Entertainment Vs Content

Book club (which commenter David Foster invited me into) is discussing Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality by Neal Gabler.  I doubt we will be on it long, for reasons I will leave off here. Yet it does have some intriguing lines , especially in terms of other discussions I am in. 

Whereas television taught the magazines the news is nothing but entertainment" (Neil) Postman wrote, "the magazines have taught television that nothing but entertainment is news."

Not stunning, no, but a good turn of phrase and a good discussion starter. Or

The result was to make modern society one giant Heisenberg effect, in which the media were not really reporting what people did; they were reporting what people did to get media attention.

This sort of inversion, this "now you see it now you don't" description of reality vs media reality is common throughout the book and it gets tiring. But as many conversations interact even if you are part of them separately, it is providing me with Stuff to Think About in considering the Adult Sunday School discussion of worship styles, music, visitor interest, teaching and all the rest of what we do on Sunday mornings. America has historically moved all culture in the directions of entertainment and leveling.  High culture is made less formal, people's culture is elevated to make it safe for the children and edifying in some sense, and nowhere is this more clear than in church.  Contemporary worship music owes much to 80s country rock; traditional hymns are mostly after 1800, so the controversy is between the not-really-old versus the not -really-new. Spirituals and camp meeting tunes were brought up in structure and design, but also with improved entertainment register; formal sacred music was made informal with newer expressions. 

Or this.

I'm also tying that entertainment/content debate to children's literature - didactic but cutesy poems* and dime novels met in the middle. Also sports announcing and reporting.  It's everywhere, really.

*Okay, they rhyme and scan, I'll grudgingly grant them the status of poems.