Amusing Ourselves to Death

Chapter 7: “Now . . . This”

“Now . . .this” - used to transition on newscasts

• Signifies what is to follow has no connection with what preceded it
• A conjunction which testifies to separation
• An acknowledgement that the order and meaning is not to be taken seriously
• The newscast itself is pure entertainment

 

News as entertainment

Newscaster must be attractive

Newscaster must have credibility

Musical theme for the show

Average story length 45 seconds

Prominence given to events for which there is footage

 

Embedded is a theory of anticommunication

A type of discourse that

• abandons logic
• reason
• sequence
• rules of contradiction.

 

The result is that “Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world.”

TV has altered the meaning of "being informed"
It creates the illusion of knowing something

 

In fact, it creates disinformation

• misplaced
• irrelevant
• fragmented
• superficial

When news is packaged as entertainment, this is the inevitable result