Neil Postman

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003) was a prominent American educator, media theorist and cultural critic. For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University.

Related Topics:
March 8 - 1931 - October 5 - 2003 - American - Media theorist - New York University

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Inspired by the values of Classical and Enlightenment culture, Postman was something of an old-fashioned humanist, who in the face of extraordinary technological change in contemporary society held firmly to his beliefs that there is a limit to the promise of new technology, and that it cannot be a substitute for human values.

Related Topics:
Classical - Enlightenment

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Postman was born and spent most of his life in New York City.

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In 1953, he graduated from State University of New York at Fredonia.

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He received a master's degree in 1955 and a doctorate in education in 1958, both from the Teachers College, Columbia, and started teaching at New York University in 1959.

Related Topics:
Columbia - New York University

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In 1971, he founded the program in media ecology at the Steinhardt School of Education of NYU, attracting a large audience for his lectures and writings over the years. In 1993 he was appointed a University Professor, the only one in the School of Education, and was chairman of the Department of Culture and Communication until 2002.

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Postman wrote 18 books and more than 200 magazine and newspaper articles for such periodicals as The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Time Magazine, The Saturday Review, The Harvard Education Review, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Stern, and Le Monde.

Related Topics:
The New York Times Magazine - The Atlantic Monthly - Harper's - Time Magazine - The Washington Post - Los Angeles Times - Stern - Le Monde

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He was also on the editorial board of The Nation.

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Perhaps his best known title is Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), in which he criticized the television industry for confounding serious issues with entertainment, demeaning politics by making it less about ideologies and more about image. Postman also argues that television is not an effective way of providing education, as it provides only passive information transfer, rather than the interaction that he believes is necessary to maximize learning. He draws on the ideas of media guru Marshall McLuhan, to form a theory on how different media are appropriate for different kinds of knowledge, and describes how oral, literate, and televisual cultures value and transfer information in different ways. He states repeatedly that the 19th century was the pinnacle of rational argument, truly being an Age of Reason. Only in the printed word, says Postman, could complicated truths be rationally conveyed. Amusing Ourselves to Death was translated into eight languages and sold some 200,000 copies worldwide.

Related Topics:
Amusing Ourselves to Death - Television - Marshall McLuhan - Age of Reason

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