S02 E25: The Image: Pseudo-Events and the Menace of Unreality

What's the difference between a news event and a pseudo-event? A news event happens. A pseudo-event is staged to be reported.

In this episode, we explore Boorstin's 1962 study of how American life became increasingly dominated by manufactured reality. Press conferences, celebrity culture, tourist attractions, political campaigns: all designed not to be experiences but to be images of experiences.

Boorstin wasn't a radical. He was a librarian and cultural historian. But he saw something happening to American culture: we were losing the ability to distinguish between the real and the fabricated.

He called it "the menace of unreality." Sixty years later, we're fluent in unreality.

Source: "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America" by Daniel J. Boorstin (1962)