Paglia vs. Postman

As a student of media and communication, I am expected to sustain the utmost detachment from the world in order to incite critical analysis of the environment I live in. Many would argue that it was print medium that allowed me to obtain such a skill; and furthermore, that the preference of television and other visual media over the written word may have hindered this process. Neil Postman has stated, “Television, with its random, unconnected images, works against the linear tradition and breaks the habits of logic and thinking” (Postman & Paglia 283) Well, Neil, I could not disagree with you more. Camille Paglia presents a point of view I relate to much more, “Watching TV has nothing to do with thought or analysis.” (Postman & Paglia 289)

Harper’s Magazine had the chance to witness some dinner conversation between these two conflicting theorists. The arguments posed by each made for some intriguing intellectual discourse. The major point asserted by Paglia is that a new literacy (visual literacy) has emerged from the traditional form of literacy (print literacy). As is apparent in his above statement, Postman fully disagrees. He would not call visual literacy a form of literacy at all; moreover, if this new literacy does exist, Postman believes it is robbing people of traditional literacy and the decline in favor of print media cannot at all be beneficial.

Postman, who is stricken by a pre-WWII upbringing, consistently criticizes television, but Paglia defends her argument for visual literacy making points such as, “Watching television…[is] a passive but highly efficient process of storing information to be used later.” (Postman & Paglia 289) Further, to refute Postman’s criticism of visual literacy as not literacy due to lack of cognition, Paglia argues information is still drawn from visual media; however, the process is more sensorimotor than cognitive. She states:

“It’s like the...driver cruising down the interstate at high speed, always scanning the field, looking for the drunk, the hot rod, the police…None of these people…is thinking. They’re only reading the field and working by instinct, deciding in an instant where to ….steer the jet or car. The decision is made by intuition, not by ratiocination.” (Postman & Paglia 289).

I would tend to agree with Paglia. A new literacy has emerged out of the traditional literacy, and this literacy encompasses our use of visual media. This literacy is real and we must note that the next generation of adults, the millennials, will be constantly relying on the technology available to make societal advances. It’s increasingly apparent that visual literacy is dominating the media sector and the use of print media is in decline; however, I’m not too sure this is such a bad thing. An experiment was conducted at the University of Toronto testing levels of learning through the use of different media to convey lecture material. The results showed students who viewed lecture on television did the best, while, students who read the lecture manuscript did the worst. One may ask are these results valid. Are they displaying an absolute fact that humans truly learn better visually, through the context of television, or rather are these results demonstrating a trend in the decrease in print literacy? Has the use of print media decreased so much that these students could not pick up the blatantly diminishing slack? I believe the answer, though slightly irrelevant, is obvious.

Works Cited
Postman, Neil and Paglia, Camille. "Two cultures—Television versus print." In D. Crowley and P Heyer (Eds.). Communication in history: Technology, Culture, Society. 5th Ed. New York: Pearson Education, Inc. 283-295.

Peace, Love
Evan