Virtuous Reality: How America Surrendered Discussion of Moral Values to Opportunists, Nitwits, and Blockheads Like William Bennett - Hardcover

Jon Katz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679449132 ISBN 13: 9780679449133

Publisher: Random House, 1997

Synopsis

New electronic technologies are "dumbing down" America. Pop culture creates violent kids with short attention spans. The decline of the print media has made adults politically apathetic. Communicating by computer isolates us and erodes our civic life. The internet, MTV, live cable talk shows, and other multimedia are corroding our society. . . right?

Wrong!! retorts Jon Katz. In his brilliant "take no prisoners" polemic, he explains that if you believe any of the above, you've been swallowing the propaganda expounded by the powers that be, including the likes of William Bennett, Bob Dole, Tipper Gore, and Bill Clinton -- all of whom are keeping us ignorant of the real problems.

This cutting-edge book -- as useful to media-phobes as it is to Webheads -- brings a much needed voice of reason and clarity to the debate over technology's impact on society. It will make its readers rethink everything they've ever been told or read about the interaction between technology, media, and culture.

About this title

Review:

Jon Katz, the media critic for Wired magazine, has written a controversial and much-needed book exploring the "cultural civil war" over values that has developed with the emergence of the new media. Katz stands all sorts of common wisdom on its head. Are the Net, MTV, live cable talk shows, video, and computer games corroding our values? Are new electronic technologies dumbing down our society? Do pop culture, violent computer games, and spending time online create violent kids with short attention spans? Will the Net isolate us and destroy civic ties? Most pundits say "yes" to these questions, but Katz responds with an emphatic "no!" Don't swallow what the doomsday sensationalists are predicting until you read this book.

About the Author:

Jon Katz is a media critic and novelist. He is Contributing Editor of Wired Magazine and has written for GQ, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, New York and other magazines. He is a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award. He was listed as one of the country's most influential media critics in a survey conducted by the Gannett Center's Freedom Forum Foundation in 1995.

He has published five novels. He was formerly Executive Producer of the CBS Morning News and a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of the "Media Rant" column on HotWired's The Netizen.

He lives in New Jersey with his wife and daughter, and is at work on his second nonfiction book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679449132
• ISBN 13: 9780679449133
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212