毁灭性娱乐：当代媒介与美国文化的暴风雨

Fatal Amusements: Contemplating the Tempest of Contemporary Media and American Culture

当我们用电子媒介探讨严肃的话语时,正如尼尔·波兹曼所论证的,就会出现一个我们是否在娱乐至死的问题。所谓媒介生态学研究,就是把媒介作为环境进行研究,强调理解语境、寻找平衡,从而为当代文化的分析与批评提供基础的必要性。美国的共和政体,诞生于印刷媒介环境,但是我们目前的电子媒介环境重视图像、信息和即时性,对美国的政治、新闻、宗教经验和教育,产生了很多负面影响。

Our use of the electronic media to conduct serious discourse raises the question of whether we are amusing ourselves to death, as Nell Postman argued. The approach known as media ecology, the study of media as environments, which emphasizes the need to understand context and find balance, provides a basis for the analysis and critique of contemporary culture. The American republic was born out of the typographic media environment, while our current electronic media environment, with its emphasis on images, information, and immediacy, has had many negative effects on American politics, journalism, religious experience, and education.