I am a fan of the new media. I have been keeping a blog for three years when I could never keep a diary for more than a month. As a visual artist, my words are often accompanied by images. The opportunity to link in video, music and to share links from across the world, across disciplines, media and opinion is my privilege as a member of the age of new media. There are undeniable benefits to operating in such an age. But there are surely downsides, that appear to be linked with the problems Postman describes in Amusing Ourselves to Death. The worst case outcome of such a disjointed way of imbibing information is that when a sustained, intellectual, and sequential argument comes along most people don’t know how to deal with it, let alone join in. More severely, as serious news and information is so often served up in an entertaining format (scrolling text, dramatic music, and by hair-sprayed anchors and let’s face it, although the American Fox News may be the worse, the BBC is not free from such adornments) serious, sustained arguments are in danger of being ignored altogether. It may be true that many of us can regurgitate the latest headlines, but how many of us really know what has caused the credit crunch, the historical basis for the crisis between Russia and Georgia or even the differences in policy between Barack Obama and John McCain.

The phenomenal rise of Barack Obama is an interesting example of how we as a society understand the world around us and present issues. A few months ago, as the Primary race between Clinton and Obama was hotting up, I found myself more and more drawn to Obama. One of the major reasons has little to do with his credentials or his policies, but is graphical, and more specifically typographical. I realised that the Obama campaign team were waging a visually spectacular campaign and it was all summed up in the typeface they had chosen to accompany Obama on banners, placards, website, and probably even campaign team business cards. Gotham was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones and represents a solid, futuristic and cosmopolitan outlook. The word CHANGE, so often printed above or below Obama as he speaks in town halls, universities and squares across America is madebelievable by the typeface that spells it out, and we don’t have to be typographical experts to be effected. The subtleties in the art of typography and design are understood by us all, which is why visual marketing can be so effective. But Obama’s team have dug deep. Visit his website and take a look at how carefully crafted it is, with blends and tones in the background and a general warm, fuzzy, almost otherworldly feel. It is comforting to browse. And there is Gotham all over the place. Now visit McCain’s and it is a totally different prospect: the tone is unmistakeably military. From the star above his name, to the clunkiness of the design. His website is down-home and hard, like McCain: Obama’s is intelligent and representative of some kind of utopian future, like Obama himself.

These observations are obvious in many ways, but they say so much about how we now understand and take in our world: in a primarily visual way. And all the symbols, all the keys, have to be right – have to be on message – before we will believe any of it. Obama says he represents change, but we believe it because everything about himlooks like change. Some Americans might not vote for McCain because he, and his visual entourage of signs, symbols and gestures look like more of the same. I do not mean to detract from either candidate’s message, I am simply suggesting that we understand each candidate’s message primarily by way of visual associations and not necessarily by what we hear or read they say.

So back to the conundrum: how do big ideas get heard? I cannot answer the question, but I can hazard a number of serious guesses. As the Initiative continues to push for both the publication of Overschooled but Undereducated and the production of a series of television programs we will necessarily have to accept the fact that we must embrace the tenets of new media to find any kind of mainstream success. Our message must be exciting, our visuals stunning and fast moving. We must lose words and reduce the lengths of our paragraphs. We must find a recognisable face to sell it all and find a score to accompany the message, ramming it home, coaxing viewers into a sensory form of understanding. It is not so much that our society suffers from being dumbed-down, it is more that we have become attuned to particular ways of understanding knowledge and information, and that the structure of understanding provided by the printed word that spread and deepened our knowledge from Guttenberg in the 15th century to the beginning of the 19th has been transposed by a new medium that places entertainment before discussion, and amusement before understanding. There is still plenty of scope for serious discussion, and a place for a scholarly text or academic article, but the Initiative’s message needs a hook to hang on, and that hook may need to look like entertainment.

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