Visionaries

Daniel J. Boorstin describes in The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1992) how news gathering has changed into news making. This development leads to the so-called ‘pseudo-events’. Pseudo-events are novelties that are planned, planted or incited, for example an interview. They are created for the purpose of being reported or reproduced and they are ambiguous, which makes them interesting to the public. They are usually intended as a “self-fulfilling prophecy” (Boorstin, 1992, p. 12). Most of the news consists of pseudo-events.

These pseudo-events have been caused by the change in mentality of society. Society is “ruled by extravagant expectations […] of what the world holds [… and] of our power to shape the world” (p. 4-5). These extravagant expectations are becoming reality and they are the illusions of society. To discover these illusions “may help us discover that we cannot make the world in our image” (p. 6).

I agree with Boorstin that the news consists mostly of pseudo-events, but I disagree with the negative connotation the term pseudo-event holds for Boorstin. He describes the following:

Once we have tasted the charm of pseudo-events, we are tempted to believe they are the only important events. Our progress poisons the sources of our experience. And the poison tastes so sweet that it spoils our appetite for plain fact. Our seeming ability to satisfy our exaggerated expectations makes us forget that they are exaggerated. (p. 44)

For one it is simply not true that we, the public, think that pseudo-events are the only important events. Boorstin himself describes that there is still news or plain facts that are reported by the press (e.g. earthquakes). The public knows the difference in seriousness between speculations about politicians and the reporting of an earthquake, thus they don’t think that pseudo-events are the only important events.

Next to this it is important to point out that news never consisted of plain facts. Every news item that has ever been published is subjective, only because of the plain fact that its content reflects the vision of the reporter or the paper in one way or the other. Thus every news item the public has access to consists of subjective information.

These pseudo-events create a lot of information for the public that wouldn’t be available without the pseudo-events. The public has access to a lot of information, that can even be contradictory. They can then compare the information and make up their own mind. This way the pseudo-events can lead to a conscious public that reflects on the news items. Of course, this would require a mentality change in the public's perception of media and I do believe that it can happen, but people have to want it first.

Literature
Boorstin, D. J. (1992). The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. (Original date of publication 1961)