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Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media

William Merrin Orcid Logo

Studia Humanistyczne AGH, Volume: 21, Issue: 2, Pages: 17 - 29

Swansea University Author: William Merrin Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.7494/human.2022.21.2.17

Abstract

In 1985, Neil Postman published Amusing Ourselves to Death, a McLuhan-inspired critique of the transformation of public discourse from 19th-century print culture, with its depth of reading, thought and debate, to the contemporary era of television ‘show business’. Developments since then, most notab...

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Published in: Studia Humanistyczne AGH
ISSN: 2084-3364 2300-7109
Published: AGHU University of Science and Technology Press 2022
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69001
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last_indexed 2025-05-14T12:23:24Z
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title Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media
spellingShingle Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media
William Merrin
title_short Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media
title_full Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media
title_fullStr Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media
title_full_unstemmed Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media
title_sort Bemusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of social media
author_id_str_mv 2426af4e20a955e5b25da3ae3d881121
author_id_fullname_str_mv 2426af4e20a955e5b25da3ae3d881121_***_William Merrin
author William Merrin
author2 William Merrin
format Journal article
container_title Studia Humanistyczne AGH
container_volume 21
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publishDate 2022
institution Swansea University
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doi_str_mv 10.7494/human.2022.21.2.17
publisher AGHU University of Science and Technology Press
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - Media, Communications, Journalism and PR{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - Media, Communications, Journalism and PR
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description In 1985, Neil Postman published Amusing Ourselves to Death, a McLuhan-inspired critique of the transformation of public discourse from 19th-century print culture, with its depth of reading, thought and debate, to the contemporary era of television ‘show business’. Developments since then, most notably the digital revolution, allow us to update Postman’s thesis, to explore the digital age that succeeds the electric broadcast era and its contemporary transformation of culture and politics. This paper argues that digital personalisation has exploded the mass-media world, bursting its mainstream bubble into a foam of individual life-worlds, empowering everyone as the producer of their own realities. Arguing that the key thinker of this era is Philip K. Dick (with his exploration of fictive, split, and personal realities), the paper explores the cultural impact of this new post-truth era of ‘me-dia’ realities and the ‘bemusement’ it produces.
published_date 2022-06-30T08:11:08Z
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score 11.301609

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