Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Douglas Rushkoff Interview

An interview with media expert Douglas Rushkoff: Boucher: In addition to improving our intellectual understanding of media, could you outline some simple techniques or activities which we can put into practice in our lives based on the insights we derive from the process of de-constructing mass media? Rushkoff: There are simple things you can do to keep the media from having quite as strong an impact on you without your consent. You can observe how you feel when watching TV, and try to see what kinds of images or situations make you tense. And when you feel this anxiety, try to figure out why you feel this way, and who wants you to feel this way. And why?Or try to figure out who is paying for what you're watching. That's almost the easiest one. Who paid for this thing? Why do they want me to see this?It's also fun to try to pick out which segments on the news are fake. I mean, which are actually tapes sent in by public relations firms or even the government, disguised as news reports. (This isn't conspiracy theory; it's plain common fact.) Every night the news shows slip those in because they don't have the budget to fill out the whole show by themselves. But they're really just corporate or government propaganda.

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