Braindead Megaphone Summary In The Braindead Megaphone, the notable short story writer George Saunders warns the

American public of our medias intellectual degradation. Using several anecdotes and metaphors, he claims that the media is lowering our intelligence ceiling through its watchability and unavoidability. Let it be understood that the Informants main job is to entertain and that. If he fails in this, hes gone. (5). Using the parable of an indoor man and his out door informant, Saunders introduces the need of the media, namely news media, to stimulate its viewers. By neglecting complex discussions for simplicity and crude drama, the media capture the attention of viewers.he criticizes this trend for degrading the general publics intellect. First, it takes away the viewers confidence in their own opinions. Saunders rationalized this claim through a Christmas news report. While the report of long shopping lines on Christmas is rather trivial and apparent, this information has been dressed up infancy fauxInformational clothing and made the evening news. When even such senseless information appears on serious news coverage, well feel a bit insane and therefore less confident, and therefore more passive, he theorizes (8). Secondly, the medias simplification gives an inaccurate approximation of reality. Saunders also criticizes this approach to news reporting. He compares the medias simplification to a bad storyteller. His stories are limited. His stories have not had time to gestate they go out too fast and too board to an audience (9).

Saunders deduced that poor storytelling inhibits the imagination and thus, inadequately reflects the real world. Through our universal communication system, the media has become unavoidable. Saunders poses the question, does stupid, near-omnipresent media make us more tolerant toward stupidity in general? (7). As viewers are presented with dopey and limited reporting over and over, they become susceptible to dopey-ness and limited imagination. Saunders creates an analogy between the omnipresent media and a megaphone that has an Intelligence dial se on Stupid and a Volume dial sets on Drown Out All Others. The media as this primitive yet unavoidable holler blocks out any voice of sophisticated arguments. In my opinion, Saunders could utilize more outside sources such as statistics or published works. While his use of anecdotes can help to clarify ideas, it became rather tiring and takes away from his credibility. On the other hand, the majority of his audience whould be familiar with his short stories and his style of writing.