"The Bias of Language, The Bias of Pictures"

Postman and Powers claim that the difference between stationary pictures, moving pictures, and language is that stationary pictures “speak only in particularities”, moving pictures can present emotions and rudimentary ideas”, and language “makes them comprehensible.” (Neil Postman, 2008) These statements are important to their essay because they help to solidify their argument that news is not as it seems. Postman and Powers think that newscasts today, even with all the accurate information, still misconstrue the information to gain viewer interest and that no one person interprets what they see the same. It would be hard for an individual to completely agree with the author’s argument in this essay. It would very hard for a news reporter to lie about something is coming in live, and it would also be hard for a viewer to misinterpret what is going on. Postman and Powers claim, “Whatever anyone says something is, it isn’t.” (Neil Postman, 2008) This would imply everything has an underlying meaning and that everyone is lying. Mr. Postman and Mr. Powers have set them up for a failed argument on this topic. They have over analyzed language and meanings and went overboard.  

 

Neil Postman, S. P. (2008). The Bias of Language, The Bias of Pictures. In L. G. Rosendale, Pop Perspectives: Readings To Critique Contemporary Culture (pp. 481-489). New York: McGraw-Hill.