Response 4

Neil Postman “The Medium is the Metaphor”

“For although culture is a creation of speech, it is recreated anew by every medium of communication”

Literally:  This quote talks about how culture is something that was created when humans started to communicate with each other. Culture is something that is unique to the location and people that are communicating. The medium of the culture can be changed when a new medium of communications is introduced.

Intellectually: The quote makes me think about how culture came into being. How what people say is their culture could have changed many times before it got to what they have now. Culture is not static it is ever changing, based on what the society does, makes and who they interact with.

Emotionally:  This quote makes me feel that we take what we have for granted. The mediums of a culture will one day change, and if you do not take the time to understand the mediums that control what the culture will be like, you will not even realize the change. You have to stop and think about why do we do certain actions, why do we trust certain technologies to be right, like Socrates, we have to ask questions.

Relationally: This quote fits in with the essay by conveying what Postman is trying to say about the mediums of communication that shape our culture. The technologies we have are constantly changing and while speech gave birth to culture, the mediums that we have or create are what remakes our culture to fit the new medium.

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4 Responses to Response 4

  1. Abigale says:

    Great point on the relationally description. Every medium indeed has an impact on various cultures. Speech, in a way, has given birth to civilizations all across the world.

  2. I really enjoyed your relational perspective! I also enjoyed your intellectual response because thinking about how the words that someone speaks is such a big aspect of their individual culture is a very interesting thing to think about. Your emotional view was also very relatable in the sense that I agree that we do tend to take the things we have for granted especially the right to our speech.

  3. I agree with the intellectually part of your response. The culture we are living in today is proof that how we viewed certain issues years ago as well as our mediums have changed drastically.

  4. I agree with your intellectual view of the quote. It also made me think about something i learned in sociology last semester our culture is influenced by outside forces as a result of globalization and the mediums we have access to. Culture is continuous it changes with every new source of information made available.

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