What i got out of this chapter was that the specitcle of today is flashy, and fast. Today people have grown up with cable tv, ipods and cellular phones. Media is used as a tool to help certain sides of an issue persuade an audiance. As described in the chapter "were suffering from a plauge of soundbites". In this way I agree that the public sphere has become too "showy" and watered down. Apperance has become the more inportant topicof today, while substance has taken a back seat in the public sphere.
While listening to fox news channel I saw an example of this, when a college student accused the presidential candidate Barack Obama of being the ultimate specticle. His reasoning for this was that he thought Obama was all charisma and talk and had nothing inteligent to say. I honestly don't know if there is any truth to this statement but i do know that most people in the public sphere seem to gravitate twoards people who are esthically pleasing to the eye. I think the younger college age audiance especially appeals to this facotr becuase they have short attention spans. I can testify that for me I want to cliff notes version for what every candadite stands for so i will not have to spent a large portion of my time decerning what cadidate i think is best to run the country. Although i know this is not a productive outlook to have about such an important issue in our country I do think that most people my age most likely have the same mindset I have.
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