credibility is at stake within politics, the media - a business - spills over into the culture - how we understand our story, who is telling us, and what is their vested interest? - "the purpose of education is to help the young defend themselves from the seductions of eloquence" (-Bertrand Russell) (he was referring to print medium) - the arts of defense taught were rhetoric,logic, literary criticism, grammar - the new medium, ie., TV, computers; graphic messages not linguistic.
commercials as parables, quasi-parables - "all problems are solvable by consumerism, technology, drugs, etc." - how do you teach the young to defend themselves against this? - censorship to enable the young to amass the critical skills? - the Internet poses the problem of "gatekeeping" - democratizing medium, but eliminates the gatekeeping function, ie., school curriculum, organizational reference points, credentials, etc. - public discourse on TV, ie., political debates, religion (star driven, floral arraignments) - attempts at seriousness, show business. -- [Notes 1,2,3,4][based on CBC, Pamela Wallin Live, Dr. Neil Postman, Jul.98]
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