The “Two Cultures” discussion and debate, between Neil Postman and Camille Paglia, zeroes in on two separate forms of media present today: Television and Written Word; Postman standing with the Written, and Paglia with TV. The debate gets rolling with the topic of early Christianity, and the necessity of images in the early church. From here, a slight bickering continues as they move to related topics of TV and literature.
To be honest, I felt as if I was reading a political debate gone wrong. Both arguments do not emphasize any positives of either medium. Instead, Postman and Paglia simply poke holes in the others preference.
From an opinionated standpoint, I agree that there are weaknesses in both mediums, but I also feel there are significant strengths also. TV has the advantage of pulling in several aspects of art into itself. In addition to the visual, there is the heavy bonus of audio. The sound and music adds a good deal of ‘attention grabbing’ material to the medium. But at the same hand, TV cannot hold depth as easily as literature can.
I don’t think Postman and Paglia did justice to either medium in their debate. If I would agree with any statement wholeheartedly it would be Paglia’s reference to how messages are stronger in the written texts because their emphasis is on that message and not on picture and sound. But regardless of the message, the future of media as a whole is through the integration of visual and audio mediums. Literature has been on a significant downward slope for quite a bit of time, and will continue down, whereas TV has been steadily heading up. TV has also been taking on more cinematic style in several shows, which contributes to the “reality” of the medium, which also pulls viewers in even further.
I don’t think either TV or Literature can take full superiority over the other. Both have their unique strengths and weakenesses.
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