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By Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman offers a thought-provoking analysis of how modern society's obsession with entertainment has significantly influenced public discourse. Published in 1985, Postman's insights remain relevant today as he explores the ways in which television and media shape our understanding of important issues. Through compelling arguments and examples, the book challenges readers to consider the impact of a culture that prioritizes spectacle over substance. A must-read for those interested in media studies, communication, and the intersection of technology and society.

Penguin, Dec 27, 2005, 184 pages

By Christopher P. Wilson.

Since the mid-1960s, the war on crime has reshaped public attitudes about state authority, criminal behavior, and the responsibilities of citizenship. But how have American writers grappled with these changes? What happens when a journalist approaches the workings of organized crime not through its legendary Godfathers but through a workaday, low-level figure who informs on his mob? Why is it that interrogation scenes have become so central to prime-time police dramas of late? What is behind writers’ recent fascination with “cold case” homicides, with private security, or with prisons? In Learning to Live with Crime, Christopher P. Wilson examines this war on crime and how it has made its way into cultural representation and public consciousness. Under the sway of neoconservative approaches to criminal justice and public safety, Americans have been urged to see crime as an inevitable risk of modern living and to accept ever more aggressive approaches to policing, private security, and punishment. The idea has been not simply to fight crime but to manage its risks; to inculcate personal vigilance in citizens; and to incorporate criminals’ knowledge through informants and intelligence gathering. At its most scandalous, this study suggests, contemporary law enforcement has even come to mimic crime’s own operations.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2010. 302p.