The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America - Understanding Media & Cultural Phenomena for Students, Researchers & Social Critics

THE IMAGE by Daniel Boorstin is a seminal work on the popular culture in America. Though first published in 1969, it is as relevant today as it was then; perhaps more so given the clarity and vantage point of time and experience.In the fall of 1975, this book was required reading in my freshman college Eng 101 class. It was interesting, I thought, but a little radical and not that profound. Silly me. The intervening years have shown Boorstin to be as insightful as he is prolific and a seer of our generation.He drew the public's attention to the "pseudo-event" even as the marketing and advertising industry flexed their manipulative muscles in the popular culture; even as they merged art with psychology.Making news and interviewing reporters and commentators has reached absurd levels, just as Boorstin predicted. This was long before CNN and MSNBC, for example, would make the news themselves instead of gathering and reporting events of moment and newsworthiness. Today, newspapers lament their demise and are going broke because they are no longer relevant in America. They have been replaced with the pseudo-event, celebrity, and inch-deep analysis by anyone with a microphone and an opinion.America has confused the celebrity with the hero as we see in the entertainment, sports, and political realms. Long gone are the prerequisites for public acclaim as hero: honor, integrity, courage. Simply being well-known is cause for being well-known and worshiped at the media altar. Notoriety has replaced heroism in our country.This book is a fascinating piece of insight, clarity, and honesty well worth the reading.