Amusing Ourselves to Death
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The argument isn't wrong, but it is outdated. We've figured out that we can dilute and commoditize text as well as we can visual media (see Twitter). The core idea ("people medicate themselves into bliss, thereby voluntarily sacrificing their rights") is still valid, but the rest of it seems to incorrectly pit textual against visual media and it lacks nuance and sufficient depth. It's more of an ideological argument, which I find less than useful.
> the rest of it seems to incorrectly pit textual against visual media and it lacks nuance and sufficient depth.
I don't think that's quiet right. He's not pitting textual media against visual media, he's pitting the written book against broadcast television.
Also the argument isn't outdated, your comment about twitter further emphasises it. Text needed to be put on twitter, rather then in books or even websites, to get to the point where you would (rightly) consider it diluted and commoditized.
Twitter's form excludes the possibility of writers regularly publishing whole books on there just as much as written books excluded the kind of "few people understand: ", "this is important 1/n" threads that you see on twitter.