Synthesizing and Summing up

The combination of different mediums cohesively existing in the world of journalism come together to serve in their own individual respects. Neil Postman looks at different forms of communication and how they are integrated into different societies to serve in different ways.
He says “Each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.”

This idea can be integrated into how the multimedia platform fits in with the already established and existing mediums of journalism. It can be seen that this is the case when looking at the “20 something’s” age group and their mode of obtaining news. There is not an across the board method that all these people use to get information. Some people may prefer to watch a 30 minute local and/or national newscast, some like to hear from others then go look up whatever it is that they are interested in on the internet, while others still enjoy reading a good old fashioned newspaper, or some combination of all the above.

This is perhaps the way this generation obtains news because as Postman states, “Each medium...providing a new orientation for thought, for expression for sensibility.” In other words, each medium serves its purpose to the person seeking it. If a person chooses to watch a TV broadcast, then there must be something individually about that medium that triggers an interest in that individual. The same thing can be said with internet news, the person seeking that usually prefers to control what news they get, how much of it and several other things. For those who prefer a newspaper, they too may like to select the news they read, but not to the extent where they would have to go searching for it. All in all these different mediums still exist at the same time. Sharing a somewhat symbiotic relationship by existing together, yet still having their individual purpose in the world of journalism.

In The Medium is the Metaphor, by Neil Postman; he says, “The decline of the Age of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television. This change-over has dramatically and irreversibly shifted the content and meaning of public discourse, since two media so vastly different cannot accommodate the same ideas.”

This goes in contrast as to what I stated above. He is claiming that different media platforms are incapable of sharing the same ideas. This is in a sense true when looking at the idea that different mediums fulfill the needs and/or wants of different individuals. The different platforms of news do serve their audiences, but that does not mean that there cannot be a bleeding of ideas between the mediums.

Though Postman makes a point that could have held true at one point in time, it can be seen in this day in age that there are not really any rules as to what each platform stands for or really who their audience is, thus making the statements made by Postman relatively irrelevant in today’s world.