest storm ever to make landfall in recorded history.

Capt. John Andrews, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, told CNN that he received a radio report from the Tacloban airport station manager who said there are more than 100 bodies in the street in Tacloban and more than 100 people injured.

Excerpt from CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/08/world/asia/philippines-typhoon-haiyan/

Hurricane Haiyan (Video)

• Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UJW84Fqhgw

• Which (news or video) is made you feel stronger about Hurricane Haiyan?

• Follow up question: Did it make you feel like donating money or doing anything to help?

Discussion QuestionsDoes TV create more social problems through its focus

on image?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAAgnc48Vrw