I've been thinking about this essay all morning. I've had so many thoughts about Amusing Ourselves to Death because of working in the entertainment industry for so many years. I think you have a point about television being passe and Kamala tuning too much to a safe play, but I think that's less about TV and more about the medium you don't discuss in the article: social media. Social media, especially Twitter/X and TikTok, have supplanted TV as the medium of choice, and that's happened for at least the last ten years. It also explains a lot of Trump's success: in this day and age, it's not even about a TV debate, it's about the soundbyte, the meme, the clip. We care even less about nuance at this point, we just care content, about laughs, about what makes us feel something. Your essay ignores that there were two people on all those debate stages and one of them also said some absolutely unhinged things, absolute lies, absolutely unhinged lies, etc. Yet TV isn't punishing him. And podcasts aren't even punishing him. Because Trump is the perfect politician for the social media age. He's a comedian. He works material (the weave, whatever) until he finds things that resonate, and then those things turn into memes and clips and those are the things that carry him forward. Substance doesn't matter, lies don't matter, policy doesn't matter. All that matters is the content. And so, sure, TV is passe, we've moved past it, but where we've moved is even more concerning in my view.
But when has a medium ever "punished" anyone? That is not what media does.
My overall point is that Postman's narrative is too pessimistic much like a Whiggish view of history is too optimistic. I'm trying to be attuned to how media can shift in ways that can't be described as just steadily worse. TikTok is bad, I agree, and in some ways it is worse than TV, but in some ways it is not. I would say that social media is worse for how it corrodes social capital and civic ties but not necessarily worse than television for communicating political ideas and news.
Podcasts are, IMO, on whole better for political discourse than television. I don't think Trump was. just a comedian on Rogan. It was actually the best insight I got into his way of thinking than any other coverage of him, maybe since 2015. Political discourse is not just about filtering lies that politicians say but about giving you access to their persona and worldview so that you can judge whether you would support them or not. Postman is overselling the audience of the Lincoln/Douglas debates. They weren't there just to think through slavery; they were also there to think through who these two men were.
I'm fascinated by podcasts in general, primarily because I don't really enjoy listening to them very much while most other people do, so I wonder what I'm missing or why I don't like them. Maybe I just haven't found the right ones yet. To me as a medium they seem like an enhanced version of radio morning shows or radio talk shows, with the difference that you don't need to tune in at a particular time or be in a particular place to hear it, which of course is a big difference.
I also wonder how much of a grassroots thing podcasting is anymore. It's definitely grassroots in the sense that anyone can do it, because it requires so little equipment and distribution is free. But most of the top podcasts at any given time are run by people who were famous first for other reasons and then started a podcast, or by large media organizations like NPR. Alex Cooper is a major exception though once you start making $20 million per year then you've been assimilated into the machine.
I'm trying to imagine what it will be like when more politicians are like Vance, and are comfortable with the podcast way of talking and presenting information. Probably because it seems like we are trapped in a spiraling vortex that is carrying us to all the dumbest outcomes possible, I'm guessing that meaningful discourse on important issues won't get any better. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Podcasts are interesting when either you get a good host with a good slate of guests (Ezra Klein or Derek Thompson, most of the time); good hosts who can plug me into a world that I am interested in but not an expert (Advisory Opinions); or just people I like to hang out with (The Big Picture). I listen to fewer than I used to, but I keep coming back to these. And of course, the OG, Climbing the Rainbows.
Grassroots is the wrong word: the point being that podcasts more clearly live or die based on their audience. There is no "prime-time slot." Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper became who they were by building and sustaining an audience over years.
I think Pete Buttigieg is an example of a politician who would thrive in a podcast era.
I've been thinking about this essay all morning. I've had so many thoughts about Amusing Ourselves to Death because of working in the entertainment industry for so many years. I think you have a point about television being passe and Kamala tuning too much to a safe play, but I think that's less about TV and more about the medium you don't discuss in the article: social media. Social media, especially Twitter/X and TikTok, have supplanted TV as the medium of choice, and that's happened for at least the last ten years. It also explains a lot of Trump's success: in this day and age, it's not even about a TV debate, it's about the soundbyte, the meme, the clip. We care even less about nuance at this point, we just care content, about laughs, about what makes us feel something. Your essay ignores that there were two people on all those debate stages and one of them also said some absolutely unhinged things, absolute lies, absolutely unhinged lies, etc. Yet TV isn't punishing him. And podcasts aren't even punishing him. Because Trump is the perfect politician for the social media age. He's a comedian. He works material (the weave, whatever) until he finds things that resonate, and then those things turn into memes and clips and those are the things that carry him forward. Substance doesn't matter, lies don't matter, policy doesn't matter. All that matters is the content. And so, sure, TV is passe, we've moved past it, but where we've moved is even more concerning in my view.
But when has a medium ever "punished" anyone? That is not what media does.
My overall point is that Postman's narrative is too pessimistic much like a Whiggish view of history is too optimistic. I'm trying to be attuned to how media can shift in ways that can't be described as just steadily worse. TikTok is bad, I agree, and in some ways it is worse than TV, but in some ways it is not. I would say that social media is worse for how it corrodes social capital and civic ties but not necessarily worse than television for communicating political ideas and news.
Podcasts are, IMO, on whole better for political discourse than television. I don't think Trump was. just a comedian on Rogan. It was actually the best insight I got into his way of thinking than any other coverage of him, maybe since 2015. Political discourse is not just about filtering lies that politicians say but about giving you access to their persona and worldview so that you can judge whether you would support them or not. Postman is overselling the audience of the Lincoln/Douglas debates. They weren't there just to think through slavery; they were also there to think through who these two men were.
I'm fascinated by podcasts in general, primarily because I don't really enjoy listening to them very much while most other people do, so I wonder what I'm missing or why I don't like them. Maybe I just haven't found the right ones yet. To me as a medium they seem like an enhanced version of radio morning shows or radio talk shows, with the difference that you don't need to tune in at a particular time or be in a particular place to hear it, which of course is a big difference.
I also wonder how much of a grassroots thing podcasting is anymore. It's definitely grassroots in the sense that anyone can do it, because it requires so little equipment and distribution is free. But most of the top podcasts at any given time are run by people who were famous first for other reasons and then started a podcast, or by large media organizations like NPR. Alex Cooper is a major exception though once you start making $20 million per year then you've been assimilated into the machine.
I'm trying to imagine what it will be like when more politicians are like Vance, and are comfortable with the podcast way of talking and presenting information. Probably because it seems like we are trapped in a spiraling vortex that is carrying us to all the dumbest outcomes possible, I'm guessing that meaningful discourse on important issues won't get any better. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Podcasts are interesting when either you get a good host with a good slate of guests (Ezra Klein or Derek Thompson, most of the time); good hosts who can plug me into a world that I am interested in but not an expert (Advisory Opinions); or just people I like to hang out with (The Big Picture). I listen to fewer than I used to, but I keep coming back to these. And of course, the OG, Climbing the Rainbows.
Grassroots is the wrong word: the point being that podcasts more clearly live or die based on their audience. There is no "prime-time slot." Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper became who they were by building and sustaining an audience over years.
I think Pete Buttigieg is an example of a politician who would thrive in a podcast era.