Response to Daniel J Boorstin's From News Gathering To News Making

Over the last few centuries, one of the most important development in the society has been the development of a robust information and communication sector. The sector has evolved from print media seen during its early days to the broadcast and social media seen today. The evolution in the sector has not only been witnessed in regards its platforms but also in terms of the roles the sector of the sector as well as the approach the industry approached its role in the society. Initially, the role of the information sector especially the print media was mainly to report on events happening in the society. With time however, reporting by media began taking a different approach turning from factual reporting to a more open approach mainly driven by commercial interests from paper cells.

The second part of Daniel Joseph Boorstin’s essay which tackles how pseudo-events have been used by the mainstream American media to flood people consciousness is also very accurate. This fact is explained by several factors including liberalization and technological advancement in the industry which drove the media players into intense competition for audience and commercial sales. The whole of the media industry in the country needed to include interesting stories that were not necessarily true in the materials they produced in order to appeal to the audience and to outcompete their opponents in sales. The argument on technological advancement aiding the media in creation and popularization of technological advancement is also valid as it has been seen over the past century.

Advancement in media technologies such as electronic devices for editing and watching media content has accelerated demand for consumption of pseudo-events in the mainstream media. Boorstin’s explanation on the rising popularity of pseudo-events to be a result of its ability to mix-up people as both audience and actors is also very accurate in the present age. Technological advancement brought about by the internet has made this possible and is responsible for the popularity of political figures who uses this pseudo-events rhetoric to spread their ideas. Colbert’s Colbert Supper PAC campaign was hugely successful down to the same reasons that made historical political figures successful in the past. The dramatic nature of pseudo-events compared to the spontaneous events is another relevant argument Boorstin offers as an explanation for the popularity of pseudo-events.