Is original media criticism an oxymoron?
Comments: While reading this book, I had the feeling that the author was making his observations from the perspective of an overgrown teenager, home from school around 3 pm and making puerile rants at the (…) tube, while downing a coke and potato chips. The author, who has said elsewhere that TV has become “our ground of being,” borrowing Paul Tillich’s phrase, doesn’t seem to acknowledge or understand that almost all American adults work hard for a living and really do not invest a lot of mental effort in watching TV. They’re actually busy with making dinner, dealing with their kids, paying the bills, downing a couple of cool ones, and getting up in the morning to do it over again. This is not to disparage the hard working American, however rather to suggest that almost all people really do not take TV all that seriously, or even pay it much attention. Just because the TV is on, doesn’t mean people are watching it, or at least watching it critically. They have more basic needs to at
