Nealon's "Author/ity" and Postman's book

Nealon’s chapter on “Author/ity” most closely coincides with Postman’s theories dealing with the strength of the book over that of the visual media- more specifically, the television. In the ideas of Nealon an author is someone who had been recognized as legitimate simply because it had an author- a creator who can put meaning behind it for once it reaches the public domain it no longer has true meaning behind it. Similar to Postman’s concept of the book being superior to the television in its connection to everyday life and stronger feeling of intellectualism when compared to the more public world of movies and television that Paglia advocates. Both Nealon and Postman stress the concept of the original over the reproduction- Nealon using the word “authority” in discussing the power that a work possesses due to its authorship, and Postman using the argument of desensitization towards overused symbols and concepts.
Postman reinforces the ideas of Nealon’s authority through his statements, while Nealon does the same with his own. Both of these texts put strong emphasis on the world of original media as opposed to reproduction and, even more specifically, the media of popular culture.