Chapter 2: Media as Epistemology

In the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, chapter two is about the different ways we communicate and how it has changed over time. It explains how communicating orally and with writing has different meanings when trying to portray the truth. Communication through writing, or print, is used scholarly by universities and is considered factual and truthful, but poems for example, are not. Communicating orally was how we passed down information over the years and proverbs were spoken when no law was established. Now factual information in a jury setting is also communicated orally and the truth is found through speaking, not writing, in this case. Now print isn’t used as often because in our culture, television is predominant. As the author says, “Print is now merely a residual epistemology, and it will remain so, aided to some extent by the computer, and the newspapers and magazines that are made to look like television screens.” This means, that oral and visual communication of information is perceived more often, compared to other means of communication. So media has the highest chance as being thought of as the truth, in comparison to others, because is used so often. It may have started off as a nice new discovery, but now is becoming powerful and potentially harmful.