The author talks about the effects of the media on the population, particularly political and economic life. People are fed with varying information regarding what happens in government. Before the advent of the television, people relied on the newspapers and articles for information, but this changed with time when people were forced to depend on the television for critical information.
With time, the mass media has taken over because it relays information faster and more accurate as compared to the television. The author observes that the electronic media, such as the internet, cell phones, and DVDs, determine the type of information that people listen to in the modern society.
The book is a prophetic in nature since it predicts that human life, particularly in terms of politics, would be reduced to the level of entertainment. The author is saddened by the fact that religion is losing meaning in the modern society since the mass media controls it. According to his view, the mass media should be manipulated to serve the interests of the majority in society.
The mass media should not be allowed to control human life since it has negative influence, particularly on children and the youth. Many people consume according to the media adverts meaning that the new trend affects even the health of individuals.
Human beings have the highest goals that can only be attained when the media is channeled to serve their interests. The main point of the author is that the media affects human life negatively hence it should be redesigned to serve human needs.
The book is divided into two major parts with part one having five sections while the second part has six sections. The most important section in the first part is the section talking about the media as an epistemology. This means that political information in the modern society relies on the social media.
Any political debate or discourse with an aim of attaining its aims must focus on capturing the attention of the electorate in the social media. In the third section, the author underscores the fact that the American society is just one of the modern societies that the social media has taken over its communication activities.
The fourth section of part observes further that the mind is programmed in a way that would just respond to information in the social media. People trust information in the social media as compared to any other source. The second part of the book examines number of instances that the social media has influenced politics in the United States.
From Postman’s analysis, it can be concluded that the social media is the new way of reaching out to the electorate since most of them are available there. This shows that politics have developed over several years to be what it is today. Before the social media, the author noted that the mass media was the commonly used technique in reaching out to the electorate.
Postman’s dream suggesting that the media should be used to serve human interests is being fulfilled since it is creating mass awareness. Politics is regarding its position in society since the media serves its interests, but not the other way round. It should also be noted that the social media has had tremendous effects on social life as compared to the television.